Fast Kernel Headers Work Restarted For Linux To Ultimately Speed Up Build Times

[sophisticles]

Veteran developers: improves performance

Vocal 1% minority: don't make it faster

It's not "don't make it faster" it's the mentality that permeates the open source world that keeps all things Linux related in a perpetually beta state.

Has every single other problem or feature been completed and now they can focus on compiling it even faster than under 30 seconds?

Seriously, what is it with this mentality?

[Kjell]

Has every single other problem or feature been completed and now they can focus on compiling it even faster than under 30 seconds?

How much code have you contributed?

[smitty3268]

It's not "don't make it faster" it's the mentality that permeates the open source world that keeps all things Linux related in a perpetually beta state.

Has every single other problem or feature been completed and now they can focus on compiling it even faster than under 30 seconds?

Seriously, what is it with this mentality?

The fact that it's been two years since the initial patches should tell you that the devs aren't exactly focused on this as a major problem, so I'm not sure why you're acting like this is a huge focus and they are ignoring everything else in order to tackle it.

That said, as a developer when you're recompiling something 100 times a day reducing compile times from 45 seconds to 30 seconds makes a bigger difference than you might think. Iterating becomes a lot less painful. It also allows for things like automated CI/CD to run more often/more cheaply which should then catch more errors faster.

[caligula]

I must be missing something, a 7700X, 8C/16T, is capable of building the kernel in under 79 seconds, that's not fast enough?

Linus's system builds it in 22 seconds, how much faster do they think they can go?

It's not that fast when 1000 developers are making one million commits per day and the CI/CD farm needs to process all that crap. C is one of the few remaining languages which don't have a proper module system. Even Java has one.

I'd like to believe your comment was sarcastic, but unfortunately I'm afraid it wasn't.

[sophisticles]

Yes, if you configure your kernel with make allnoconfig followed by time make -j$(nproc), for which the system installing your kernel would be completely useless. I'm assuming on a stock distribution config (make allmodconfig gets you pretty close to this), you're going to clock somewhere between 10-15 minutes, and packaging overhead to make your build redistributable would add another 3 or so minutes.

I'm talking about a default config:

https://www.phoronix.com/review/amd-ryzen7-8700g-linux

The allmodconfig takes less than 16 minutes on the 7700X.

But let's be honest with ourselves, there's no better place to spend their energy than how fast the kernel can be compiled?

I say it's fast enough, concentrate on other areas,

Even better, how about they restructure the Linux kernel so that drivers aren't loaded modules of the kernel, you simply install drivers the way you do on Windows.

This way the kernel is very small and fast and you don't have to worry about compiling support for every Godforsaken device in existence.

It's time to move past Linux being a half-assed design.

[sophisticles]

How much code have you contributed?

None, zero, zilch, squat, jack shit, that's how much.

Want to know why?

Because I am not a sucker, that's why!

Linus makes 1.7 million dollars a year, the Linux Foundation makes 177 million a year, Alma Linux makes at least a million a year, Rocky Linux raised 26 million dollars in startup capital and makes millions a year and you think i am going to write a single line of code for free?

Fuck no!

When one of these projects pays me a good salary to write code or when they sign a legally binding contract to share their revenue with me, then I will contribute code.

Most GPL contributors are straight up suckers. The GPL is about screwing over your fellow man, get them to work for free, take their code, make a shit load of money from it and them complain if someone else want to benefit from code you never wrote.

The GPL is one of the biggest scams every perpetrated and if someone wants me to contribute anything they need to make it worth my time.

[damentz]

I'm talking about a default config:

https://www.phoronix.com/review/amd-ryzen7-8700g-linux

The allmodconfig takes less than 16 minutes on the 7700X.

But let's be honest with ourselves, there's no better place to spend their energy than how fast the kernel can be compiled?

I say it's fast enough, concentrate on other areas,

Even better, how about they restructure the Linux kernel so that drivers aren't loaded modules of the kernel, you simply install drivers the way you do on Windows.

This way the kernel is very small and fast and you don't have to worry about compiling support for every Godforsaken device in existence.

It's time to move past Linux being a half-assed design.

No one uses the default config in production or stock distributions, it's missing everything necessary to run on any real hardware. Where build times matter, you'll see zero engineers using it aside from smoke testing to make sure their pipeline works at all.

It's pretty clear that you're trying to tell developers and maintainers that their systems are fast enough while not being one yourself. You should just dip out of this conversation since you're completely out of your depth. That or you're trolling, which I think I'm leaning more on.

[jstoik]

I must be missing something, a 7700X, 8C/16T, is capable of building the kernel in under 79 seconds, that's not fast enough?

So that's how the other side lives! It takes my laptop around 90 minutes to run a fresh make bindeb-pkg!

[Kjell]

am going to write a single line of code for free?

Fuck no!

Alright, fair points.

I agee that rich companies like AMD could invest more money into developing and improving core system components (like proper HDR).

[Mitch]

I'm talking about a default config:

https://www.phoronix.com/review/amd-ryzen7-8700g-linux

The allmodconfig takes less than 16 minutes on the 7700X.

But let's be honest with ourselves, there's no better place to spend their energy than how fast the kernel can be compiled?

I say it's fast enough, concentrate on other areas,

Even better, how about they restructure the Linux kernel so that drivers aren't loaded modules of the kernel, you simply install drivers the way you do on Windows.

This way the kernel is very small and fast and you don't have to worry about compiling support for every Godforsaken device in existence.

It's time to move past Linux being a half-assed design.

People contributing to something as big as the kernel don't all focus on just one thing. And even individual contributors and groups do not always focus on the same thing always. Sometimes, you put some stuff out there, and while waiting for that to be tested by others, you throw more unrelated stuff in there.

But also, if the kernel compiled in 20 seconds, an optimization that gets that to 10 seconds would be awesome. This is because you can now make micro changes and wait even less time in between your compilations before you test that out. And sometimes your changes break or cause regressions late or after you compile so these time savings really add up. Multiply those savings again by the countless number of people who regularly compile the kernel.

I guarantee nobody is upset that somebody has figured out how to get compile times down.

Also, if the kernel can compile very fast on very powerful hardware, then maybe it can compile quickly on lesser hardware as well, like a laptop.

As a Dev myself, sometimes you just clear something off your backlog to take a break from all the other crap or because it has suddenly become yours or a friend's pet issue. Not all your changes will be exciting to everyone all the time.