GNU C Library 2.33 Should Be Out Soon - And It's Very Exciting Due To "HWCAPS"

[phoronix]

Phoronix: GNU C Library 2.33 Should Be Out Soon - And It's Very Exciting Due To "HWCAPS"

While most Linux users likely don't get excited when hearing of a new Glibc release, version 2.33 of the GNU C Library is due to be released next week and it's pretty darn interesting for having the new HWCAPS functionality in opening up for more optimized out-of-the-box Linux performance moving forward...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Glibc-2.33-Coming-HWCAPS

[jacob]

Ubuntu 21.04 will embrace LTO but I guess it's too late for it to enable HWCAPS as well. Maybe in 21.10?

[MadeUpName]

I'm not saying this is a bad thing, but the word bloat keeps popping into my head.

[skeevy420]

I'm not saying this is a bad thing, but the word bloat keeps popping into my head.

That's what I first thought, but it really depends on how package managers and distributions deal with it. If it's done in an all or none manner then lots of bloat; If done with some sort of split or meta package or /etc/pacman.conf option so pacman -S ffmpeg pulls in the relevant subarch package(s) then there probably won't be much bloat at all.

Replace the pacman stuff with your distribution of choice.

[ms178]

The distributions could offer flavors based on the new feature levels.

[dweigert]

Honestly, with modern storage sizes, bloat is a misnomer, since only some of the libraries variants would be loaded for any given CPU, not all of them. I see this as a win. Then again, I'm a weirdo who likes loading up the WHOLE distro, just in case I need something.

[skeevy420]

Most people with this mindset only see "bloat" in one dimension. Running 100 instructions where 10 will do is also bloat, but for some reason you never hear autistic anti-bloat people talking about that aspect.

That's because modern processors with high IPC are still likely to be paired with lackluster amounts of storage. I'm in the market for anything worth a shit and come across a lot of craptops, nulltrabooks, and deskflops that think 32 and 64gb ssds are just fine when I call them half of my game's patch. Distributions have to consider storage bloat just as much, if not more, as they do instruction bloat.


FWIW, I have a 500gb mirror, a 4tb mirror, a 2tb Windows drive, and a 480gb Linux drive waiting on a new home. Point is: While I could care less about storage bloat, all the ARM, Android, and low spec x86 devices out there makes storage bloat stand out as a challenge or issue for distribution maintainers.

[skeevy420]

hreindl

Create a new account or bother the powers that be, your posts don't show up. Only reason I know is because of email notifications.

[clavko]

Jeez, lighten up, glibc is a few MiB library... Bloat can hardly be applied to it. There are people working on it that may be considered genius savants. I'm sure they know what they're doing.

[MadeUpName]

Jeez, lighten up, glibc is a few MiB library... Bloat can hardly be applied to it. There are people working on it that may be considered genius savants. I'm sure they know what they're doing.

Lighten up? WTF? The first sentence was "I am not saying this is a bad thing".