[gentoo-user] Re: Gentoo's advantage: "optimized for your system" -- huh?

[Grant Edwards]

On 2009-02-04, James <wireless@×××××××××××.com> wrote:
> Grant Edwards <grante <at> visi.com> writes:
>
>> Whenever I see a write-up of Gentoo, it's described as a system
>> similar to BSD "ports" where you build packages from source.
>> The main benefit claimed for this approach is that you get
>> better performance because all executables are optimized for
>> exactly the right instruction set. is practically nil in
>> real-world usage.
>
> Not true.  You can eliminate many non-essential portions of a
> compiled program, via use flag and the freedom you get to
> select software, as opposed to other distros. Smaller
> executables are usually always faster.

You're right, that's another big advantage: you can control
what features get included/enabled in an application.  Leaving
out features you don't use makes a big difference in many
applications load/startup times and library dependancies. For
example, leaving out the Gnome and/or KDE support in some apps
makes a pretty big difference.  If you only use mutt with
"mbox" formatted mailboxes, you can leave out imap, ssl, pop,
and maildir support.

But that wasn't what I was talking about, and AFAICT that's not
what reviewers are talking about when they talk about adjusting
compiler flags to optimize performance. They seem to be talking
about building for Athlon instead of P4 (or vice-versa).
Perhaps I've always completely misunderstood the articles I've
read, and they were indeed talking about USE flags that control
options passed to "configure" and not about things like gcc's
-march and -O options.

> One *BIG* difference is when the GPUs on video cards are used
> as co-processors on systems. ATI and Nv are working on making
> general purpose "C" languages for programs to take advantage
> of the power of the GPU. Look for Gentoo to beat the other
> distros, by the very nature of how it compiles code for
> everything.

That would indeed be interesting.

-- 
Grant