Ubuntu
usb-creator package

usb-creator 0.1.11 regression: creates persistence file with incredibly slow single-byte writes

Bug #313364 reported by Max Bowsher
8
This bug affects 1 person
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
usb-creator (Ubuntu)
Fix Released
Undecided
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Bug Description

Binary package hint: usb-creator

usb-creator 0.1.10 switched from creating the persistence file using "dd bs=1M" to "dd bs=1" - presumably relating to this changelog entry:

+ * Internally represent the persistent file size in bytes for greater
+ accuracy.

The problem with this is that writing out a file using a separate I/O operation for every byte, which is what bs=1 tells dd to do, is excruciatingly slow, and quite CPU-intensive. As a result, usb-creator now takes far longer than it needs to creating the persistence file, and eats a prodigious amount of CPU cycles whilst doing so.

See original description

Related branches

lp:ubuntu/karmic/usb-creator
Revision history for this message
Vit Svarc (vs-pb) wrote :

I can confirm this, last version from ppa is very slow, it took me around 1 hour to create 4G usb stick with persistence file.
But the good news is, it created boot sector correctly (I had problems, that it was installed grub on that usb stick before,
and the usb-creator from standard ubuntu repository didn't overwrite the boot sector).

Revision history for this message
John S. Gruber (jsjgruber) wrote :

Relates to https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/usb-creator/+bug/321544

Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :

This bug was fixed in the package usb-creator - 0.1.12

---------------
usb-creator (0.1.12) jaunty; urgency=low

  [ Evan Dandrea ]
  * Correct grammatical typo in the GTK frontend (LP: #297569).
  * Depend on mcopy as syslinux only recommends it (LP: #296093).
  * Mark more strings for translation. Thanks István Nyitrai (LP: #310804).
  * Change the Debian maintainer to the Ubuntu Installer Team.
  * Work around a long standing GTK label bug by using a Python version of
  * libview's WrapLabel.
  * Fix nonsense 1 byte writes of the casper-rw ext3 loopback fs
    (LP: #313364).
  * Basic file copy error handling.
  * Sync the disk at the end of installation.
  * Better handle filesystem-on-disk in the bootloader installing code.
    Thanks Loïc Minier (LP: #325375)

  [ Jonathan Ernst ]
  * Menu entry should be named "USB startup disk creator" (LP: #286924)
  * Add French translation to desktop file

 -- Evan Dandrea <email address hidden> Wed, 18 Feb 2009 10:45:56 +0000

Changed in usb-creator:
status: New → Fix Released
Revision history for this message
Travis Whitaker (pi-boy-travis) wrote :

I have this problem in the final release, using usb-creator 0.1.16.

Revision history for this message
Marius (mm473) wrote :

On Jaunty with usb-creator 0.1.16 and the problem is still there. I hit cancel at about 50%, some 20 minutes after I started the 4GB persistence file.

aleksander810 (aleksander810)
Changed in usb-creator (Ubuntu):
status: Fix Released → Incomplete
status: Incomplete → Fix Released
goto (gotolaunchpad)
description: updated
pretender101 (pretender101)
Changed in usb-creator (Ubuntu):
status: Fix Released → New
Revision history for this message
Max Bowsher (maxb) wrote :

pretender101: Please do not reopen bugs without providing a comment explaining why you are doing so.

Changed in usb-creator (Ubuntu):
status: New → Fix Released
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