Glibc /bin/date on Linux runs around 140 system calls. A quick pass with ratrace shows that plan 9 /bin/date has 10.
The conclusion is clear: plan 9 date has way too much overhead. It's 1/14 the number of system calls of Glibc; why's it so big? A quick pass on getpid() fixes the problem: #include <u.h> #include <libc.h> #include <tos.h> int getpid(void) { return _tos->pid; } Now we're down to seven system calls. 1/20 of glibc. Much better! :-) ron