Gentoo - speeding up the compilation time

I found this article a few days ago - http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/Portage_TMPDIR_on_tmpfs. Speed up compilation? Why not? Let’s see it! ;-)

Kernel configuration.

File systems --->
    Pseudo filesystems --->
        [*] Virtual memory file system support (former shm fs)

Fstab.

tmpfs   /var/tmp/portage    tmpfs   size=5G 0 0

Mount

mount -a

That’s all. We may test. Firstly, some informations about configuration and my Dell Inspiron Q17R. django-ldap-and-ssl make.conf

CFLAGS="-march=native -O2 -pipe"
CXXFLAGS="${CFLAGS}"
CHOST="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu"
MAKEOPTS="-j9"

cpu

eshlox eshlox # cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep -i "model name"
model name      : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2630QM CPU @ 2.00GHz
model name      : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2630QM CPU @ 2.00GHz
model name      : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2630QM CPU @ 2.00GHz
model name      : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2630QM CPU @ 2.00GHz
model name      : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2630QM CPU @ 2.00GHz
model name      : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2630QM CPU @ 2.00GHz
model name      : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2630QM CPU @ 2.00GHz
model name      : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2630QM CPU @ 2.00GHz

memory

eshlox eshlox # cat /proc/meminfo | grep -i memtotal
MemTotal: 8090296 kB

disk

eshlox eshlox # lshw -class disk
  *-disk
       description: ATA Disk
       product: ST9640423AS
       vendor: Seagate
       physical id: 0.0.0
       bus info: scsi@0:0.0.0
       logical name: /dev/sda
       version: 0001
       serial: 5WS1NRQM
       size: 596GiB (640GB)
       capabilities: partitioned partitioned:dos
       configuration: ansiversion=5 signature=7caf9f72

Below the results of my tests.

Standard compilation

CPU Usage: 100%
Memory Usage:
    before compilation: 1.3GB
    during compilation: 2.0GB
Max temperature: ~95°C

Thu Jul 19 23:39:33 2012 >>> media-sound/amarok-2.5.0-r4
       merge time: 12 minutes and 48 seconds.
Thu Jul 19 22:12:20 2012 >>> net-im/kadu-0.11.3
       merge time: 15 minutes and 12 seconds.
Mon Jul 28 21:45:46 2012 >>> www-client/firefox-10.0.5
       merge time: 41 minutes and 1 second.
Mon Mar  5 17:31:07 2012 >>> sys-devel/gcc-4.5.3-r2
       merge time: 18 minutes and 58 seconds.
Wed Apr 25 10:42:53 2012 >>> sys-libs/glibc-2.14.1-r3
       merge time: 12 minutes and 40 seconds.

Tmpfs

CPU Usage: 100%
Memory Usage:
    before compilation: 1.3GB
    during compilation: 1.4GB
Max temperature: 85°C

Sun Jul 29 12:23:52 2012 >>> media-sound/amarok-2.5.0-r4
       merge time: 2 minutes and 9 seconds.
Thu Jul 19 22:16:49 2012 >>> net-im/kadu-0.11.3
       merge time: 52 seconds.
Sun Jul 29 12:20:03 2012 >>> www-client/firefox-10.0.6
       merge time: 13 minutes and 28 seconds.
Sun Jul 29 12:41:32 2012 >>> sys-devel/gcc-4.5.3-r2
       merge time: 17 minutes and 7 seconds.
Fri Aug 17 14:46:58 2012 >>> sys-libs/glibc-2.15-r2
       merge time: 12 minutes and 33 seconds.

Conclusion? If any compilation would speed up as Kadu.. But without exaggeration. It is better.

PS. LibreOffice compilation? No, I’m not interested. ;-)