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Stroller wrote: |
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> [...] |
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> To be honest, I am surprised this notion of "optimised executables" has |
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> stuck around long enough that you've heard it, but it's an old joke to |
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> many of us who were around in 2004. |
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|
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But AFAIK, it *was* faster because Gentoo used the egcs fork of GCC |
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which did produce faster code. This was probably the origin of the |
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"Gentoo performance" thingy. It was true. Wikipedia also notes this, |
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and further states that the name "Gentoo" was chosen (previously it was |
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"Enoch") because of this speed difference between Gentoo and other |
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Distros ("the Gentoo species is the fastest swimming penguin"). |
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|
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Soon after though, egcs merged back to gcc and all other distros became |
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just as fast. So "it was good while it lasted". But this "Gentoo |
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performance" cliché seems to stick around till today. |
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