[HOWTO] how I use to prelink (nvidia included) [x86] [~x86]

[hds]

welcome to the real world

I am sorry to say that, but this HOWTO is completely wrong...

i dont think so, well, lets see what you have to tell:

The "trick" to prelink against binary NVidia drivers by temporarily switching to xorg-x11 opengl implementation doesn't work in reality.

of course not - but it helps to see if you have got finished in the end, to get to "/sbin init u", no?

Because if you switch back to NVidia opengl implementation, your OpenGL applications will be using non-prelinked libraries, so you gain nothing.

of course not - sure it is a kludge. but it lets you finish your prelinking, and plenty people in here did see a real speed improvement actually.
so what do you have to say to improve my HowTo? and why is it completly wrong
//edit: what do you mean with "switch back"? i explicitely told you you should not run env-update until all steps are finished.

anyway, i see much positive feedback, it didnt work for me with his howto, i even contacted the author of the howto - he didnt reply back. so what am i able to do

[Mikos]

Well, if you want to use OpenGL, you must switch back to NVidia implementation (by running "opengl-update nvidia"). If you do that, you lose all speedup gained by prelink for those applications linked to libGL.so. So you don't need to do this "trick" at all.

I am using nvidia opengl drivers and prelink works for me even without this trick...

Btw. sorry, I haven't mean it bad... it was only advice

[radfoj]

I am using nvidia opengl drivers and prelink works for me even without this trick...

Mikos, what about this messages, you havent them? Plenty of them:

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prelink: /usr/X11R6/bin/xdriinfo: Cannot prelink against non-PIC shared library /usr/lib/opengl/nvidia/lib/libGL.so.1
prelink: /usr/games/bin/chromium: Cannot prelink against non-PIC shared library /usr/lib/opengl/nvidia/lib/libGL.so.1
prelink: /usr/games/bin/foobillard: Cannot prelink against non-PIC shared library /usr/lib/opengl/nvidia/lib/libGL.so.1
prelink: /usr/kde/3.3/bin/kspace.kss: Cannot prelink against non-PIC shared library /usr/lib/opengl/nvidia/lib/libGL.so.1
prelink: /usr/kde/3.3/bin/kgravity.kss: Cannot prelink against non-PIC shared library /usr/lib/opengl/nvidia/lib/libGL.so.1
prelink: /usr/X11R6/bin/glxgears: Cannot prelink against non-PIC shared library /usr/lib/opengl/nvidia/lib/libGL.so.1
prelink: /usr/bin/mplayer: Cannot prelink against non-PIC shared library /usr/lib/opengl/nvidia/lib/libGL.so.1
prelink: /usr/kde/3.3/bin/amarokapp: Cannot prelink against non-PIC shared library /usr/lib/opengl/nvidia/lib/libGL.so.1

You ignore this or have other "trick"?

[hds]

Well, if you want to use OpenGL, you must switch back to NVidia implementation (by running "opengl-update nvidia"). If you do that, you lose all speedup gained by prelink for those applications linked to libGL.so. So you don't need to do this "trick" at all.

read my lips again:
it gets through until "sbin init U"

[Mikos]

radfoj: Yes, you can ignore these messages. Even if you use that trick, when you switch back to nvidia opengl, these programs will be nevertheless unprelinked. But I don't think that prelinking of OpenGL screensavers is important

hds: If I remember it right, I have seen it. But I doubt this is important. I have read Gentoo Linux Prelink Guide and documentation for prelink ("man prelink", etc.) and from what I know, these messages aren't important at all. All libraries (except of that libraries where you see prelink error messages - like libGL.so) are prelinked. Maybe I am wrong, but it works for me that way...

[i92guboj]

I think all the last messages are getting just to conffussion... It is true that when you do this trick you don't prelink anything about opengl libraries, also, is true that, anyway you are prelinking the rest of your system. Also true that there is no need at all to make such a trick, but also true that it does not hurt at all, if you don't like warning messages you can do the trick, if you like them don't do it, if you just like to see the /sbin thing the prelink -Ramv (or whatever) | grep "sbin init U". No need to fight for this, please. The effect with or without this trick will just be the same.

