From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Nov 5 22:30:21 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix, from userid 1233) id B7EF3106566C; Sat, 5 Nov 2011 22:30:21 +0000 (UTC) Date: Sat, 5 Nov 2011 22:30:21 +0000 From: Alexander Best To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Message-ID: <20111105223021.GA52651@freebsd.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Subject: reducing compiler instances during buildkernel X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 05 Nov 2011 22:30:21 -0000 hi there, when doing buildkernel one notices that the gcc or clang instances are spawned and closed so fast that top isn't fast enough to show them and the "last pid" field increases quite fast. obviously this produces quite a lot of syscall overhead. wouldn't it be possible to somehow spawn N gcc or clang instances (make -jN buildkernel) and then pipe the src to one of those N instances? just like with something like multics N processes were started and then people used the job control language to load binaries into those processes. cheers. alex