Improving Linux package management
Delivery Service
Linux package managers work too slowly. The experimental distri research project investigates ways to speed up package management.
Package managers differ from each other not only in terms of the package formats they use, but also in their execution speed. Developer Michael Stapelberg has been working on how to streamline package managers such as Debian's Apt or Fedora's DNF to make them faster. He has written blog posts on the subject, given talks, and created an experimental distribution, distri [1] to explore the problem.
Distri is a minimal, command-line distribution for reviewing package management concepts in Linux. This is purely a feasibility study and is not suitable for production use. Distri seeks to be the simplest distribution that is still useful.
Criticism of Debian
Stapelberg, currently a Google developer, was a package maintainer at Debian from 2012 to 2019. Besides maintaining packages of Debian he wrote the i3 Window Manager and the Debian Code Search engine.
In March 2019, he announced in frustration his withdrawal from Debian development with a harsh criticism of the Debian project [2]. He referred to the practices and tools used to develop, manage, and support the software in the distribution saying that they were often more of a hindrance than a help.
In Stapelberg's opinion, there is a lack of effective tools to implement comprehensive changes in a timely manner. Also, according to Stapelberg, the specifications laid down in the Debian guidelines and pushed by the quality assurance tool Lintian [3] unduly hinder the implementation of necessary technical changes.
Too Much, Too Slow
In particular, Stapelberg vehemently criticizes the package management – not only in Debian, but Linux in general. Above all, he dislikes that package managers do too much and do it too slowly. To this end, he first conducted a series of tests with small and larger packages using the Apt, DNF, pacman, Nix, and apk package managers, contrasting the metadata downloaded and the time and bandwidth used [4].
What he discovered was that the metadata downloaded was often out of proportion to the package's size, and even more so the smaller the package. Any Debian user can easily check this by looking in the terminal at the end of an apt update
to see how many megabytes of metadata the operation downloads. This amount often exceeds the total size of the actual packages to be updated (Figure 1).
The maintainer scripts that the package manager runs during installation also slow down the process, as well as prevent parallel installation of packages. In Stapelberg's view, these scripts can just as easily run the first time the application is launched. Debian processes maintainer scripts using files such as preinst
and postinst
when installing or updating packages; they contain distribution-specific customizations [5]. Debian has 8,620 maintainer scripts. The Debian Policy Manual web page provides flowcharts that exemplify the underlying complexity here [6]. In Fedora, scriptlets perform this task [7].
Inefficient
At Google, Stapelberg learned a great deal about effectively updating large amounts of data. Updates to distributions proved fairly ineffective in his research. He did a test using common systems to install one small package and one large package, recording times.
Although the test computer's network connection supported speeds of around 115MBps, none of the distributions achieved more than just under 11MBps of throughput, with most achieving around 3MBps. Alpine Linux performed best, being the fastest in both tests at 10.8MBps and also requiring the lowest volume of metadata to complete the task. Arch Linux and NixOS were in the middle, while Debian and Fedora performed worst.
As an example, for the small 75KB ack package, Fedora had to download a massive 114MB and the install took 33 seconds. Alpine, on the other hand, was content with 10MB installed in one second. When installing the virtualization software Qemu, Alpine managed with 26MB, while Fedora needed almost 10 times the amount of data at 226MB.
In view of such numbers, it is little wonder that Fedora is pretty sluggish when it comes to updates and installations. In both scenarios, Debian came in second to last, because downloading the large volume of metadata also delayed the process. Besides Alpine, Arch Linux also had one of the faster package managers in the test.
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Canonical Bumps LTS Support to 12 years
If you're worried that your Ubuntu LTS release won't be supported long enough to last, Canonical has a surprise for you in the form of 12 years of security coverage.
-
Fedora 40 Beta Released Soon
With the official release of Fedora 40 coming in April, it's almost time to download the beta and see what's new.
-
New Pentesting Distribution to Compete with Kali Linux
SnoopGod is now available for your testing needs
-
Juno Computers Launches Another Linux Laptop
If you're looking for a powerhouse laptop that runs Ubuntu, the Juno Computers Neptune 17 v6 should be on your radar.
-
ZorinOS 17.1 Released, Includes Improved Windows App Support
If you need or desire to run Windows applications on Linux, there's one distribution intent on making that easier for you and its new release further improves that feature.
-
Linux Market Share Surpasses 4% for the First Time
Look out Windows and macOS, Linux is on the rise and has even topped ChromeOS to become the fourth most widely used OS around the globe.
-
KDE’s Plasma 6 Officially Available
KDE’s Plasma 6.0 "Megarelease" has happened, and it's brimming with new features, polish, and performance.
-
Latest Version of Tails Unleashed
Tails 6.0 is based on Debian 12 and includes GNOME 43.
-
KDE Announces New Slimbook V with Plenty of Power and KDE’s Plasma 6
If you're a fan of KDE Plasma, you'll be thrilled to hear they've announced a new Slimbook with an AMD CPU and the latest version of KDE Plasma desktop.
-
Monthly Sponsorship Includes Early Access to elementary OS 8
If you want to get a glimpse of what's in the pipeline for elementary OS 8, just set up a monthly sponsorship to help fund its continued existence.