GCC 4.1: Buildable on GHz machines only?

[Matt Thomas <matt at 3am-software dot com>]

Over the past month I've been making sure that GCC 4.1 works on NetBSD.
I've completed bootstraps on sparc, sparc64, arm, x86_64, i386, alpha,
mipsel, mipseb, and powerpc.  I've done cross-build targets for vax.
Results have been sent to gcc-testsuite.

The times to complete bootstraps on older machines has been bothering me.
It took nearly 72 hours for 233MHz StrongArm with 64MB to complete a
bootstrap (with libjava).  It took over 48 hours for a 120MHz MIPS R4400
(little endian) with 128MB to finish (without libjava) and a bit over 24
hours for a 250MHz MIPS R4400 (big endian) with 256MB to finish (again,
no libjava).  That doesn't even include the time to run the testsuites.

I have a 50MHz 68060 with 96MB of memory (MVME177) approaching 100 hours
(48 hours just to exit stage3 and start on the libraries) doing a bootstrap
knowing that it's going to die when doing the ranlib of libjava.  The kernel
for the 060 isn't configured with a large enough dataspace to complete the
ranlib.

Most of the machines I've listed above are relatively powerful machines
near the apex of performance of their target architecture.  And yet GCC4.1
can barely be bootstrapped on them.

I do most of my GCC work on a 2GHz x86_64 because it's so fast.  I'm afraid
the widespread availability of such fast machines hides the fast that the
current performance of GCC on older architectures is appalling.

I'm going to run some bootstraps with --disable-checking just to see how
much faster they are.  I hope I'm going to pleasantly surprised but I'm
not counting on it.
--
Matt Thomas                     email: matt@3am-software.com
3am Software Foundry              www: http://3am-software.com/bio/matt/
Cupertino, CA              disclaimer: I avow all knowledge of this message.