Anyway the prelink against these gl libraries fails cause they are not in a standard format (closed source).......
Ah! the thing about the libraries in the first page is documented somewhere in the prelink howto, although i don't remember if the english or the spanish web.....
Also to say that prelink performance raise for me is near zero, maybe cause i use lighter apps, don't know (anyway no kde at all). And yes pic (that mostly turnc -fPIC in ./configure as someone stated above, so there's no error on thinking anything is wrong about -fPIC) is active and also -fPIC. Anyway you can see this -fPIC over any compilation in gentoo (almos any, of course, except the ones relative to the programs that fails to prelink). Kde apps do not have pic use flag, but uses internally -fPIC in al build, so not a thing to worry.

[Mikos]

I have tested it again:

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tauri portage # prelink -afmR
prelink: /usr/kde/3.3/bin/kfountain.kss: Cannot prelink against non-PIC shared library /usr/lib/opengl/nvidia/lib/libGL.so.1
prelink: /usr/kde/3.3/bin/kwave.kss: Cannot prelink against non-PIC shared library /usr/lib/opengl/nvidia/lib/libGL.so.1
prelink: /usr/bin/glxgears: Cannot prelink against non-PIC shared library /usr/lib/opengl/nvidia/lib/libGL.so.1
prelink: /usr/bin/mplayer: Cannot prelink against non-PIC shared library /usr/lib/opengl/nvidia/lib/libGL.so.1
prelink: /usr/bin/mpeg3dump: Cannot prelink against non-PIC shared library /usr/lib/liba52.so.0
prelink: /usr/bin/a52dec: Cannot prelink against non-PIC shared library /usr/lib/liba52.so.0

...

prelink: /usr/bin/lqtplay: Cannot prelink against non-PIC shared library /usr/lib/opengl/nvidia/lib/libGL.so.1
prelink: /usr/bin/mpeg3split: Cannot prelink against non-PIC shared library /usr/lib/liba52.so.0
prelink: /usr/bin/mencoder: Cannot prelink against non-PIC shared library /usr/lib/libdivxencore.so.0
prelink: /usr/bin/avidemux2: Cannot prelink against non-PIC shared library /usr/lib/liba52.so.0
Executing /sbin/init U

It was done using nvidia opengl, so I was right, you don't have to temporarily switch to xorg-x11 while prelinking... only applications linked to OpenGL library (and to some multimedia libraries like liba52 and libavformat) aren't prelinked, it is OK.

[[UK]Superdude]

I removed duplicate entries in the /etc/prelink.conf file and prelink has seemed to work.

Should this become a bug report? It seems that the behaviour of env-update is wrong, or at least prelink needs to be able to deal with duplicates?

Does anyone have anything else to add?

[radfoj]

Hi, I am here again. Today I decided to make little benchmark and also to resolv some my question (ie. how often is it good to prelink again) . I tried kaffeine becouse:
- its small and reemerging it doestn take too long
- kaffeine has "systrey icon" so works great with time command

At first - I have my system prelinked. So I emerged kaffeine again and rebooted.

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$ time kaffeine
real 2.512s 1.493s 1.489s 1.491s 1.497s 1.491s 1.499s 1.491s 2.048s

A was also not sure, what reemerging it did to prelink - is kaffeine still prelinked? I think not so I tried:

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# prelink -qavmR
Prelinking /usr/lib/libkmediapart.so.0.0.1
Prelinking /usr/bin/kaffeine

I rebooted again and:

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$ time kaffeine
real 2.291s 1.071s 1.067s 1.073s 1.071s 1.075s 1.097s 1.069s 1.074s

So prelink doesnt work? Yes its only small app, it should be interesting try with kmail (also works great with "time"). Yes, I will try, I only have to find how at first unprelink him (-u option). And amarok will be my third and last test. It will be VERY VERY interesting due its linked to nvidia.

Also from this little test its good prelink frekfently if you are often emerging.

