yum update sorts by file size before downloading

[Kevin J. Cummings]

Don Russell wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 11, 2008 at 2:19 PM, Don Russell 
> <fedora at drussell.dnsalias.com <mailto:fedora at drussell.dnsalias.com>> wrote:
> 
>     The last few times I've used "yum update", I noticed the files are
>     downloaded in order, smallest first.
> 
>     Is that deliberate, or just a coincidence?
> 
>     If it is deliberate, I'd like to suggest sorting in the other
>     direction so largest is downloaded first.
> 
>     That way, while I'm waiting for it, I can always tell that the
>     "next" file will be the same size or smaller than the one just
>     completed, so I can better estimate how long it will be.
> 
>     Also, perception-wise, it gives the *appearance* that the process is
>     speeding up instead of slowing down. :-)
> 
>     And, after all down loads are complete... a little summary of the
>     average transfer rate would be nice.
> 
>     I like the new "scale" showing total % and individual file %...
> 
> 
> I filed a bug/enhancement, which was closed as "won't fix"
> Ref: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=451047
> 
> I guess the explanation there confirms "I'm not normal". :-)
> 

My guess would be that a bunch of people would start trying to download 
the largest files causing the most contention for the longest time, 
whereas the smaller files copy quickly helping to spread out the demand 
across various files.  Not sure it that helps or hurts disk caches at 
the other end.  B^)

Why can't they make it configurable now that they've bothered to add it 
at all?  Then they can default it to the current state....

-- 
Kevin J. Cummings
kjchome at rcn.com
cummings at kjchome.homeip.net
cummings at kjc386.framingham.ma.us
Registered Linux User #1232 (http://counter.li.org)