[H-GEN] Sorcery

Paul Gearon pag at PISoftware.com
Sun Mar 3 22:46:22 EST 2002


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On 2 Mar 2002, Jason Henry Parker wrote:
> Joel Michael <jmichael at bigpond.net.au> writes:
> [Sorcerer Linux]
> > I've played with it, it's really quite interesting.  However, it does
> > take a rather long time to get everything compiled.  It ends up building
> > gcc and glibc about twice each, but it does end up using a heavily
> > optimised gcc to build a heavily optimised glibc.
>
> I'd be pretty dubious of the benefits, myself.  Removing bottlenecks
> is better served by identifying the damn things first, in my
> experience, rather than using a one-hammer-hits-all approach.

As far as the one-hammer-hits-all approach is concerned then having an
optimised glibc could well help some apps, and it certainly won't hurt.

For many apps which have no specific bottlenecks (whether they be programs
in /bin or your own code) then the more streamlined you can make each
component of the overall system, the better your performance.  Obviously
this doesn't count if your program is only spending 2% of it's time in
glibc, with 90% of that in the kernel, but that doesn't apply to *every*
process in the system.  (does it?  :-)

OTOH, I have to wonder that the point of using a "heavily optimised gcc"
to build an optimised glibc.  A slower optimising gcc would be fine for
just doing an install.

Regards,
Paul Gearon

Software Engineer                Telephone:   +61 7 3876 2188
Plugged In Software              Fax:         +61 7 3876 4899
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or I will fling an enormous rock at your head.")



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