Re: [gentoo-user] why firefox is so slow?

On Monday 01 May 2006 04:32 pm, Farhan Ahmed wrote:
> lordsauronthegreat@×××××.com wrote:
> > (snip)
> >
> > > These are the packages that I would merge, in reverse order:
> > >
> > > Calculating dependencies ...done!
> > > [ebuild     U ] www-client/mozilla-firefox-1.0.8 [1.0.7-r4] -debug
> > > +gnome
> >
> > +ipv6 +java* -mozcalendar -mozdevelop -moznoxft -mozsvg +truetype
> > -xinerama -xprint 32,135 kB
> >
> > I see here that I've got it compiled with the debug pointers (which I'm
> > told slow things down) and it has no KDE/Qt support, either.  This...
> > could be a problem.
>
> -debug means you don't have debug pointers.. A use flag can be considered
> as a configure option.. -debug means --disable-debug, +gnome means
> --enable-gnome... What -debug does is it disables debugging, i.e., it
> strips the binary of debugging symbols.. +flags enables support for the
> feature.. To have a look at all the USE flag and what they do take a
> look at /usr/portage/profiles/use.desc and
> /usr/portage/profiles/use.local.desc

Okay, that makes a lot of sense.  That's something I didn't know.

So I went through all those different USE flags, and added ones I knew I could 
add without anything blowing up.  This is what I get:

# These settings were set by the catalyst build script that automatically 
built this stage
# Please consult /etc/make.conf.example for a more detailed example
#CFLAGS="-O2 -march=i686 -pipe"
CFLAGS="-march=i686 -O2 -pipe"
CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
CXXFLAGS="${CFLAGS}"
MAKEOPTS=""
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS=""
USE=" X a52 aac alsa apache2 acpi arts audiofile avi berkdb bitmap-fonts bzip2 
cdr cli crypt ctype cups dba eds directfb doc dri dvd dvdread elibc_glibc 
emboss encode esd ethereal exif expat fam fastbuild foomaticdb 
force-cgi-redirect fortran ftp gd gcj gdbm gif glut gmp gnome gpm gstreamer 
gtk gtk2 gtkhtml guile hal hardened idn imlib ipv6 jpeg java javascript kde 
kdexdeltas kernel_linux lcms libg++ libwww mad memlimit mikmod mhash mng 
motif mozilla mime mmx mp3 mpeg ncurses nls nptl ogg opengl oss pam pcre 
pdflib perl png posix python qt quicktime readline samba sdl session 
simplexml slang soap sockets spell spl ssl sse sse2 svg tcltk tcpd tiff 
tokenizer truetype truetype-fonts type1-fonts usb udev userland_GNU vorbis 
x86 xml xml2 xmms xsl xv zlib"
FEATURES=""

If anyone has any suggestions to further fine-tune this for a Pentium-M 1.0 
GHz Ultra-Low Voltage chip, please tell me.

> > First:
> >
> > I'd like to know where I can change the USE flags globally, such that all
> > new activity will have no debug support, which I don't need.  I'd also
> > like to add KDE/Qt functionality, if that's possible on the global level
> > as well. (snip)
>
> Well add the following line to /etc/make.conf
> 	USE="kde qt"
>
> I do believe that kde, qt and -debug are in make.defaults.. Atleast in
> x86 profiles they are, so i don't think you need to add the USE="kde qt"
> line to /etc/make.conf as they are enabled by default

I looked and they were already there.  However, MMX, SSE and SSE2 were not 
enabled, so I enabled those.

> > How can I specifically re-build a package with changed USE flags?  (snip)
>
> emerge --newuse --update --deep world

I'll try that just a little later, when I can leave my laptop without needing 
to use it for anything, so that it can happily chew away at everything 
without my needing to lag through other things.

> Hope this helps,

It did!  Thanks a bunch.  I'm going to have fun tweaking my system for maximum 
performance (one of my favorite passtimes while coding, I have to admit) with 
these new options open to me!

> Farhan Ahmed
>
> PS: For more info about portage and USE flags, check the Gentoo
> documentation,
> http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=2
> read all the sections, they contain valuable info..

I'll put them on my "to-read" list.  Right now I've got to go hunting through 
MSDN for some junk on Visual C/C++/C#, for work.  I don't normally go to MSDN 
of my own accord, other than to check up on them and make sure they're still 
there making millions of people angry.