---- Eero Tamminen <eero.tammi...@nokia.com> wrote: 
>Err?
>UBIFS used for rootfs is most certainly using compression.

Wow... totally missed that.  I haven't hacked around with it to that level, and 
missed it in the df listing some how. :P  Yes, that does present challenges, 
but nothing that can't be overcome with some clever scripting.

>Sorry, you lost me.
>Where you're expecting this proposed package space estimationto happen and 
>when?

I would prefer to see it pre-install, with the info being sent to the App 
Manager using the same mechanism that's providing the details it gets now.  
It's getting package names, sizes, descriptions and the like from somewhere 
already.  Tacking on more info should be pretty trivial, even if it's a 
pre-tack into the description text by a build script.

It could (as I noted) be collected during install and show up in the package 
removal screen.  It wouldn't be an up-front warning, but at least it would be 
something. It would also be more accurate, since it's post fact and monitoring 
_actual_ usage on the device.  It would take into account things like 
compression, install script actions, link routing, dependent packages, etc.


>> it's not saying it will take 17,367,483 bytes; it says "17.4M". 
>
>Which I think is too accurate number when the things I mentioned are taken 
>into account. :-)

So you're advocating the user have no idea how large a package is?  Not giving 
any details or hints as to how large it would be?  What would you propose?  
"Big", "Medium", and "Tiny"?


>Well, you're free to suggest such an UI change, but I have my doubts about how 
>well less-technical users understand the distinction between rootfs and /home 
>etc. 

That's the issue right now!  The user doesn't have a distinction between rootfs 
and home.  Then they get a message when trying to update that they "need more 
memory" on their rootfs.  So they go into application manager, look for large 
packages, delete them, and still get told they need more space.  That's because 
app manager right now only shows total package space, which is useless for this 
task.  If the UI for uninstall showed how much each package (rough estimate) 
took in rootfs, the average user could make much better choices about what to 
uninstall to do updates.

Again, this is to help less technical users.  If they're expected to clear 
space on the rootfs to do updates, there should be a tool to show how much each 
package takes on the rootfs.  The app manager is the clear choice to do this, 
since it can collect such data easily and is the tool most users will go to in 
order to delete apps to free up space.

>That hypothetical 3rd party application could show also those and nothings 
>preventing it from implementing package removal too.

Yes, that's great.  So let's re-implement the entire code base from app manager 
to find/list/catalog installed packages.  Then hook into the actual app manager 
to figure out when it's installing things so we can do a pre/post snapshot 
during installs.  Store that data in a separate place, and present it in a 
separate UI.  Push this app through devel, then testing, then _maybe_ get it to 
Extras.  And finally, start a mass campaign to educate people that this new 
tool exists, and that they need to install it (with App Manager) so they can 
then use to find this small piece of information they need for when updates 
come out and they are told they need more rootfs.

Or, we could just add few lines of code to app manager to do a df pre/post, 
store the extra 4 bytes on rootfs usage in it's database, and show that data in 
5 to 10 characters on the existing package removal UI, which everyone has 
installed and already knows how to use.  And it will update automatically on 
95% of the devices when released, either separately or as part of a PR update.  
Which do you think would be easier and more effective to do?  To me, app 
manager is the clear choice.

> That would include also their dependencies, but those could be shared between 
> later installed packages.

No solution will be 100% perfect.  Nobody is asking for a 100% perfect solution 
that will take all things into account.  All that is being asked is a simple 
_estimate_ of rootfs usage per package.  Knowing that ioQuake and Angry Birds 
are both 68M is useless data for freeing rootfs space.  Knowing that ioQuake 
takes 35M in rootfs, where Angry Birds only takes 1M on rootfs is much more 
useful, even if those numbers are 30% off actual space usage.  Do you see the 
point I'm making?


>And what about the non-UI packages that aren't shown in the Application 
>manager UI (for a good reason) and which also take space?

With the exception of lage non-optified packages (like python or qt devel 
packages) most CLI packages are super tiny.  Realistically, if implemented in 
app manager as discussed above, the first package that installs a large 
non-optified CLI package will still show that it used a ton of rootfs space.  
At least there's a reg flag being thrown, where now there's absolutely no 
indication of it happening.

If people are installing CLI packages on their own with apt-get, then they know 
how to type df before and after to see space usage on their own.  That's not 
the typical user, who is using app manager for most or all of their installs.

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