I too am getting link times in the several minutes range for my modestly sized project, I am on a standalone dual-cpu redhat linux box with 5.04.1 (no nfs, no nuttin')
the project is available at http://repetae.net/john/computer/ginsu/
I think there is definatly something fishy going on. I don't remember linking always taking this long, I just assumed I added a bunch of code to my project or something but linking takes longer than all the other compilation stages combined.
That's bizarre. I just compiled your program on my laptop (Gentoo Linux, gcc 3.2) and linking took 6-7 seconds. John, what version of gcc/binutils is on your RedHat box? I haven't been able to discern any pattern among those experiencing long link times so far, except that -export-dynamic flag used by the dynamic loader stuff seems to cause the linker to go off into space for a while. Cheers, Simon