Why is apt-cache so slow?
- by Damn Terminal
After upgrade to Trusty (14.04) from Saucy (13.10), all apt operations are very slow. Even those that do not include downloading anything, or connecting to any servers. For example, displaying the apt policy
# time apt-cache policy
[...]
real 0m8.951s
user 0m5.069s
sys 0m3.861s
takes almost ten seconds! Mostly a weird lag right after issuing the command. And it's the same even if I issue the same command again.
On another system it doesn't take a tenth of a second
real 0m0.096s
user 0m0.070s
sys 0m0.023s
The other system is a little beefier but there was no noticeable difference before the upgrade.
It's the same with apt-get, anything apt-related. How do I find out the source of this lag and fix it?
Additional info:
# cat /etc/nsswitch.conf
# /etc/nsswitch.conf
#
# Example configuration of GNU Name Service Switch functionality.
# If you have the `glibc-doc-reference' and `info' packages installed, try:
# `info libc "Name Service Switch"' for information about this file.
passwd: compat
group: compat
shadow: compat
hosts: files dns
networks: files
protocols: db files
services: db files
ethers: db files
rpc: db files
netgroup: nis
BTW is my understanding of how apt-cache works correct? It doesn't make any network connections when I run apt-cache policy, right?
In case I'm wrong and it matters, here are my sources https://gist.github.com/anonymous/02920270ff68e23fc3ec
