[gentoo-user] Is my laptop getting old, or are some packages more and more demanding?

[gentoo-user] Is my laptop getting old, or are some packages more and more demanding?

[Mick]

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I looked at how long some packages are taking these days.  I noticed that 
firefox and chromium take a lot longer to emerge than was the case 3-4 years 
ago.  For example:

# genlop -t www-client/firefox
 * www-client/firefox

     Sat Dec 18 17:19:14 2010 >>> www-client/firefox-3.6.13
       merge time: 1 minute and 16 seconds.
[snip ...]

     Sat Jun 14 22:37:43 2014 >>> www-client/firefox-24.6.0
       merge time: 54 minutes and 59 seconds.


# genlop -t www-client/chromium
 * www-client/chromium

     Sat Aug  6 09:44:27 2011 >>> www-client/chromium-13.0.782.107-r1
       merge time: 30 minutes and 52 seconds.
[snip ...]

     Sat Jun 14 21:42:44 2014 >>> www-client/chromium-35.0.1916.153
       merge time: 1 hour, 34 minutes and 49 seconds.


I am wondering if something in my configuration is causing this, rather than 
my laptop getting older for the continuously evolving and perhaps more 
demanding (in terms of resources to compile) software code.  Have you noticed 
something similar?
-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] Is my laptop getting old, or are some packages more and more demanding?

[Alan McKinnon]

On 15/06/2014 00:20, Mick wrote:
> I looked at how long some packages are taking these days.  I noticed that 
> firefox and chromium take a lot longer to emerge than was the case 3-4 years 
> ago.  For example:
> 
> # genlop -t www-client/firefox
>  * www-client/firefox
> 
>      Sat Dec 18 17:19:14 2010 >>> www-client/firefox-3.6.13
>        merge time: 1 minute and 16 seconds.
> [snip ...]
> 
>      Sat Jun 14 22:37:43 2014 >>> www-client/firefox-24.6.0
>        merge time: 54 minutes and 59 seconds.
> 
> 
> # genlop -t www-client/chromium
>  * www-client/chromium
> 
>      Sat Aug  6 09:44:27 2011 >>> www-client/chromium-13.0.782.107-r1
>        merge time: 30 minutes and 52 seconds.
> [snip ...]
> 
>      Sat Jun 14 21:42:44 2014 >>> www-client/chromium-35.0.1916.153
>        merge time: 1 hour, 34 minutes and 49 seconds.
> 
> 
> I am wondering if something in my configuration is causing this, rather than 
> my laptop getting older for the continuously evolving and perhaps more 
> demanding (in terms of resources to compile) software code.  Have you noticed 
> something similar?
> 


Compilers are getting clever, I observe that to be the main reason.

In years gone by, a compiler would start at the top of the .c and work
towards the bottom, generating code. Hey, it works, even if the code is
not the most optimum code possible.

Nowadays, compilers spend ages figuring out the best code paths and
optimizing. This takes time and RAM - gobs and gobs and gobs of RAM.
Price of progress.

A secondary factor is that packages just get bigger overall with time.
Often with bloat, but not always.

Your firefox example is very skewed - in the 3.x days firefox was really
just a front end thingie and the bulk of the code was in backend
packages (eg xulrunner).

Chromium is a good example, that one has grown *enormously*

And maybe your disks are tired too :-) . You do have hdparm results from
4 years ago to compare?


-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckinnon@gmail.com

Re: [gentoo-user] Is my laptop getting old, or are some packages more and more demanding?

[Walter Dnes]

On Sat, Jun 14, 2014 at 11:20:40PM +0100, Mick wrote
> I looked at how long some packages are taking these days.  I noticed that 
> firefox and chromium take a lot longer to emerge than was the case 3-4 years 
> ago.  For example:

[...deletia...]
 
> I am wondering if something in my configuration is causing this,
> rather than my laptop getting older for the continuously evolving
> and perhaps more demanding (in terms of resources to compile)
> software code.  Have you noticed something similar?

  The firefox-24.5.0esr.source.tar.bz2 tarball is 119,830,718 bytes!!!
I'm an old fart who remembers back in the days of DOS when that was the
entire hard drive.

  If you think firefox is insane, chromium is stark raving berserk.  It's
bad enough that the current chromium tarball is 185,717 KB (i.e. approx
190,174,208 bytes).  What's worse, to paraphrase the old emacs joke, is
that chromium is a mediocre operating system that lacks a lightweight
web browser.  Remember when AOL tried to turn Netscape into a vitual OS
on top of Windows/linux/etc?  Google seems to be doing the same with
chrome.  I already have firefox and opera and uzbl and dillo on my
system.  Emerging chromium would pull in 25 additional packages.
"Chromium-OS" requires opus and speex and libsndfile and
speech-dispatcher and one of systemd/udev or eudev!!!  It won't build on
my mdev-based system.

