Subject: Re: mindless boredom, speed and compiling kernels
To: Michael L. Hitch <mhitch@lightning.oscs.montana.edu>
From: Chris Jones <cjones@honors.montana.edu>
List: port-pmax
Date: 05/25/1998 11:26:07
On Sat, 23 May 1998, Michael L. Hitch wrote:

> On May 21,  9:44pm, Simon Burge wrote:
> > On Tue, 19 May 1998 14:56:14 -0600 (MDT)  Chris Jones wrote:
> > > Hmm.  So, does NetBSD run the Ultrix binary faster than the native one
> > > because the Ultrix one isn't ELF?  Or is there some other reason I'm
> > > missing?  I know I've seen NetBSD/i386 run simple benchmarks faster than
> > > Linux, and I assumed that was because of the a.out/ELF difference, but I
> > > don't really know...
> > 
> > Not sure.  Certainly the NetBSD binary (which compiled with -static)
> > is larger than the Ultrix binary.  Maybe it's a cache thing.  FWIW, a
> > -static NetBSD native binary got around 5200000 moves per second.
> 
>   I'd guess it's more likely because NetBSD has all the ABI overhead,
> which Ultrix probably doesn't have.  That makes the programs bigger and
> slower.

What's ABI?

Chris

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chris Jones                                           cjones@math.montana.edu
           Mad scientist at large                     cjones@honors.montana.edu
"Is this going to be a stand-up programming session, sir, or another bug hunt?"