Message-ID: <4849A6F3.8010800@cheapcomplexdevices.com>
Date: Fri, 06 Jun 2008 14:06:59 -0700
From: Ron Mayer <rm_pg@cheapcomplexdevices.com>
User-Agent: Mozilla-Thunderbird 2.0.0.14 (X11/20080509)
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: "Joshua D. Drake" <jd@commandprompt.com>
CC: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>, Peter Eisentraut <peter_e@gmx.net>,
	pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org, Greg Smith <gsmith@gregsmith.com>,
	Andreas Pflug <pgadmin@pse-consulting.de>,
	"Decibel!" <decibel@decibel.org>, Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com>
Subject: Re: Overhauling GUCS
References: <48409D1E.3070208@agliodbs.com>
	<Pine.GSO.4.64.0806041045520.2258@westnet.com>
	<29525.1212613052@sss.pgh.pa.us>
	<200806061435.01196.peter_e@gmx.net>
	<1669.1212765410@sss.pgh.pa.us>
	<4849598F.9080800@commandprompt.com>
In-Reply-To: <4849598F.9080800@commandprompt.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> Tom Lane wrote:
>> Peter Eisentraut <peter_e@gmx.net> writes:
>>> - If we know better values, why don't we set them by default?
>>
>> The problem is: better for what?
> 
> That is where some 80% solution sample config files come in.
+1.

At work I use 3 templates.
* One for salespeople's demo laptops.
* One for a developer's desktop.
* One for our bigger production servers.

The old old default postgresql.conf used to be nice for
the first group.  The newer set of defaults is nicer
for the second group.  Emailing the lists here's the
current best way of tuning for that last case.

I wonder if the fastest way to generate the configurator
would be to simply ask everyone to post their tuned
postgresql.conf files along with a brief description of
the use case for that file.  The we could group the
use-cases into various classes; and average the values
of the submitted files.  Then the configurator's one
question "choose which use case most closely matches
yours from this list".