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From: David Dawes <dawes@rf900.physics.usyd.edu.au>
Message-Id: <199607140535.PAA21721@rf900.physics.usyd.edu.au>
Subject: Re: Kernel Config (Was: GENERIC Kernel Debate)
To: hasty@rah.star-gate.com (Amancio Hasty)
Date: Sun, 14 Jul 1996 15:35:11 +1000 (EST)
Cc: lenzi@cwbone.bsi.com.br, sextonr.crestvie@squared.com,
        freebsd-hackers@freefall.freebsd.org
In-Reply-To: <199607140320.UAA00618@rah.star-gate.com> from "Amancio Hasty" at Jul 13, 96 08:20:51 pm
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>>From The Desk Of "Lenzi, Sergio" :
>> On Thu, 11 Jul 1996, Sexton, Robert wrote:
>> 
>> Hello Robert,
>> I have been using sysV kernels for a long time too. Now I am an BSD 
>> converted. The problem for kernel build time (30 minutes) or so seems to 
>> be too long compared with of a SysV rel 3.2.
>
>The issue of 30minutes for a kernel compile has got to be due
>to gcc . Not sure what changed between gcc-1.42 and and gcc-2.x however
>simple minded experiments have shown that gcc-2.x takes about 3 times
>longer to compile. The other major factor is the cpu/disk/controller and
>if you have a minimally configured system, memory is important.

One big difference on most commercial OSs is that you don't have the
kernel source, and so at most, you are just recompiling the small pieces
required by config changes, and linking pre-compiled objects.  If there
was an option to do the same thing with FreeBSD, kernel rebuild time
would be much less than 30 minutes too.

David