Colony 3, Test report

Alvin Thompson alvin-ubuntu at thompsonlogic.com
Sat Aug 20 09:57:28 CDT 2005


On Sat, 2005-08-20 at 00:38 -0700, Matt Zimmerman wrote:
> This isn't so; try it.  This will cause the drive to seek constantly, and
> seeking on CD-ROMs is _slow_.

i don't think i expressed what i was thinking clearly enough. the
integrity check should be done while the user is selecting the necessary
things, and should be finished by the time the actual copying starts. in
other words, while the user is selecting stuff like language, user name,
and the rest. if the user finishes filling in the info before the check
is finished (unlikely for a first-time installer), simply cut the test
short. some is better than none. seek time would obviously have no
effect on stuff there. you could argue that this would effect the time
needed to switch screens in the install process if the installer needs
to retrieve information from the drive, but more times than not it would
speed it up because the drive would not have to "spool up" again.

i did try it by doing the test while working in the second console. i
noticed absolutely no difference on my laptop and a five-year-old duron
with a first-generation dvd drive. if you can tell me the command line
options to do the cd test in the second console, i'll do the whole
install and let you know.

if i can write this email while burning a CD, there's no reason why the
cd can't be checked during the user input portion of the install
process. i can't remember which, but some distros let you play a decent
game of tetris while copying files, and that was years ago.

-alvin





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