I have a fast computer (great processor, good SSD) but Software Centre takes a good 30 seconds to load up. This isn't a whinge, I think there could be something wrong. Synaptic takes a second to load.
I ran strace software-center
to see if it was thrashing the disk (it's an SSD - I can't hear it) and it's statting and attempting to open a whole shed-load of files. Here's an excerpt:
open("/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/FlexGet-1.0r1465-py2.6.egg/StringIOmodule.so", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/FlexGet-1.0r1465-py2.6.egg/StringIO.py", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/FlexGet-1.0r1465-py2.6.egg/StringIO.pyc", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
stat("/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/progressbar-2.3_dev-py2.6.egg/StringIO", 0x7fff19d3af30) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/progressbar-2.3_dev-py2.6.egg/StringIO.so", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/progressbar-2.3_dev-py2.6.egg/StringIOmodule.so", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/progressbar-2.3_dev-py2.6.egg/StringIO.py", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/progressbar-2.3_dev-py2.6.egg/StringIO.pyc", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
stat("/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/pynzb-0.1.0-py2.6.egg/StringIO", 0x7fff19d3af30) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/pynzb-0.1.0-py2.6.egg/StringIO.so", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/pynzb-0.1.0-py2.6.egg/StringIOmodule.so", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/pynzb-0.1.0-py2.6.egg/StringIO.py", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/pynzb-0.1.0-py2.6.egg/StringIO.pyc", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
stat("/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/PyRSS2Gen-1.0.0-py2.6.egg/StringIO", 0x7fff19d3af30) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/PyRSS2Gen-1.0.0-py2.6.egg/StringIO.so", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/PyRSS2Gen-1.0.0-py2.6.egg/StringIOmodule.so", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/PyRSS2Gen-1.0.0-py2.6.egg/StringIO.py", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/PyRSS2Gen-1.0.0-py2.6.egg/StringIO.pyc", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
stat("/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/html5lib-0.90-py2.6.egg/StringIO", 0x7fff19d3af30) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/html5lib-0.90-py2.6.egg/StringIO.so", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/html5lib-0.90-py2.6.egg/StringIOmodule.so", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/html5lib-0.90-py2.6.egg/StringIO.py", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/html5lib-0.90-py2.6.egg/StringIO.pyc", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
stat("/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/PyYAML-3.09-py2.6-linux-x86_64.egg/StringIO", 0x7fff19d3af30) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/PyYAML-3.09-py2.6-linux-x86_64.egg/StringIO.so", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/PyYAML-3.09-py2.6-linux-x86_64.egg/StringIOmodule.so", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/PyYAML-3.09-py2.6-linux-x86_64.egg/StringIO.py", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/PyYAML-3.09-py2.6-linux-x86_64.egg/StringIO.pyc", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
stat("/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/transmissionrpc-0.6-py2.6.egg/StringIO", 0x7fff19d3af30) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/transmissionrpc-0.6-py2.6.egg/StringIO.so", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/transmissionrpc-0.6-py2.6.egg/StringIOmodule.so", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/transmissionrpc-0.6-py2.6.egg/StringIO.py", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/usr/local/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/transmissionrpc-0.6-py2.6.egg/StringIO.pyc", O_RDONLY) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
This might be a red herring. Later on it pauses at this:
poll([{fd=3, events=POLLIN}], 1, 25000) = 1 ([{fd=3, revents=POLLIN}])
recvmsg(3, {msg_name(0)=NULL, msg_iov(1)=[{"l\2\1\1\v\0\0\0\3\0\0\0=\0\0\0\6\1s\0\7\0\0\0:1.3497\0"..., 2048}], msg_controllen=0, msg_flags=MSG_CMSG_CLOEXEC}, MSG_CMSG_CLOEXEC) = 91
recvmsg(3, 0x7fff8c57cc00, MSG_CMSG_CLOEXEC) = -1 EAGAIN (Resource temporarily unavailable)
sendmsg(3, {msg_name(0)=NULL, msg_iov(2)=[{"l\1\0\1\0\0\0\0\3\0\0\0{\0\0\0\1\1o\0\32\0\0\0/com/ubu"..., 144}, {"", 0}], msg_controllen=0, msg_flags=0}, MSG_NOSIGNAL) = 144
poll([{fd=3, events=POLLIN}], 1, 25000
And then it does it again... These two pauses account for most of the load time.
And then it really flips out with thousands of poll/read/temporarily unavailable lines.
So what on earth is going on here? Why is Software Centre scanning what looks to be any possible python package looking for StringIO
? Bug?
Then why is it stalling at what looks like a web-request to something.ubuntu.com (can't see the full message)? Why is it talking to ubuntu.com anyway?