EDITED - I forgot to add, that lines after $ time kaffeine - I typed it 9X and post only the real startup times

[etnoy]

Oh I didn't realize that I still missed out 1 duplicated entry! After the commented the last one out, prelink finally gives me a lot of output!!! (and my last line was Executing /sbin/init U)

I have yet found a way to prevent duplicated entries in prelink.conf. I don't really know how to change the 60prelink file. This is rather irritating. But I am glad enough that it works!

Thanks everybody!

File a bug about it, so that you give back to the community

[radfoj]

Second test with Kmail. Becouse it takes too long to reemerge kdepim and I have log from my last prelink, I found two lines with prelinking kmail. So I tried revert only this two ones to their originaly content (maybe there are others with some relation to kmail, but I didnt care about it). I did it by this:

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# prelink -uv /usr/kde/3.3/bin/kmail
# prelink -uv /usr/kde/3.3/bin/kmailcvt

Rebooted and 9 times I started kmail by "time kmail".

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6.489s 2.699s 2.685s 3.085s 2.693s 2.687s 2.714s 2.722s 2.679s

Next step was to prelink it back:

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# prelink -qavmR
Prelinking /usr/kde/3.3/bin/kmailcvt
Prelinking /usr/kde/3.3/bin/kmail

After reboot I started kmail again and also 9 times:

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4.576s 1.077s 1.066s 1.081s 1.075s 1.065s 1.078s 1.072s 1.662s

GREAT, or not? Yes, from both test I see, that the first run is not so faster as in the following runs.

hds, in my opinion, what about little editing your howto, especially with the trick switching from nvidia opengl ..... its not nessecesy in every cases .... yes there are some people (and you) who without it couldnt prelink succesfully.
I have nvidia card and nvidia drivers and in both tries prelink ends with "Executing /sbin/init U" ..... yes, during prelinking in nvidia opengl with much more messages about "Cannot prelink against non-PIC shared library"
And the test were done without your trick. There is also one reason, in which I prefer "direct" prelink .... I want add to cron some line and the with switching the opengl environment only for prelink purposes for crontab it would be more problematic. [/quote]

[popopo_]

I'm a getting a weird error with prelink
It works, but right after trying to prelink libgcc_s.so.1, every lib that depends on it doesn't prelink

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Prelinking /usr/lib/gcc-lib/i686-pc-linux-gnu/3.4.3/libgcc_s.so.1
prelink: Could not prelink /usr/kde/3.4/lib/libDCOP.so.4 because it doesn't use /lib/libgcc_s.so.1, but one of its dependencies has been prelinked against it
prelink: Could not prelink /usr/kde/3.4/lib/libkdecore.so.4 because its dependency /usr/kde/3.4/lib/libDCOP.so.4 could not be prelinked
etc...

I tried a ldd on libDCOP.so.4, and i get this result

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% ldd /usr/kde/3.4/lib/libDCOP.so.4
        linux-gate.so.1 =>  (0xffffe000)
        libqt-mt.so.3 => /usr/qt/3/lib/libqt-mt.so.3 (0x40031000)
        libaudio.so.2 => /usr/lib/libaudio.so.2 (0x40773000)
        libXt.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXt.so.6 (0x40788000)
        libmng.so.1 => /usr/lib/libmng.so.1 (0x407dd000)
        libjpeg.so.62 => /usr/lib/libjpeg.so.62 (0x4083b000)
        libXi.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXi.so.6 (0x4085c000)
        libXrender.so.1 => /usr/lib/libXrender.so.1 (0x40865000)
        libXrandr.so.2 => /usr/lib/libXrandr.so.2 (0x4086d000)
        libXcursor.so.1 => /usr/lib/libXcursor.so.1 (0x40871000)
        libXft.so.2 => /usr/lib/libXft.so.2 (0x4087a000)
        libfreetype.so.6 => /usr/lib/libfreetype.so.6 (0x4088c000)
        libfontconfig.so.1 => /usr/lib/libfontconfig.so.1 (0x4090f000)
        libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x40958000)
        libpng.so.3 => /usr/lib/libpng.so.3 (0x4095c000)
        libXext.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXext.so.6 (0x40995000)
        libX11.so.6 => /usr/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x409a4000)
        libSM.so.6 => /usr/lib/libSM.so.6 (0x40a72000)
        libICE.so.6 => /usr/lib/libICE.so.6 (0x40a7b000)
        libpthread.so.0 => /lib/tls/libpthread.so.0 (0x40a94000)
        libstdc++.so.6 => //usr/lib/gcc/i686-pc-linux-gnu/3.4.3/libstdc++.so.6 (0x40aa7000)
        libm.so.6 => /lib/tls/libm.so.6 (0x40b78000)
        libc.so.6 => /lib/tls/libc.so.6 (0x40b9b000)
        libgcc_s.so.1 => //usr/lib/gcc/i686-pc-linux-gnu/3.4.3/libgcc_s.so.1 (0x40cc6000)
        libXau.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXau.so.6 (0x40cd0000)
        libz.so.1 => /lib/libz.so.1 (0x40cd3000)
        libexpat.so.0 => /usr/lib/libexpat.so.0 (0x40ce5000)
        /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x80000000)

