Facebook Has Been Working On BOLT'ing The Linux Kernel For Greater Performance
![LINUX KERNEL](/assets/categories/linuxkernel.webp)
Similar to the challenges in allowing Profile Guided Optimizations (PGO) of the Linux kernel, BOLT'ing the Linux kernel faces similar complex hurdles around properly profiling/sampling the kernel with relevant workloads for optimization, the massive code-base of the kernel, modules vs. core kernel code, etc, compared to the existing BOLT focus on just optimizing ELF application executables. BOLT'ing the kernel was talked about at this week's Linux Plumbers Conference.
It's a worthy effort though as Facebook continues to promote "double digit speedups" with BOLT on top of PGO+LTO compiler optimizations. These speed-ups come by way of optimizing the code layout of the executable for more efficient hardware page usage and instruction caching.
Those interested in Facebook's BOLT optimization tool in general or the prospects of in the future being able to fully BOLT the kernel, see the presentation (below) and slides by Facebook's Maksim Panchenko. The BOLT code itself continues to be open-source and developed in the open on GitHub.
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