elementary-dev-community team mailing list archive

[Sajith Dilshan <sajithdilshan@xxxxxxxxx>]

using threads to improve search is a good idea. You can use the
database used by locate command and go on with the MapReduce approach.

On 9/14/13, Lochlan Bunn <loklaan@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Thanks for the input guys, I really appreciate it.
>
> *David*,
> You're right, the search app could benefit from parallelising some of the
> search functionality, not that it isn't pretty fast already. It would
> involve dividing the amount of work (searchable directories) into chunks
> depending on the particular machines cpu, and then pushing those chunks to
> threads, with different cpu core affinities, for them to process the work
> in parallel. The work could be synced back after each thread is done, or
> during (this would cause alot of locks and waits though).
>
> The thing is, it would need to index all of the file systems available
> directories into the utilised struct before splitting the search work; this
> work can also be split up in parallel by top directory. Or, use some
> existing structure provided by some linux service; I don't know about this
> but I assume there would be something available. I am liking this idea and
> search is generally a good thing to parallelise, but I'll have to get in
> contact with my professor before going ahead with it. So, I'll definitely
> be considering this! Thanks!
>
> *Albert*,
> Thanks for the suggestions and advice! I actually really like the idea of
> improving the animation within marlins breadcrumb. However, I haven't
> finished reading the relevant source so I can't give much commentary on
> benefits/reasons.
>
> I think the elementary guys are using existing search and indexing packages
> for things like slingshot, so I don't think it would be much use looking
> into it. Anyway, thanks again, I appreciate your help!
>
> *Julien*,
> I went and reread this page after you first linked it, which was a good
> thing because I missed the mention of GLibs AsyncQueue the first time
> round. Thanks for the advice!
>
>
> If anyone still has some knowledge to spill on the matter, I would really
> appreciate it!
>
>
> On 10 September 2013 20:13, Albert Palacios <optimisme@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> Here are more ideas:
>>
>> - Do not mix threads with async methods, sometimes GUI is fluid with
>> async
>> and threads are not necessary. Maybe both concepts are interesting for
>> your
>> research.
>>
>> - Pantheon-files has parallelizing problems with thumbnails and top
>> navigation bar animations (I am not sure if this is a clutter problem),
>> but
>> it can be improved.
>>
>> - (As far as I know) Granite library lacks functions to easily create
>> threads or async methods, for example to load images/textures for clutter
>> without blocking animations.
>>
>> - I don't know how advanced is the work of "search" and "indexing" tools
>> for Isis, but both will need a lot of parallelization optimizations to
>> maintain Luna's performance.
>>
>> Albert
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Sep 10, 2013 at 11:58 AM, David Gomes
>> <david@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>wrote:
>>
>>> Hi there,
>>>
>>> A mate and I worked on this search app together:
>>>
>>> https://github.com/gangsterveggies/ancel-search-tool
>>>
>>> It's not an official elementary app but it follows the elementary HIG
>>> and
>>> uses Vala/GTK3/Granite like elementary apps do.
>>>
>>> We wanted to make the Search asynchronous and have one thread for the
>>> search and one thread for the GUI. We stopped working on it, but if you
>>> want to contribute with something like that (which I believe is somewhat
>>> related to parallelizing) feel free to, I'm Munchor on #elementary-dev
>>> if
>>> you need any help.
>>>
>>> Of course, I might be very wrong and this has nothing to do with
>>> parallelizing.
>>>
>>> ~David
>>>
>>>  On Tue, Sep 10, 2013 at 5:13 AM, Lochlan Bunn <loklaan@xxxxxxxxx>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>>  Hello everyone,
>>>>
>>>> For the next few months I am to base a uni project on parallelizing an
>>>> existing program (or part of). I'd like to use this chance to
>>>> contribute
>>>> *something* for the elementary project.
>>>>
>>>> So, are there an elementary/community app maintainers that would know
>>>> of
>>>> some task that would benefit from being parallel? It would be better if
>>>> the
>>>> kind of task had significant improvement potential. If you're not sure
>>>> about the potential, I would still be interesting in being contacted.
>>>>
>>>> Past reading documentation for vala, I'm not at all experienced in
>>>> using
>>>> the language. But any memory model and parallelization specific problems
>>>> I
>>>> find, I could approach the vala community. If you're suggestion is using
>>>> C
>>>> and pthreads, then that could actually be better for both this projects
>>>> requirements and depth of contributed performance gain.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks for reading. I hope to hear back from some people!
>>>>
>>>> --
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>>>>
>>>
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>>>
>>
>