Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Some suggestions

[Chris Gianelloni]

On Sat, 2003-09-06 at 15:45, David Sankel wrote:
> I was afraid that it wouldn't be clear what I meant by this.  I am not
> suggesting that all files could be automatically overwritten, only files
> that were not modified from the default by the user.  For example the
> file:
>
> /etc/X11/chooser.sh
>
> was never changed by a given user on a given system.  It is the default for
> the version they have.  When a revision to the default is discovered, the
> system will flag that file as being one that the user hasn't specialized.
> In etc-update, there could be an option to update all flagged files
> automatically.  Does that make more sense?

I think this is a great idea.  I am tired of having to update files
which I haven't even touched simply because they have changed a little
since the last merge.

> You are absolutely correct.  Having something simple like 20/24 (currently
> working on package XXX) is probably the best such a progress bar could do.
> If the compilation does break, and that has been very rare in my
> experience, the program could output the log of that failed compile for
> inspection.  I think this feature, being only an option, would be an
> enhancement that wouldn't remove any features you are interested in.

This is somewhat done now via the xterm titles.  I personally find it
annoying and turn it off.  Having a progress bar for portage would annoy
me to no end since as a developer I like to see what is going on with my
compiles.  If it were implemented as a FEATURE, I would have no problem
with it.  I also don't think it would be useful at all except in the
case of merging multiple ebuilds at once.

> I suggest they be left at whatever the non-source based distributions
> leave them at.  Perhaps I am misinformed about how much improvement one
> gets with aggressive optimization flags.  Could you point me somewhere in
> the right direction?

http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue88/piszcz.html

Quite simply, test it yourself.  The best way to test is to use a x86
GRP CD and install Gentoo.  This is approximately equivalent to the
build flags on other binary distributions.  Run a bunch of benchmarks. 
Next reinstall the same machine using aggressive CFLAGS and run the same
benchmarks.  You'll see quite a dramatic difference in many things.  The
real thing is to realize what could possibly change by optimization. 
Binary size is usually larger with optimized code, since it is designed
for fast execution rather than binary size.  For example, a I/O
benchmark would be generally worthless to test the speed increases of
optimization, since you would be limited much more by the hardware than
the code itself.

-- 
Chris Gianelloni
Developer, Gentoo Linux
Games Team

Is your power animal a penguin?