Re: [gentoo-dev] compile time statistics

[Stewart Honsberger]

Chris Gianelloni wrote:
> To be anywhere near the correct answer you would need to know:
> - CPU type
> - CPU speed
> - Number of CPUs
> - MAKEOPTS
> - USE flags
> - Some of the CFLAGS, particularly -march and -O

I'm seeing a matrix of information stored in a database. With Gentoo 
being so dynamic, we could have a stats component check each of the 
variables and take a sampling of similar system configurations in the 
database.

What I forsee (correct me if this has already been discussed; I'm only 
getting around to reading this list seriously now after some time 
working long hours) goes along the lines of this;

Integrate stats into Portage somehow so that it becomes transparent. 
Perhaps even a module that can be merged separately of Portage. 
Otherwise, were it merged directly into Portage itself, we have a 
make.conf flag that enables stats. We inform the user, naturally, what 
stats will be taken, how they will be processed, and where they will be 
stored. We inform users that stats are a two-way street. Much like the 
GPL, you can't take without giving. If you want a figure on how long 
each item should take to compile, you have to permit the sending of how 
long it TOOK to compile on your system to add to the numbers in the 
database.

As with any statistical reporting, I also see a system whereby numbers 
that are really off-base with the rest of the numbers in the same 
category be disgarded. If my Athlon XP 1800+ system reports that it took 
 >48 or <2 hours to compile OpenOffice, for example, that number would 
be thrown away as somehow invalid.

In this matrix we could include a variable for 'ccache', which would 
give us a good baseline of how well ccache helps compile times. For 
example, my system some time ago would be reported / queried using;

CPU = AMD Athlon 1800+
RAM = 512MB DDR
CC = gcc (GCC) 3.2.2
CFLAGS = CFLAGS="-march=athlon-xp -Os -pipe -mfpmath=sse,387"
CCACHE = yes

Perhaps the logic used in "emerge -v {package}" could be incorporated to 
find systems with similar USE flags. Obviously nomozillamail et al. will 
decrease Mozilla's compile time.

(Depositing $0.02 on table)

-- 
Stewart Honsberger
Gentoo Developer
http://www.snerk.org/


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