Are the double / normal at the start of the lines with gcc ?

[Phlogiston]

OK, my system seems to be prelinked now. But after next emerging/unmerging, its important to care about it. So it would be nice, if somebody could post here how are you doing it.
Add it to crontab (what exactly) or add to some emerge script (how exactly) Or have you another idea?

I would also be interested in that? How could we automize the process of updating prelink? In best way with portage?

Thanks for your help and the HOWTO.

[Jimmy Jazz]

I removed duplicate entries in the /etc/prelink.conf file and prelink has seemed to work.

Should this become a bug report? It seems that the behaviour of env-update is wrong, or at least prelink needs to be able to deal with duplicates?

Does anyone have anything else to add?

Hello,

i don't think that is because you have duplicates but rather because there are some bad symlinks like /usr/lib/lib to /usr/lib/lib that crash prelink.

You can read inciner@tor post at http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php? ... bf2d51b755
and peraphs help him

@+

Jj

[Jimmy Jazz]

Well, if you want to use OpenGL, you must switch back to NVidia implementation (by running "opengl-update nvidia"). If you do that, you lose all speedup gained by prelink for those applications linked to libGL.so. So you don't need to do this "trick" at all.

read my lips again:
it gets through until "sbin init U"

hds,

Your post was really useful.

I only get some strange warnings about "weak something", but i didn't remember what. That didn't harm prelink, only my curiousity. lol

Thx again.

Jj

[radfoj]

So here is my third and also last test. I am sorry, for those guys who were bored during the two previous. Please, dont read next lines and go away. It will be longer. I am also sorry to hds, that I am spaming his howto
But I spend much time on it, so I want to share it with you. I prefered to post it here step by step, so you can see, if I make some mistake. So lets go.

I select amarok, becouse works great with "time" and have some relation to opengl. In make.conf I have USEflag "opengl". I was all the time in "nvidia opengl" environment, only once I switched to "xorg opengl", I will tell you. Keep in mind, whenever it start amarok, it calls amarokapp:

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$ time amarok
amaroK: [Loader] Starting amarokapp..

I reemerged amarok, rebooted and started amarok 8x:

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9.179s 3.490s 3.829s 3.530s 3.513s 3.500s 3.598s 3.520s

I prelinked him:

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# prelink -qavmR
Prelinking /usr/kde/3.3/bin/amarokapp
prelink: /usr/kde/3.3/bin/amarokapp: Cannot prelink against non-PIC shared library /usr/lib/opengl/nvidia/lib/libGL.so.1.0.6629
Prelinking /usr/kde/3.3/bin/amarok
Prelinking /usr/kde/3.3/bin/amarok_xmmswrapper2

Rebooted and start amarok 8x:

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9.474s 3.422s 3.940s 3.451s 3.471s 3.437s 3.670s 4.165s

No improvments. In next step I tried "hds trick":

