On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 12:17 AM, Grant Edwards <gra...@visi.com> wrote: > On 2009-02-04, James <wirel...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote: >> Grant Edwards <grante <at> visi.com> writes: >> >>> Whenever I see a write-up of Gentoo, it's described as a system >>> similar to BSD "ports" where you build packages from source. >>> The main benefit claimed for this approach is that you get >>> better performance because all executables are optimized for >>> exactly the right instruction set. is practically nil in >>> real-world usage. >> >> Not true. You can eliminate many non-essential portions of a >> compiled program, via use flag and the freedom you get to >> select software, as opposed to other distros. Smaller >> executables are usually always faster. > > You're right, that's another big advantage: you can control > what features get included/enabled in an application. Leaving > out features you don't use makes a big difference in many > applications load/startup times and library dependancies. For > example, leaving out the Gnome and/or KDE support in some apps > makes a pretty big difference. If you only use mutt with > "mbox" formatted mailboxes, you can leave out imap, ssl, pop, > and maildir support. > > But that wasn't what I was talking about, and AFAICT that's not > what reviewers are talking about when they talk about adjusting > compiler flags to optimize performance. They seem to be talking > about building for Athlon instead of P4 (or vice-versa). > Perhaps I've always completely misunderstood the articles I've > read, and they were indeed talking about USE flags that control > options passed to "configure" and not about things like gcc's > -march and -O options. > >> One *BIG* difference is when the GPUs on video cards are used >> as co-processors on systems. ATI and Nv are working on making >> general purpose "C" languages for programs to take advantage >> of the power of the GPU. Look for Gentoo to beat the other >> distros, by the very nature of how it compiles code for >> everything. > > That would indeed be interesting.
This thread is not complete without the obligatory link: http://funroll-loops.info/ :)
