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

[John Check]

On Wednesday 25 August 2004 07:04 am, james at dis-dot-dat.net wrote:
> 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.
>

YES. This is a much better argument. If it wasn't for having to keep a source 
respository (maybe it's optional) that would save disk space. I used to mount
the cache on an NFS share (only had a 20GB disk). Now if I had an office full 
of clones and a build host, that's as good as it gets.

> 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".
>

Also a cogent point.

> 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

Me Too!