Hacker News Reader

Comment by muixoozie | Hacker News Reader

Can get a sense of how long it takes to compile here https://openbenchmarking.org/test/pts/build-linux-kernel surprisingly fast with modern processors.

View on HN

I love how much things have progressed. I remember I used to have to set up a clean build to run while I was at school so it could be done when I got back. Now it is done within seconds.

Ha. Yeah. Remember taking a whole day or more for a clean build of the 2.4 kernel on my childhood Pentium machine. Would go to school hoping I’d come back to a completed build but it would just keep going for another day.

At this point I don’t remember the last time I’ve compiled a kernel.

I used to compile kernels on a 2012 HP quad-CPU, 80 thread machine. It would finish in a minute and a half or so. I got a ryzen 5850 to replace it, it also takes a minute and a half or so - but uses 1/4th the power at the wall. 32 threads vs 80, 250W vs 1000+W

My memory was spending as much time learning on the different options as anything else. Though, I think most of my memory was all of the config for FreeBSD. Compiling Firefox was the beast that I remember. Only thing I still compile is Emacs, and that is silly fast on modern computers.

Really, the speed of compilation is such that I understand why so many source distribution methods are as popular as they are now. Feels funny to have come to that point so effectively.

The big break (for me) in configuring the options was the very welcome addition of "make menuconfig" to replace the original "make config". As the number of supported filesystems/drivers/options increased, it could take more than an hour to get through a "make config".

I haven't built my own kernel for more than 15 years, but I probably built more than a dozen before that, each of them re-compiled upon every new release (going back to 0.98).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com