Slow startup on FreeBSD 7.1 + main: binreloc relocation support was diabled at configuration time

[Donald Allen]

On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 7:48 PM, Antonio Rieser <tonyrieser at gmail.com>wrote:

> Thanks again.  The machine you described is roughly twice as fast as mine.
> It's just that gnucash is the only program I have that does this.  Firefox,
> xmms, gnumeric, and a host of other programs come up in a normal amount of
> time.  I'll ask on the FreeBSD boards to see if anyone has an idea.
> Otherwise, I'll just get used to turning it on and taking a break to put
> some cream in my coffee!


Well, I just proved once again that there's no substitute for actual
measurement when discussing performance issues. I just tried a little
experiment. I've got a Thinkpad X61 with Core 2 Duo processor(s), 2.1 Ghz
and a 7200 rpm disk running Gentoo Linux. Then there's the Lenovo
Thinkstation with 4 processors, 2.4 Ghz and 15000 rpm SAS disks in a raid-0
arrangement, running FreeBSD. Clearly, the workstation computes somewhat
faster, per-processor, and does I/O significantly faster. I've got the same
Gnucash file on both machines. Gnucash goes from nothing to ready-to-go in
about 15 seconds on the X61. It takes about twice as long on the
workstation. So, clearly Derek's and your feeling that the FreeBSD Gnucash
port has some sort of issue is correct, perhaps related to dynamic linking,
as your truss experiment suggests.

Let me know which FreeBSD forum you are going to post to, and I'll chime in
with the above.

/Don


>
> All the best,
>
>   Tony
>
>
> On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 4:46 PM, Donald Allen <donaldcallen at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 10:18 AM, Derek Atkins <warlord at mit.edu> wrote:
>>
>>> Antonio Rieser <tonyrieser at gmail.com> writes:
>>>
>>> > Hi,
>>> >
>>> > I just installed GnuCash 2.2.7, guile 1.8.5, slib 3a4, and libtool
>>> 1.5.26,
>>> > libltdl ?  (all the latest ports cvsup) on FreeBSD 7.1 on an Acer
>>> Aspire
>>> > 1680 (laptop).  When I start gnucash, I get the following error:
>>> >
>>> > gnc.bin-Message: main: binreloc relocation support was disabled at
>>> > configuration time.
>>>
>>> This is normal and ignorable.
>>>
>>
>>  Yes -- I just started gnucash on a Linux system (Gentoo) and got the same
>> message.
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> > It then takes a VERY long time (~2 minutes) before I see the gnucash
>>> tip of
>>> > the day and intro image.  The tip of the day then takes another ~1
>>> minute
>>> > before it will respond to a mouse-click.
>>> >
>>> > After a little googling, it seems that slow starting was a known
>>> problem on
>>> > earlier versions of FreeBSD, but should have been fixed with the
>>> patches
>>> > that came with the port.
>>> >
>>> > Any help would be heartily appreciated.
>>>
>>> Frankly, you should ask on the FreeBSD lists..  This is a FreeBSD-only
>>> problem, probably with the runtime linker.
>>
>>
>> It's possible that there is a FreeBSD-specific problem, as you say, but
>> again, I emphasize that I am not seeing any difference, at least
>> qualitatively, in the gnucash startup time on either of the machines I
>> mentioned that I have just migrated to FreeBSD (they ran Gentoo Linux
>> before). I am seeing nothing like a startup time of 2 minutes. I concede
>> that in the absence of careful measurement, it's possible that the speed of
>> my machines is masking the problem (while the TP G41 is no speed demon by
>> today's standards -- it's vintage 2005 -- it's probably quite a bit faster
>> than the Acer, with a 3 Ghz processor and a 7200 rpm disk).
>>
>> /Don
>>
>>
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> > Thanks,
>>> >
>>> >   Tony
>>>
>>> > Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
>>> > You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
>>>
>>> -derek
>>>
>>> --
>>>       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
>>>       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
>>>       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
>>>       warlord at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> gnucash-user mailing list
>>> gnucash-user at gnucash.org
>>> https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
>>> -----
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>>> You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
>>>
>>
>>
>