So sprach »Thomas Roessler« am 2001-08-22 um 14:04:14 +0200 :
> Please perform the timing experiment with both mutt and Evolution
> several times, without doing much in between.
Timing sheet:
Mailer | Action | Time
----------+---------------------+----------------------
mutt | Open mbox - 1st run | 55 seconds
mutt | Open mbox - 2nd run | 22 seconds
mutt | Open MDir - 1st run | n/a
mutt | Open MDir - 2nd run | 3 minutes 40 seconds
----------+---------------------+----------------------
Evolution | Open mbox - 1st run | 40 seconds
Evolution | Open mbox - 2nd run | 10 seconds
Evolution | Open MDir - 1st run | about 5 minutes
Evolution | Open MDir - 2nd run | 15 seconds
Explanations:
Okay, I now converted an even larger mail spool to Maildir. This one is
about 154M and has 33271 messages in it.
Opening the Maildir takes about 3 minutes 40 seconds. This is, after I
had opened it already several times. Also, when I close mutt, it takes
another 20 seconds for mutt to exit. On the bottom of the screen, mutt
writes: "Mailbox unverändert." (Mailbox unchanged (?)).
Opening the mbox file (which I had converted to the above Maildir with
mutt), takes close to 55 seconds the first time I open the mbox (ie.,
when the mbox is not cached by the system) and only 22 seconds
afterwards. Also quiting mutt is WAY faster. Only a delay of 1 or 2
seconds.
Also the load when opening the Maildir is WAY higher compared to the
mbox file. Load when opening the mbox is about 2, Maildir is about 6.
Okay, I've got setiathome running, so one may substract 1 (? right?).
On to the Evolution results.
Opening the Maildir took close to 5 minutes (the first time), but at
least the load only went up to 5 and the system also felt more
responsible. The 2nd time it took 15 seconds (!!). I don't know, but
judging this tremendous speedup, I suppose Evolution is keeping a
"cache" of somesorts which causes it not to read the whole directory.
That's just too much of a speedup, I'd say.
Now, Evolution is really bad with mbox'es. Not so much when it comes to
comparing opening speeds, but much more so when a message is deleted
from a mbox. This just takes ages. So I wouldn't recommend mbox to
anyone using Evolution. Anyhow, opening the mbox took 40 seconds.
Having a look at the mutt mbox times, I'd assume that the mbox was still
cached by the system.
Opening the mbox in a 2nd run, it took Evolution only about 10 seconds
to open it. This really makes me believe that it somehow caches it.
Also sorting is WAY faster in Evolution than it is in mutt. The above
times already contain the time used to sorting the spool. Resorting it
(eg. changing from Subject to Sender) takes no time (<1 second).
Enabling threaded mode also takes no time.
In mutt, changing from the default date/date sort to subject/date takes,
uhm, 1 second. But enabling threads (thread/date) takes MUCH longer, to
be "exact", it took about 2 minutes 30 seconds.
The Evolution times stay somewhat "constant" even after I did some
things. I *really* get the impression that it caches it somehow.
Alexander Skwar
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