Gentoo Archives: gentoo-performance

From: Dylan Carlson <absinthe@g.o>
To: gentoo-performance@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-performance] Re: portage performance
Date: Mon, 14 Jun 2004 21:25:39
Message-Id: 200406141722.03222.absinthe@gentoo.org
In Reply to: Re: [gentoo-performance] Re: portage performance by Sri Gupta
1 On Saturday 12 June 2004 4:19 pm, Sri Gupta wrote:
2 > Try using a JIT-style python compiler.
3 >
4 > #emerge psyco
5 > #nano -w `which emerge`
6 >
7
8 The first problem with this is that it's architecture-specific. (think in
9 terms of Java Runtime Environments and this will make sense).
10
11 You will notice that psyco is available only on x86. Also Psyco only looks
12 for stuff it knows how to optimize, which are some selective operations.
13 In theory someday it will optimize more, and be available on more
14 architectures, but that doesn't really buy Gentoo much today... since it's
15 totally locked in on x86.
16
17 Psyco does improve speed somewhat, as it relates to Portage anyway, but
18 nothing substantial. Psyco is noticeable in situations where there are a
19 lot of complicated loops that cycle many times over at least a few minutes
20 (when running in normal interpreted mode). The better improvements will
21 come from optimizing the algorithms, not tweaking the runtime.
22
23 Cheers,
24 Dylan Carlson [absinthe@g.o]
25 Public Key: http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x708E165F
26
27 --
28 gentoo-performance@g.o mailing list