[linux-audio-dev] Hello - FYI - intro

[james at dis-dot-dat.net]

On Wed, 25 Aug, 2004 at 05:58PM +1000, Erik de Castro Lopo spake thus:
> On Tue, 24 Aug 2004 19:56:27 -0400
> Paul Winkler <pw_lists at slinkp.com> wrote:
> 
> > On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 06:35:12PM -0400, John Check wrote:
> > > > > It's completely dwarfed by compile time.
> > > >
> > > 
> > > Are you sure you wanted to say that ;)
> > 
> > Yes. First rule of optimization: don't optimize something that's
> > statistically irrelevant. 
> 
> <vent=11/10>
> I wish that attitude was more prevalent in the ricer community.
> 
> I've been getting emails from a Gentoo ricer suggesting a whole
> bunch of "optimisations" for libsndfile. A small number of these
> were valid, but the vast majority were not measurably faster as
> measured by the benchmark program shipped with libsndfile.
> </vent>

I appologise on behalf of all Gentooers.  It really isn't just for
ricers, they just seem to shout loudest sometimes.

In fact, the real power of Gentoo when it comes to speed aren't these
micro-optimisations and hardcore gcc flag tuning, it's the ability to
remove certain things completely.  You don't use Gnome?  Well, gentoo
won't compile gnome support into your apps.  There are lots and lots
of these things and they do make a difference.  It's also much easier
to swap out bits of your OS - replace xfree with x.org, faster
lighter tty gubbins, etc.

Personally, I don't bother, but that's where the real speed
differences come from.  Absolutely nothing is installed unless you
need it or asked for it.  No daemons floating around "just in case".

Anyway, I think I'll stop now.  If anyone knows where that article
about the two emacs users comparing their systems is, please send me
a link.

James
 
> Erik

-- 
"I'd crawl over an acre of 'Visual This++' and 'Integrated Development
That' to get to gcc, Emacs, and gdb.  Thank you."
(By Vance Petree, Virginia Power)