[Bug 947664] Re: Unpacking linux-headers unbelievably slow in Lubuntu Precise (Beta 1)

[S. Christian Collins]

Okay, so I have narrowed this down a bit. The issue is the kernel
version on the HOST system, not the GUEST. I tested this by installing
the package "linux-headers-5.0.0-23" on a Xubuntu 18.04 guest in
VirtualBox using two different kernels on the host PC. I used the
command "time sudo apt install linux-headers-5.0.0-23" to report the
total time for the process to complete. Here is how long the package
installation took when running on each host OS kernel, not counting
package download time (it was already in the apt cache):

Kernel 4.17.19-generic (and earlier): 20 seconds

Kernel 4.18-rc1-generic (and later): 8 minutes, 43 seconds

Using kernel 4.18 or later is almost 23 times slower! I have not been
able to find any possible reasons for this. I have already ruled out
differences in I/O schedulers. I can also confirm this issue on both of
my Linux systems, the details of which are listed below. Furthermore,
unpacking kernel headers on the HOST system only takes a few seconds,
and I haven't noticed any other regressions in hard disk performance.

** System #1 **
OS: KDE Neon 5.16 64-bit (Plasma Desktop 5.16.5, KDE Frameworks 5.61.0, Qt 5.12.3)
Motherboard: ASRock X58 Extreme3 (Intel X58 chipset)
CPU: Intel Core i7-990x Bloomfield (3.46 GHz hexa-core, Socket 1366)
RAM: 12GB DDR3
Video: EVGA NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti SC (GAMING ACX 2.0+?) w/ 6GB RAM (PCI Express)
NVIDIA video driver: 430.40

** My System **
OS: KDE Neon 5.16 64-bit (Plasma Desktop 5.16.5, KDE Frameworks 5.60.0, Qt 5.12.3)
PC: HP Pavilion m6-1035dx
CPU/GPU: AMD A10-4600M APU with Trinity [Radeon HD 7660G] Graphics (using xorg radeon driver)
RAM: 8GB DDR3 800 MHz

-- 
You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu
Foundations Bugs, which is subscribed to dpkg in Ubuntu.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/947664

Title:
  Unpacking linux-headers unbelievably slow in Lubuntu Precise (Beta 1)

Status in dpkg:
  New
Status in dpkg package in Ubuntu:
  Fix Released

Bug description:
  The below is an example line in an apt-get dist-upgrade which seems to
  take 30 minutes or more on a 2.1GHz CPU (one core of a quad core
  through Virtualbox). I've been looking at it for ages, and even had
  time to log in here and file the bug  - the line is still 'hung'.

  Unpacking linux-headers-3.2.0-18 (from .../linux-
  headers-3.2.0-18_3.2.0-18.28_all.deb)

  Can anyone explain this, or is it a bug in the configuration of
  Lubuntu, Apt-get or something. I read that there was a similarly
  behaving bug to do with dpkg using paranoid file synchronization but
  this length of delay is frankly a bit crazy.

To manage notifications about this bug go to:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/dpkg/+bug/947664/+subscriptions