Bug 383685 – sys-apps/portage should optionally show file download progress

• Product: Portage Development
• Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

[Description Nikos Chantziaras 2011-09-19 19:28:45 UTC]

Portage stopped showing the file download progress for a while now. Not sure which version started it. But instead of a download progress, I now always get:

 * Fetching files in the background. To view fetch progress, run
 * `tail -f /var/log/emerge-fetch.log` in another terminal.

even for the first emerge in a queue.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
Emerge at least two packages who don't have distfiles downloaded yet.

Actual Results:  
No download progress bar.

Expected Results:  
Display of download information (tried mirrors, filename, etc.) followed by a download progress display.

[Comment 1 Nikos Chantziaras 2011-09-19 19:29:25 UTC]

Created attachment 287047 [details]
emerge --info portage

[Comment 2 Zac Medico 2011-09-19 21:31:00 UTC]

This is a side-effect from the fix for bug #375331. You can set FEATURES="-parallel-fetch" in make.conf, and then it will always fetch in the foreground.

[Comment 3 Nikos Chantziaras 2011-09-19 21:43:51 UTC]

(In reply to comment #2)
> This is a side-effect from the fix for bug #375331.

I don't see how.  The first fetch should be producing output.  Only the subsequent ones should not.


> You can set
> FEATURES="-parallel-fetch" in make.conf, and then it will always fetch in the
> foreground.

That is not a good solution, because it will stop fetching in the background during the compile of the current package.

[Comment 4 Zac Medico 2011-09-20 01:33:01 UTC]

(In reply to comment #3)
> (In reply to comment #2)
> > This is a side-effect from the fix for bug #375331.
> 
> I don't see how.  The first fetch should be producing output.  Only the
> subsequent ones should not.

The technical reason is that prefetchers for all required packages are added to a parallel-fetch queue just before it starts to build the first package. If we omit the first package from this parallel-fetch queue, then the second package will fetch first, which is even less desirable than having the first package fetch in the background.

In order to make the first package fetch in the foreground, we have to wait until the first package starts fetching in the foreground, and then start the parallel-fetch queue just after that.

[Comment 5 Zac Medico 2011-09-20 18:41:54 UTC]

(In reply to comment #4)
> In order to make the first package fetch in the foreground, we have to wait
> until the first package starts fetching in the foreground, and then start the
> parallel-fetch queue just after that.

I don't think this is really worth the trouble, since it seems like it would introduce unnecessary complexity to the code. If somebody wants to try a patch, I'll review it. Otherwise, it's WONTFIX.