#13541: Make it easier to use the gold linker -------------------------------------+------------------------------------- Reporter: bgamari | Owner: (none) Type: feature request | Status: new Priority: normal | Milestone: Component: Compiler | Version: 8.0.1 Resolution: | Keywords: Operating System: Unknown/Multiple | Architecture: | Unknown/Multiple Type of failure: None/Unknown | Test Case: Blocked By: | Blocking: Related Tickets: | Differential Rev(s): Wiki Page: | -------------------------------------+------------------------------------- Description changed by bgamari: Old description:
As pointed out in #4862, the `gold` linker is significantly faster than BFD `ld`. Currently we use whatever linker `gcc` uses by default. This is an unfortunate situation for users as few packagers take the effort to configure their builds to use `gold`.
I think we should consider the following,
Introduce a configure flag (to both the source distribution, and the distributed binary distributions), `--enable-gold`. When enabled, `configure` will check for the functioning of `gcc -fuse-ld=gold`. If found to work `-fuse-ld=gold` would be added to GHC's `optl`. The flag would throw an error on non-ELF platforms (which are not supported by `gold`).
While there is admittedly not a whole lot of precedent for this, the status quo means we are leaving a significant bit of compiler performance on the table in a majority of cases. Given that `stack` uses GHC's official bindists, we should try to improve this situation.
New description: As pointed out in #4862, the `gold` linker is significantly faster than BFD `ld`. Currently we use whatever linker `gcc` uses by default. This is an unfortunate situation for users as few packagers take the effort to configure their builds to use `gold`. I think we should consider the following,
Introduce a configure flag (to both the source distribution, and the distributed binary distributions), `--enable-gold`. When enabled, `configure` will check for the functioning of `gcc -fuse-ld=gold`. If found to work `-fuse-ld=gold` would be added to GHC's `optl`. The flag would throw an error on non-ELF platforms (which are not supported by `gold`).
While there is admittedly not a whole lot of precedent for this, the status quo means we are leaving a significant bit of compiler performance on the table in a majority of cases. Given that `stack` uses GHC's official bindists, we should try to improve this situation. In fact, I would even weakly suggest that we might consider enabling `--enable-gold` the default behavior, requiring the user to explicitly pass `--disable-gold` if they want the current behavior. -- -- Ticket URL: http://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc/ticket/13541#comment:2 GHC http://www.haskell.org/ghc/ The Glasgow Haskell Compiler