[Bug 271272] Re: updatedb should be weekly, not daily

[Mikkel Kamstrup Erlandsen]

locate/updatedb/findutils is *destroying* my laptop on a daily basis.
Recent Ubuntu releases (in particular after 12.04) seem to have gotten
particularly suceptible to UI hangs under heavy IO load. This makes
Unity (and all other desktop systems I've tried) unusable for ~20
minutes each day.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/271272

Title:
  updatedb should be weekly, not daily

Status in “mlocate” package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed

Bug description:
  This is an enhancement or suggestion to save a little bit of wear and
  tear on hard disks.

  Basically, I think that a daily update of the locate database is too
  much.  Most folks don't add *that* many files on a daily basis.  So,
  why not reduce wear-and-tear on the HDDs by making the update weekly?

  If they do need the locate db updated *right now*, there could be a
  simple GUI invocation, as through the System->Administration menu.

  Pros:

  - Disk usage is reduced a significant amount for the vast majority of end-users (those who do simple web, email, business writing, music listening, etc.)
  - Ubuntu is that much more "green"

  Cons:

  - Locate DB is a little more latent in being up-to-date.

  Modulo the GUI part, implementing this is as simple as moving
  /etc/cron.daily/mlocate to /etc/cron.weekly/ .

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