apt-get upgrade taking forever!

[Joe Schmoe]

Short summary: I think there ought to be a way to tell it to upgrade everything except Wolfram/Mathematica.

Or else W/M should be removed from the default distribution, since I suspect only a very small fraction of Pi users will ever use it. Don't get me wrong, it's kinda cool that it is there, but the handling charges are just too high.

Longer version: Just got my new B+ setup, running the 6/20 version of Raspbian.

Decided to be a good little citizen and do the update/upgrade dance. update ran quickly, but the upgrade is taking forever. Has been running for over an hour now, and is stuck on "wolfram-engine". It is currently at "40%" and it is taking forever. I think it is kind of a "perfect storm" combination of:

1) The repository being slow - I'm sure lots of people are probably trying to do the same thing as I am right now.
2) My ISP running slow (maybe, not sure about this - but it has been a little funky lately)
3) W/M being such big things to upgrade. I.e., this is the true problem, which kicks off the previous 2 as symptoms.

Anyway, sort of venting - but also looking for advice on how to make this better. It just annoys me that it takes so long, for something that I'll never use.

[DougieLawson]

You can do that easily with Aptitude (rather than plain apt-get).

I've got a RPi project where I've just built a local version of PHP5, apt-get keeps trying to knacker that, Aptitude doesn't.

[rpdom]

You can use apt pinning to hold a package at a certain revision.

[plugwash]

or just remove it.

[Joe Schmoe]

or just remove it.

Well, that's what I am suggesting.

[DougieLawson]

or just remove it.

Well, that's what I am suggesting.

Or build your system starting with raspbian-ua-netinst then only add the pieces you need for your application.

[diederik]

You can put a package on hold to not upgrade that package:

Code: Select all

aptitude hold wolfram-engine

and if you want to upgrade it again

Code: Select all

aptitude unhold wolfram-engine

Naturally, I support Dougie's suggestion as well

[Joe Schmoe]

The problem with all the posts in this thread, of course, is that they might have solved the problem for me - if I had known about them before starting the upgrade. But the problem is that they don't solve it for the next guy who hits this problem.

At this point, i'm 98% sure that the repository itself is just broken at the moment - this is based both on this upgrade process and an earlier download - which took much longer than it should have. I hope they get it fixed soon.

But, longer term, I think taking W/M out of the mix will help a lot of people.

[plugwash]

The problem with all the posts in this thread, of course, is that they might have solved the problem for me - if I had known about them before starting the upgrade.

If it's still in the downloading phase feel free to press ctrl+c then remove the package and run the upgrade again.

At this point, i'm 98% sure that the repository itself is just broken at the moment - this is based both on this upgrade process and an earlier download - which took much longer than it should have. I hope they get it fixed soon.

I just did a test download and got 7.70M/s which seems pretty good. Of course it's 4AM at the moment so it may get worse again once people wake up.

But, longer term, I think taking W/M out of the mix will help a lot of people.

I doubt it will happen though. Unfortunately we raspbian developers don't control what the raspberry pi foundation put in their images.

[Joe Schmoe]

Actually, I think the problem is with W/M specifically, because I was able to install some other things with no problems (everything was peppy and worked just fine), but when I re-ran the "upgrade", it hung again on the "wolfram engine".

Note, BTW, that the original run of "upgrade" crashed with some error messages, after running for about 8 hours.

[plugwash]

The wolfram stuff is served from the raspberry pi foundation repository which is seperate from the raspbian repository.

Is anyone currently having problems?

[emgi]

Well,not sure where the problem is but my apt-get upgrade on a new B+ failed yesterday on the wolfram engine.
The download was successful but the installation failed with a dpkg message about a corrupted file wolfram-engine 10xxxxsomething .
Actually I had to reinstall the jun-2014 image because the system was unable to recover properly.
I haven't attempted another go at it; I removed the wolfram software instead and freed up 454MB.

Probably this is not a problem with the repository; I also had problems apt-get installing other packages (nslookup, nmap, vim) where the installation hung near the end of the process instead of returning to the prompt. After a power cycle everything works and the file system checks clean. So for now the system is running fine but I haven't tried installing additional packages yet.
I will swap my (cheap class 4) flash card for a more expensive model and see if that helps.
Still I must say that I never had such issues with the model B version.

/emgi

[fruitoftheloom]

The wolfram stuff is served from the raspberry pi foundation repository which is seperate from the raspbian repository.

Is anyone currently having problems?

apt-get update
apt-get dist-upgrade

.....worked and have the Wolfram update, thank you

[FTrevorGowen]

The wolfram stuff is served from the raspberry pi foundation repository which is seperate from the raspbian repository.
Is anyone currently having problems?

apt-get update
apt-get dist-upgrade
.....worked and have the Wolfram update, thank you

Seems to be an "intermittent issue" - I've got a "sudo apt-get upgrade" pulling in the "wolfram-engine" very slowly at the moment (21:05 U.K. B.S.T.). When I last checked** it was at 209Mb of 232Mb and appears to be downloading in short bursts of ~1Mb each time a new GET is issued.
Trev.
** My monitor is shared between a netbook and the B+ Pi and I am periodically switching it to DVI mode (cf. VGA) to see how things are going.

[Joe Schmoe]

I've got a "sudo apt-get upgrade" pulling in the "wolfram-engine" very slowly at the moment (21:05 U.K. B.S.T.). When I last checked** it was at 209Mb of 232Mb and appears to be downloading in short bursts of ~1Mb each time a new GET is issued.

Yes, this is exactly what I'm seeing.

Basically, it has turned what should be a task measured in minutes (maybe 15-20 at most) into one measured in days. I've been running it off and on, but basically, it will probably be finished sometime tomorrow.

I think the best explanation is that (FSR) the Wolfram stuff is hosted on a different server and that server is being overwhelmed.

[molsen]

I am currently downloading wolfram-engine with 1900 kB/s if that helps. The whole thing took 2 minutes and change.

[FTrevorGowen]

...
Seems to be an "intermittent issue" - I've got a "sudo apt-get upgrade" pulling in the "wolfram-engine" very slowly at the moment (21:05 U.K. B.S.T.). When I last checked** it was at 209Mb of 232Mb and appears to be downloading in short bursts of ~1Mb each time a new GET is issued.

Download and upgrade finally completed at 23:50 U.K. B.S.T. !
Trev.

[Joe Schmoe]

Looks like I am at 99% ATM.

[Joe Schmoe]

And, wonder of wonders, it completed about half an hour ago - running (according to the "time" output) for over 1300 minutes (that's almost a day…). When it started, it had downloaded about 49% of the wolfram engine. Everything *except* wolfram downloaded and installed in normal (quick) time.

[Shoka]

If anyone cares this is still happening. I've taken the "shoot the wolf" approach as I have no need of it anyway for this application.

[mrtcs]

It is still happening.

[Joe Schmoe]

It is still happening.

Yup. I did the "update/upgrade" dance a few days ago, and it took 1936 minutes total run time (spread over a few days). Most of that was, of course, for Wolfram.

It's a [censored]. They need to fix this.

[DougieLawson]

They need to fix this.

sudo apt-get purge wolfram*
fixed it for me.

[Joe Schmoe]

That's not the point - and you know it.

Individuals fixing the problem locally solves nothing. It needs to be fixed at the source.

[DougieLawson]

When I just did an upgrade on another system it came down the wire OK and my wire is only 4Mb/s wide.