Re: New to egcs, observations, questions

[David Wollmann <dwollmann at ibmhelp dot com>]

On Fri, 26 Feb 1999, Zack Weinberg wrote:

> On Fri, 26 Feb 1999 13:45:26 -0600 (EST), David Wollmann wrote:
> >
> >I just install egcs 1.1.1 on my RH 5.0 box so I could get a proper
> >mySQL build .  I've rebuilt my 2.2.1 kernel and XFree86 3.3.3.1 with
> >it, and while I haven't noticed a significant speed increase, I have
> >observed that after the kernel an d X re-builds, my swap usage seems
> >to be much more sane. I noticed an improvemen t in swap after the
> >kernel build, and another improvement after re-building
> >XFree86. Thanks to the reduced swapping, I guess, the system seems to
> >be responding much quicker and smoother in X apps. Does egcs fix
> >memory leaks tha t exist in binaries compiled with gcc 2.7*?
> 
> I don't believe there's been a change that would affect this
> directly.  egcs 1.1.1 may do a better job of optimizing code, such
> that it doesn't use as much memory and/or locality of reference is
> improved (less thrashing).  2.2.1 kernel has some big improvements in
> the swap code, that might explain what you see - were you using it before?

Yes, I was using 2.2.1 built with gcc 2.7. While running gcc 2.7-built 2.2.1
kernel and XFree86 3.3.3.1, running a typical Netscape 4.5 session would eat up
about 32 of 64 MBs of swap and the system would get a little syrupy when
switching between (for example) a WM workspace with Xemacs and back to the
Netscape workspace. It seemed like most of the swapping was in X, with some
widgets drawing slowly while the disk thrashed. Right now I'm running NS 4.5,
Xemacs, kmahjongg, a couple xterms, one running Midnight Commander (recent) and
there's no swapping to speak of--free shows about 7MBs swap, most of it
belonging to X and NS 4.5. It's sweet, definitely much better than before I
started building things with egcs. I like it.

> 
> >Another question: being a newbie at glibc2, I'm wondering if I'm
> >going to hurt myself if I re-build pre6 with egcs? Should I rebuild
> >my apps or glibc2 first?
> 
> Libc 2.0.7pre6?  Don't even think about it.  Get the rpms for redhat
> 5.2 libc and use them.  Libc 2.0.x has to be compiled with great care
> and needs patches on top of the last public release in order to behave
> itself.  The bugs are around C++ and dynamic linkage.  mySQL probably
> hits both of those.

I should have been more specific, sorry. I've already successfully built
2.0.7pre6 with gcc 2.7 and have been running it for a couple weeks now. I'm
just wondering if building with egcs would be likely to cause any problems
before I spend the time.

FWIW, egcs built MySQL without any problems and it seems to be working
perfectly so far.

> 
> 2.1 libc is much better behaved but I still wouldn't advise trying to
> compile it yourself.

I thought 2.1 had been pulled from the mirrors? Is it still available
somewhere?

> 
> zw
> 

-- 
David Wollmann
DST / DST Data Conversion
http://www.ibmhelp.com/

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