qubes_setupdvm: display progress via plymouth

[marmarek]

Reported by joanna on 24 Jan 2011 10:13 UTC
When qubes_setupdvm detects that Disposable VM savefile is out of date (or doesn't exist) it attempts to create one. This operation takes significant amount of time (currently 120s). We should somehow indicate to the user that the system it busy, preferably via plymouth progress indicator (so, when we execute qubes_setupdvm, plymouth indicator should be far from 100%).

Migrated-From: https://wiki.qubes-os.org/ticket/81

[marmarek]

Modified by smoku on 14 Mar 2011 19:29 UTC

[marmarek]

Modified by smoku on 14 Mar 2011 19:29 UTC

[marmarek]

Comment by smoku on 23 Mar 2011 20:33 UTC
It's a bit hard to do using Plymouth (and possibly using any other progress indicator). The problem is that we don't know at the beginning of the boot how long will it take, so it's hard to display uniform progress during.
Plymouth "solves" it the way MacOS X does it. Measures the boot time and steps at a boot and then on the next boot it interpolates to fit the previous boot.

I modified the qubes_setupdvm init script to pause the progress for the period the DVM is recreated and display a message saying what it is doing. The progress indicator pauses before reaching 100% and waits for DVM recreation.
http://git.qubes-os.org/?p=smoku/core;a=commitdiff;h=648f8be0b3fd0713df3a6bd8cf9c13ca4ec0fd41

Unfortunately it looks there is a bug in Plymouth and the message does not appear. While testing manually it works just fine but not during boot.
Strangely if I replace the empty (clear) message displayed after dvm recreate it is being displayed. 8-o

Anyway, I lost enough time trying to get it working, so I'm moving on.
Let's hope the F14 upgrade will fix this problem.

[marmarek]

Comment by smoku on 23 Mar 2011 20:33 UTC
It's a bit hard to do using Plymouth (and possibly using any other progress indicator). The problem is that we don't know at the beginning of the boot how long will it take, so it's hard to display uniform progress during.
Plymouth "solves" it the way MacOS X does it. Measures the boot time and steps at a boot and then on the next boot it interpolates to fit the previous boot.

I modified the qubes_setupdvm init script to pause the progress for the period the DVM is recreated and display a message saying what it is doing. The progress indicator pauses before reaching 100% and waits for DVM recreation.
http://git.qubes-os.org/?p=smoku/core;a=commitdiff;h=648f8be0b3fd0713df3a6bd8cf9c13ca4ec0fd41

Unfortunately it looks there is a bug in Plymouth and the message does not appear. While testing manually it works just fine but not during boot.
Strangely if I replace the empty (clear) message displayed after dvm recreate it is being displayed. 8-o

Anyway, I lost enough time trying to get it working, so I'm moving on.
Let's hope the F14 upgrade will fix this problem.

[marmarek]

Comment by smoku on 23 Mar 2011 20:36 UTC
Ticket #125 tracks the message problem.

[marmarek]

Comment by smoku on 23 Mar 2011 20:36 UTC
Ticket #125 tracks the message problem.