B lint R czey: Supercharge Your Installs with apt-eatmydata: Because Who Needs Crash Safety Anyway?


Tired of waiting for
apt
to finish installing packages? Wish there were a way to make your installations blazingly fast without caring about minor things like, oh, data integrity? Well, today is your lucky day! 
apt-eatmydata
, now available for Debian and all supported Ubuntu releases!
What Is apt-eatmydata?
If you ve ever used libeatmydata
, you know it s a nifty little hack that disables fsync()
and friends, making package installations way faster by skipping unnecessary disk writes. Normally, you d have to remember to wrap apt
commands manually, like this:
eatmydata apt install texlive-full
But who has time for that? apt-eatmydata
takes care of this automagically by integrating eatmydata
seamlessly into apt
itself! That means every package install is now turbocharged no extra typing required.
How to Get It
Debian
If you re on Debian unstable/testing (or possibly soon in stable-backports), you can install it directly with:
sudo apt install apt-eatmydata
Ubuntu
Ubuntu users already enjoy faster package installation thanks to zstd-compressed packages and to switch to even higher gear I ve backported apt-eatmydata
to all supported Ubuntu releases. Just add this PPA and install:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:firebuild/apt-eatmydata
sudo apt install apt-eatmydata
And boom! Your apt install
times are getting serious upgrade. Let s run some tests
# pre-download package to measure only the installation
$ sudo apt install -d linux-headers-6.8.0-53-lowlatency
...
# installation time is 9.35s without apt-eatmydata:
$ sudo time apt install linux-headers-6.8.0-53-lowlatency
...
2.30user 2.12system 0:09.35elapsed 47%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 174680maxresident)k
32inputs+1495216outputs (0major+196945minor)pagefaults 0swaps
$ sudo apt install apt-eatmydata
...
$ sudo apt purge linux-headers-6.8.0-53-lowlatency
# installation time is 3.17s with apt-eatmydata:
$ sudo time eatmydata apt install linux-headers-6.8.0-53-lowlatency
2.30user 0.88system 0:03.17elapsed 100%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 174692maxresident)k
0inputs+205664outputs (0major+198099minor)pagefaults 0swaps
apt-eatmydata
just made installing Linux headers 3x faster!
But Wait, There s More!
If you re automating CI builds, there s even a GitHub Action to make your workflows faster essentially doing what apt-eatmydata
does, just setting it up in less than a second! Check it out here:
GitHub Marketplace: apt-eatmydata
Should You Use It?
Warning: apt-eatmydata
is not for all production environments. If your system crashes mid-install, you might end up with a broken package database. But for throwaway VMs, containers, and CI pipelines? It s an absolute game-changer. I use it on my laptop, too.
So go forth and install recklessly fast!
If you run into any issues, feel free to file a bug or drop a comment. Happy hacking!
(To accelerate your CI pipeline or local builds, check out Firebuild, that speeds up the builds, too!)
Debian
If you re on Debian unstable/testing (or possibly soon in stable-backports), you can install it directly with:
sudo apt install apt-eatmydata
Ubuntu
Ubuntu users already enjoy faster package installation thanks to zstd-compressed packages and to switch to even higher gear I ve backported apt-eatmydata
to all supported Ubuntu releases. Just add this PPA and install:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:firebuild/apt-eatmydata
sudo apt install apt-eatmydata
And boom! Your apt install
times are getting serious upgrade. Let s run some tests
# pre-download package to measure only the installation
$ sudo apt install -d linux-headers-6.8.0-53-lowlatency
...
# installation time is 9.35s without apt-eatmydata:
$ sudo time apt install linux-headers-6.8.0-53-lowlatency
...
2.30user 2.12system 0:09.35elapsed 47%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 174680maxresident)k
32inputs+1495216outputs (0major+196945minor)pagefaults 0swaps
$ sudo apt install apt-eatmydata
...
$ sudo apt purge linux-headers-6.8.0-53-lowlatency
# installation time is 3.17s with apt-eatmydata:
$ sudo time eatmydata apt install linux-headers-6.8.0-53-lowlatency
2.30user 0.88system 0:03.17elapsed 100%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 174692maxresident)k
0inputs+205664outputs (0major+198099minor)pagefaults 0swaps
apt-eatmydata
just made installing Linux headers 3x faster!
But Wait, There s More!
If you re automating CI builds, there s even a GitHub Action to make your workflows faster essentially doing what apt-eatmydata
does, just setting it up in less than a second! Check it out here:
GitHub Marketplace: apt-eatmydata
Should You Use It?
Warning: apt-eatmydata
is not for all production environments. If your system crashes mid-install, you might end up with a broken package database. But for throwaway VMs, containers, and CI pipelines? It s an absolute game-changer. I use it on my laptop, too.
So go forth and install recklessly fast!
If you run into any issues, feel free to file a bug or drop a comment. Happy hacking!
(To accelerate your CI pipeline or local builds, check out Firebuild, that speeds up the builds, too!)
apt-eatmydata
to all supported Ubuntu releases. Just add this PPA and install:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:firebuild/apt-eatmydataAnd boom! Your
sudo apt install apt-eatmydata
apt install
times are getting serious upgrade. Let s run some tests
# pre-download package to measure only the installation
$ sudo apt install -d linux-headers-6.8.0-53-lowlatency
...
# installation time is 9.35s without apt-eatmydata:
$ sudo time apt install linux-headers-6.8.0-53-lowlatency
...
2.30user 2.12system 0:09.35elapsed 47%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 174680maxresident)k
32inputs+1495216outputs (0major+196945minor)pagefaults 0swaps
$ sudo apt install apt-eatmydata
...
$ sudo apt purge linux-headers-6.8.0-53-lowlatency
# installation time is 3.17s with apt-eatmydata:
$ sudo time eatmydata apt install linux-headers-6.8.0-53-lowlatency
2.30user 0.88system 0:03.17elapsed 100%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 174692maxresident)k
0inputs+205664outputs (0major+198099minor)pagefaults 0swaps
apt-eatmydata
just made installing Linux headers 3x faster!
But Wait, There s More!
If you re automating CI builds, there s even a GitHub Action to make your workflows faster essentially doing what apt-eatmydata
does, just setting it up in less than a second! Check it out here:
GitHub Marketplace: apt-eatmydata
Should You Use It?
Warning: apt-eatmydata
is not for all production environments. If your system crashes mid-install, you might end up with a broken package database. But for throwaway VMs, containers, and CI pipelines? It s an absolute game-changer. I use it on my laptop, too.
So go forth and install recklessly fast!
If you run into any issues, feel free to file a bug or drop a comment. Happy hacking!
(To accelerate your CI pipeline or local builds, check out Firebuild, that speeds up the builds, too!)

apt-eatmydata
is not for all production environments. If your system crashes mid-install, you might end up with a broken package database. But for throwaway VMs, containers, and CI pipelines? It s an absolute game-changer. I use it on my laptop, too.
So go forth and install recklessly fast! 