Re: [gentoo-user] OT - Is there a gcc-4.1.1 alternative?

[Dan <dan@spore.ath.cx>]

On Sun, 14 Jan 2007 02:39:07 -0500
PaulNM <gentoo@paulscrap.com> wrote:

> I once experienced something similar on my [i686 Pentium II
> (Klamath)] server. I don't remember exactly what part of gcc was
> compiling at the time of the "hang", but I found switching kernel
> versions helped. According to top, kswapd0 was very busy, basically
> using up most of the systems resources. Ssh'ing in was very slow due
> to that and the gcc compile. I stopped and restarted it twice after
> letting it run over night (8+ hrs). Normal compile time is "genlop -t
> gcc" about 4hrs and 15mins.

sounds like the classic low memory situation to me.  You run real low
on system memory, then swap, and kswapd has to work real hard to (I
assume this one) 'defragment' if you will the memory pages and keep as
much free memory available as possible.  sometimes, this manages to
slow things down so considerably that the program causing the problem
just hangs, trying to get more memory, and the rest of the programs on
the computer vie for limited resources, so things like ssh go real
slow.  

just a thought, in that you're running on a pentium, have you looked
into distributed compiling and crossdev?  It can't get tthe performance
you'd probably like out of your computer, but it might do a decent job
getting compile times down into the realm of tolerability.
Unfortunately, it probably won't help with gcc itself.  
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