Linux Gazette: Optimizing GCC

[ Thanks to Justin
Piszcz for this link. ]

“I have a Pentium 3 866MHZ CPU. After reading the freshmeat
article on optimizing GCC a few days ago, it got me thinking. So I
posed the following question: How much faster would gcc compile the
kernel if gcc itself was optimized? I chose to benchmark kernel
compilation times, because I think it is a good benchmark, and many
other people also use it to benchmark system performance. Also, at
one point or another, most Linux users will have to take the step
and compile the kernel, so I thought I’d benchmark something that
is useful and something that people have a general idea of how long
it takes to compile without optimizations. So my test is comprised
of the following:

1. “Run 10 kernel compilations and calculate the average time.
   • Regular GCC build.
   • Optimized GCC build.
2. “The kernel in question is the latest stable Linux kernel.
   • At this time, 2.4.20 remains the latest stable Linux
     kernel.
3. “The GCC used with this test is the latest stable gcc.
   • At this time, 3.2.2 remains the lastest stable gcc.

Complete
Story