Subject: Re: pkgsrc progress bar?
To: Teemu Rinta-aho <teemu@rinta-aho.org>
From: Dmitri Nikulin <setagllib@optusnet.com.au>
List: current-users
Date: 01/21/2005 14:13:24
Teemu Rinta-aho wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> anyone have an idea how big effort would it be to implement
> a progress bar to "make install" in pkgsrc? Now, for example,
> installing gmplayer I have no idea whether I have to wait
> for one or two more hours for it to complete... Even an
> estimate with M$-precision would be better than nothing.
>
> Teemu
>
This doesn't actually belong in current-users@, but I'll answer anyway.
It would be a silly effort. To measure compile progress, you'd need a
pre-set 'workload' (say, expected CPU cycles, or something equally
stupid), and then measure this resource usage during the compile and
hence determine the progress. This is impossible because of different
CPUs, optimizations, compilers, options, etc...
There are other more sensible but equally impractical ways like
checkpoints in Makefiles. For instance, you could count how many
checkpoints have been passed out of how many are expected, and use this
as a 'roundabout' measure of progress; but it would be hard to determine
the actual time from this, because a checkpoints are hard to equally
space. This also requires a lot of extra implementation. Not worth it.
Your best bet, which I find works for me, is to stop caring how long
something will go for. Leave the machine on and get on with life. The
annoying part is when something fails to compile at all, but that's part
of using a 'minority' OS :(