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# prelink -uv /usr/kde/3.3/bin/amarok
# prelink -uv /usr/kde/3.3/bin/amarok_xmmswrapper2
# opengl-update xorg-x11
 * Switching to xorg-x11 OpenGL interface...                              [ ok ]
# prelink -avmR
Prelinking /usr/kde/3.3/bin/amarokapp
Prelinking /usr/kde/3.3/bin/amarok
Prelinking /usr/kde/3.3/bin/amarok_xmmswrapper2
# opengl-update nvidia
 * Switching to nvidia OpenGL interface...                                [ ok ]

Of course, that during prelink above it print more messages to me, but they arent important for this test. But few of them:

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 Prelinking /usr/games/bin/bzflag
 Prelinking /usr/games/bin/tuxracer
 Prelinking /usr/kde/3.3/bin/kspace.kss
 Prelinking /usr/bin/mplayer

After reboot, amarok is launching in same time:

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9.414s 3.874s 4.281s 3.701s 3.468s 4.143s 3.466s 3.478s

For sure, I prelinked again with -avmR and reemerged amarok, but now with useflag "-opengl" .......... and rebooted. And startups times were:

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8.850s 3.373s 3.350s 3.339s 3.361s 3.379s 4.136s 3.387s

And I continued with last prelink ... this time amarok without opengl flag seem to be fully prelinked:

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# prelink -avmR
Prelinking /usr/kde/3.3/bin/amarokapp
Prelinking /usr/kde/3.3/bin/amarok
Prelinking /usr/kde/3.3/bin/amarok_xmmswrapper2

After reboot amarok gaves me the best startup times:

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8.472s 2.633s 3.692s 2.862s 2.681s 2.687s 2.603s 2.598s

What you thing, guys, about it. Especially about the "opengl" flag. What I will loose if I reemerge some apps like mplayer, kdeartwork and so? I found only this:

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# cat /usr/portage/profiles/use.desc | grep opengl
opengl - Adds support for OpenGL

Is it good for us, prelinkers?

[hds]

about amarok.. did you try this ebuild:
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-20 ... ml#2091176

the ebuilds in portage are not compiled with "./configure --with-pic". i added this myself, maybe you give this a try if it improves?

[Mikos]

If you re-emerge kdeartwork without "opengl" USE-flag, you will lose OpenGL screensavers, that's all. You don't have to do that, because these screensavers are the only thing which isn't prelinked.

If you re-emerge mplayer without "opengl", you will lose OpenGL video output (but everyone uses "xv" video output, which is best, so you can safely do that).

I don't know for what amarok uses OpenGL... maybe for visualizations in player window? If so, re-emerging without OpenGL support will give you bad performance in amaroK.

[coffeeman]

Thanks for the topic.. you saved my life...

[thebigslide]

I'm a getting a weird error with prelink
It works, but right after trying to prelink libgcc_s.so.1, every lib that depends on it doesn't prelink

Code: Select all

Prelinking /usr/lib/gcc-lib/i686-pc-linux-gnu/3.4.3/libgcc_s.so.1
prelink: Could not prelink /usr/kde/3.4/lib/libDCOP.so.4 because it doesn't use /lib/libgcc_s.so.1, but one of its dependencies has been prelinked against it
prelink: Could not prelink /usr/kde/3.4/lib/libkdecore.so.4 because its dependency /usr/kde/3.4/lib/libDCOP.so.4 could not be prelinked
etc...

