From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Apr 17 17:35:26 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4DAEE37B401 for ; Thu, 17 Apr 2003 17:35:26 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fledge.watson.org (fledge.watson.org [204.156.12.50]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8949E43F3F for ; Thu, 17 Apr 2003 17:35:25 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from robert@fledge.watson.org) Received: from fledge.watson.org (fledge.pr.watson.org [192.0.2.3]) by fledge.watson.org (8.12.9/8.12.9) with SMTP id h3I0ZWrE065397; Thu, 17 Apr 2003 20:35:33 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from robert@fledge.watson.org) Date: Thu, 17 Apr 2003 20:35:31 -0400 (EDT) From: Robert Watson X-Sender: robert@fledge.watson.org To: Dan Nelson In-Reply-To: <20030417211205.GC28037@dan.emsphone.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII cc: Scott Long cc: current@freebsd.org cc: John Polstra Subject: Re: HEADS UP: new NSS X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 18 Apr 2003 00:35:26 -0000 On Thu, 17 Apr 2003, Dan Nelson wrote: > > If switching to a fully dynamically linked system is desired before > > 6.0 then it needs to happen before 5.2. I'm not opposed to this. > > I'm more worried about the performance hit than foot-shooting (schg is > protection enough I think, and I like beagles). > > I believe dynamically-linked programs still are ~20% slower than static > ones, and for small programs like sed, awk, expr, sh, basename, tr, and > the like, the larger (constant) startup time becomes significant also. > > Anyone want to benchmark a medium-sized portbuild with static vs dynamic > /bin and /sbin? Well, I think that the measurements should be done, but it's worth noting that several of the programs you quote above have been dynamically linked for years: sed dynamic awk dynamic expr static sh static basename dynamic tr dynamic Some might argue that even to support NSS, expr wouldn't need to become dynamic. One of the noted benefits of running with a dynamic system is that you can actually save a fair amount of memory by not requiring separate physical memory storage for each instance of libc. There are a number of trade-offs, and we're certainly not the first to approach this decision :-). I'd be very interested in seeing some micro-benchmark and macro-benchmark performance results, however. Robert N M Watson FreeBSD Core Team, TrustedBSD Projects robert@fledge.watson.org Network Associates Laboratories