test 3 installation comments/questions

[Don]

Michael,
I like the new install progress bar being reduced to a single "overall
install bar", I agree with your comment about "visual noise" regarding
individual package progress.

As for displaying remaining time......

When the install starts does it know how many MBytes of "stuff" need to be
installed?
If not, start a thread to add it all up while the install is running...

As "stuff" is installed, keep a sum of the MBytes installed so far...

After some initial time (30 seconds?) calculate the install-rate
(MBytes/second), and display a progress bar and time-remaining accordingly.
(During that time, display "Estimating time required to install....")

Periodically recalculate the install-rate to get a more accurate "average".

This should provide very reasonable/accurate progress indicators regardless
of the actual machine speed, and the media source etc. (i.e. just because
I'm installing on a 2GHz processor with a blindly fast disk, doesn't help my
sluggish ftp connection to do the install.... I'm just using that as an
example to illustrate you don't always have all the information you need...
some of it has to be derived/calculated (rate of install, not speed of
machine)

---

One thing I find with the text part of the progress, showing the package
name being installed..... it flashes very fast and really doesn't provide
any useful information except of course if the install hangs.... then you
know which package choked.

What I would like is for the package names to be displayed in a multi-line,
scrollable text box so I could peruse through it at my leisure and look at
specific things.... (don't automatically scroll to the bottom as items are
added, hmmm, maybe a checkbox beside it?)

Well, it's an idea... :-)

Don Russell



> -----Original Message-----
> From: fedora-test-list-admin at redhat.com
> [mailto:fedora-test-list-admin at redhat.com]On Behalf Of Michael Fulbright
> Sent: Tuesday, October 14, 2003 8:48 AM
> To: fedora-test-list at redhat.com
> Subject: Re: test 3 installation comments/questions
>
>
> On Tue, 2003-10-14 at 08:56, Gene C. wrote:
>
> > 1.  The "Remaining time" does not change very frequently
> (15->8->6->4->2) and
> > thus gives little feedback comfort.
> >
> You're spending way too much time watching the install. Go get something
> refreshing to drink :)
>
> Seriously I spent a day or two profiling lots of install cases and there
> is no obvious way to get the time accurate.  The solution I switched to
> gives a good faith initial estimate that should be within 15%.  Giving
> any more information is like measuring the circumference of a circle to
> 2 significant digits, then reporting the the radius to 5.  If you don't
> thunk the estimated time to some value it will bounce up and down alot,
> which was the previous behavior that was COMPLETELY wrong. The initial
> time would be 3 minutes, and the install would take >10.  So in that
> regard I feel this is better.  Its a first pass however so it can be
> improved I'm sure.
>
> I do agree there is the issue of how do you let the user know the
> installer hasn't fallen over. I got rid of the individual package
> progress bar because it basically flashes left to right in about 1
> seconds for 90% of the packages and is visually noisy.  Perhaps there is
> another way to give intra-package feedback I haven't thought of.
>
> Michael Fulbright
> msf at redhat.com
>
>
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