I tried a ldd on libDCOP.so.4, and i get this result

Code: Select all

% ldd /usr/kde/3.4/lib/libDCOP.so.4
        linux-gate.so.1 =>  (0xffffe000)
        libqt-mt.so.3 => /usr/qt/3/lib/libqt-mt.so.3 (0x40031000)
        libaudio.so.2 => /usr/lib/libaudio.so.2 (0x40773000)
        libXt.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXt.so.6 (0x40788000)
        libmng.so.1 => /usr/lib/libmng.so.1 (0x407dd000)
        libjpeg.so.62 => /usr/lib/libjpeg.so.62 (0x4083b000)
        libXi.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXi.so.6 (0x4085c000)
        libXrender.so.1 => /usr/lib/libXrender.so.1 (0x40865000)
        libXrandr.so.2 => /usr/lib/libXrandr.so.2 (0x4086d000)
        libXcursor.so.1 => /usr/lib/libXcursor.so.1 (0x40871000)
        libXft.so.2 => /usr/lib/libXft.so.2 (0x4087a000)
        libfreetype.so.6 => /usr/lib/libfreetype.so.6 (0x4088c000)
        libfontconfig.so.1 => /usr/lib/libfontconfig.so.1 (0x4090f000)
        libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x40958000)
        libpng.so.3 => /usr/lib/libpng.so.3 (0x4095c000)
        libXext.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXext.so.6 (0x40995000)
        libX11.so.6 => /usr/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x409a4000)
        libSM.so.6 => /usr/lib/libSM.so.6 (0x40a72000)
        libICE.so.6 => /usr/lib/libICE.so.6 (0x40a7b000)
        libpthread.so.0 => /lib/tls/libpthread.so.0 (0x40a94000)
        libstdc++.so.6 => //usr/lib/gcc/i686-pc-linux-gnu/3.4.3/libstdc++.so.6 (0x40aa7000)
        libm.so.6 => /lib/tls/libm.so.6 (0x40b78000)
        libc.so.6 => /lib/tls/libc.so.6 (0x40b9b000)
        libgcc_s.so.1 => //usr/lib/gcc/i686-pc-linux-gnu/3.4.3/libgcc_s.so.1 (0x40cc6000)
        libXau.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXau.so.6 (0x40cd0000)
        libz.so.1 => /lib/libz.so.1 (0x40cd3000)
        libexpat.so.0 => /usr/lib/libexpat.so.0 (0x40ce5000)
        /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x80000000)

Are the double / normal at the start of the lines with gcc ?

They are links from /usr/lib/blah -> ../blah/blah, so the system has appended a / in front of the full path and then .. translates into /usr, so the net result is //usr. Perfectly normal.

[Cyrack]

Hmm, I just did as written in the HOWTO, but prelink fails on all KDE binaries, eg.:

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prelink: Could not prelink /usr/kde/3.3/lib/libmcop.so.1 because it doesn't use /lib/libgcc_s.so.1, but one of its dependencies has been prelinked against it

All other apps seems fine.

My useflags is as follows:

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USE="kdeenablefinal fbcon xmms 3dnow bcmath 3dnowex aac acpi4linux dga emul-linux fb mmx2 sockets \
     sse2 svga symlink utf8 v4l2 X xine tcltk acpi alsa apache2 apm arts avi \
     cdparanoia cdr divx4linux flac freetype truetype ftp gif icq jpeg kde \
     lirc mime mmx mp3 mpeg msn multilib mysql nls offensive \
     ogg oggvorbis opengl php png posix qt shared sharedmem soap spell sse \
     ssl symlink threads tidy tiff usb v4l vcd xvid zlib pic -aim -cups \
     -gnome -gtk -gtk2 -gtkhtml -oss -samba"

and my compileflags is as follows:

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CFLAGS="-O3 -march=athlon64 -funit-at-a-time -fpeel-loops -ftracer -funswitch-loops -fomit-frame-pointer -pipe -funroll-loops"
CHOST="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu"
CXXFLAGS="${CFLAGS}"

After changing my use-flags I did a 'emerge -euD world' just to be sure (and I since I have changed my useflags alot and upgraded GCC it just seemed the right thing to do )

[thebigslide]

you needed to do

Code: Select all

emerge -e --newuse world

. Not sure if that's where the issue arose.

[Cyrack]

you needed to do

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emerge -e --newuse world

. Not sure if that's where the issue arose.

'-e' and '-e --newuse' would give the same result, since an empty tree causes portage to recalculate all USE-flag dependencies.

[tortue.net]

I understand that with this method we have improvements in KDE. GREAT !
But do we have the same improvement using Gnome?
I am using Gnome on my Gentoo box, I measured real improvement in opening Firefox for instance after using your howto.
But is there a method to best accelerate Gnome or is this only good for KDE desktop ?

[simondo42]

Cyrack: This thread might be of use:

http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-29 ... onfig.html

simon