  I remember the "good-old-days", manually building phoenix betas from
source, because it really was a lightweight web-browser.  Those days are
now a distant memory.  Things are looking grim on the lightweight web
browser front for linux.  Using the car analogy, Phoenix/Firebird/Firefox
has degenerated from a lightweight sub-compact to an oversized
gas-guzzling SUV.  Ditto for Chromium.  UZBL and Midori are different
shells on top of webkit-gtk.  Webkit-gtk1 has been deprecated in favour
of webkit-gtk2, which pulls in the latest gtk3, i.e. half of GNOME.  And
for good measure, webkit-gtk2 also pulls in ruby!!!  WTF???

  Opera appears to be no longer developed for posix (linux/bsd/etc).
I.e. linux is at version 12.16 while Windows is at 22.0!  Given the way
browsers have bloated recently, that may be good thing.  Security
patches still seem to be coming.  But don't expect the latest/greatest
web-pages to work.

  The Dillo project is still alive and being developed, but it doesn't
yet support Javascript, let alone plugins.  It'll be a while before it's
usable on most of today's web.

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org>
I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications

Re: [gentoo-user] Is my laptop getting old, or are some packages more and more demanding?

[Mick]

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On Saturday 14 Jun 2014 23:57:43 Alan McKinnon wrote:
> On 15/06/2014 00:20, Mick wrote:
> > I looked at how long some packages are taking these days.  I noticed that
> > firefox and chromium take a lot longer to emerge than was the case 3-4
> > years ago.  For example:
[snip ...]

> Your firefox example is very skewed - in the 3.x days firefox was really
> just a front end thingie and the bulk of the code was in backend
> packages (eg xulrunner).

Ahh! Yes, well spotted.  I had forgotten about xulrunner, which was growing at 
an alarming rate as I recall.


> Chromium is a good example, that one has grown *enormously*
> 
> And maybe your disks are tired too :-) . You do have hdparm results from
> 4 years ago to compare?

I have not install hdparm on this laptop, thinking that I do not really need 
it for anything.  Anyway, do disks spin slower with age?  Even if their 
bearings theoretically wear out and eventually slow down, would this be 
perceptible?

What readings would I be comparing?  hdparm -t and -T?

-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] Is my laptop getting old, or are some packages more and more demanding?

[Alan McKinnon]

On 15/06/2014 09:27, Mick wrote:
>> And maybe your disks are tired too :-) . You do have hdparm results from
>> > 4 years ago to compare?
> I have not install hdparm on this laptop, thinking that I do not really need 
> it for anything.  Anyway, do disks spin slower with age?  Even if their 
> bearings theoretically wear out and eventually slow down, would this be 
> perceptible?
> 
> What readings would I be comparing?  hdparm -t and -T?


Yes, I'd look at those two. If disk performance was suffering due to
age, I'd expect your seek times to suffer and that should show up with -tT

Not too sure really how wear and tear translates to real life; overall
it's probably just simple bloat you have, to borrow Walter's analogy you
started with a sub-compact and now have a ginormous SUV!



-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckinnon@gmail.com

Re: [gentoo-user] Is my laptop getting old, or are some packages more and more demanding?

[Mick]

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On Sunday 15 Jun 2014 20:37:46 Alan McKinnon wrote:
> On 15/06/2014 09:27, Mick wrote:
> >> And maybe your disks are tired too :-) . You do have hdparm results from
> >> 
> >> > 4 years ago to compare?
> > 
> > I have not install hdparm on this laptop, thinking that I do not really
> > need it for anything.  Anyway, do disks spin slower with age?  Even if
> > their bearings theoretically wear out and eventually slow down, would
> > this be perceptible?
> > 
> > What readings would I be comparing?  hdparm -t and -T?
> 
> Yes, I'd look at those two. If disk performance was suffering due to
> age, I'd expect your seek times to suffer and that should show up with -tT
> 
> Not too sure really how wear and tear translates to real life; overall
> it's probably just simple bloat you have, to borrow Walter's analogy you
> started with a sub-compact and now have a ginormous SUV!

I think that's call progress.  ;-)

The Internet has grown and technology develops to deliver all this new 
functionality that lynx can't really provide.

-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] Is my laptop getting old, or are some packages more and more demanding?

[Walter Dnes]

On Sun, Jun 15, 2014 at 10:52:21PM +0100, Mick wrote
> On Sunday 15 Jun 2014 20:37:46 Alan McKinnon wrote:
>
> > 
> > Not too sure really how wear and tear translates to real life;
> > overall it's probably just simple bloat you have, to borrow Walter's
> > analogy you started with a sub-compact and now have a ginormous SUV!
> 
> I think that's call progress.  ;-)
> 
> The Internet has grown and technology develops to deliver all this new 
> functionality that lynx can't really provide.

  Much of Firefox+Chrome+Webkit-gtk2 is not really necessary.  It gets
added just the same.

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org>
I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications