[gentoo-dev] GCC 3 Vs GCC 2 and some other stuff

["Eugenia Loli-Queru" <eloli@hotmail.com>]

IMO, GCC 3 is better because it generates BETTER and FASTER code. I am all 
to see it included in the next Gentoo as default. The compilation time is 
indeed slower than GCC 2.95.X, because it does things that are more complex 
(hey, they have fixed their previously half-baked C++ support) and because 
it has not been optimized yet. However, the trade off is acceptable, because 
you got Konqueror or other (especially) C++ applications to run TIMES 
faster, *especially* when optimized for PPRO and above (i686). GCC 3.x does 
not generate as good and fast code as the Intel compiler ("Proton") does, 
but it certainly beats GCC 2.95.x as much Proton beats GCC 3.x. ;-D

So, regarding your benchmarks Spider. There is something wrong, definately. 
And I think our gentoo kernel heads around here should take a close look at 
it. Sure, GCC 3.X *is* slower on compilation time, however, your tests show 
a very disturbing fact: Under some circumstances, your CPU seems to spend 
unreasonable amount of time not doing anything. This could be an indication 
of a bigger issue, possibly a configuration or a hardware issue. There might 
be an  issue going on with the cache or the filesystem or even the loader. 
How much memory the PC you used has and what kind of drive and filesystem 
did you use? (I hope that all this is not a side effect of one of the Gentoo 
kernel patches...)

On a completely different issue, I just emerged Netscape 4.x. Netscape's 
fonts when loading any page are extremely small while Opera's fonts are ugly 
as nothing else on this planet. I think some Xft configuration is not done 
properly...
Also, when one emerges XFCE, XFCE does not load its window manager, because 
the xfce little script on /etc/X11/Sessions/ asks for the 'xfce' binary 
instead of the standard 'startxfce'.

As for the KDM problem that someone also mentioned in this list, I have the 
same problem. The user "eugenia" (part of the 'wheel' and 'audio' groups) 
cannot load KDM (it just doesn't load anything, with no errors displayed), 
while everything runs fine as a root. Any ideas? (standard X with twm works 
fine for user 'eugenia' over here)

Best Regards,
Eugenia


               -----------------
    Editor-in-Chief at http://www.OSNews.com
    Email: eugenia@osnews.com - ICQ: 6070904
     Home page at http://www.eugenia.co.uk







.

_________________________________________________________________
MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: 
http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx