[distcc] a basic question

[Martin Pool]

On 30 Sep 2002, Amir Tal <tal at whatsup.org.il> wrote:
> this may sound dumb to most of you, but note that i am NOT a developer, and 
> have a very poor expirience with compiling code.
> the largest projects i am compiling here are kde from cvs, gnome cvs, samba 
> and some other small application for desktop use.
> the machine i am working on it the most powerfull one on my network, and i am 
> using 2 more machines (all running debian linux) with distcc.
> all machines are connected with a fast 100mb connection.

> since the distcc howto states clearly that its slower to move files accross 
> the network then compile them localy (which makes sence) does it really 
> improve performance to use distcc with my current configuration ? 

Yes, it should still help.  It takes a long time to send files across
the network, but the local machine does not have to work very hard to
do it.  (Elapsed time vs cpu seconds.)  The client can be sending
files across the network "on the back burner" while it spends most of
its time on compiling things locally.  (The benefits of Linux having a
good TCP stack...)

Imagine you have a work experience student in the office.  They don't
work as fast as you do, but you can spend five minutes on Monday
giving them a task and then they will go and work on it all week.  It
doesn't cost you much, so anything they get done is a benefit.

> i still didnt do any benchmarks to test it.

> i am using -j3 when compiling (since there are 2 more vollonteer machines, is 
> this the best option ?

Probably somewhere between -j3 and -j9, depending on circumstances.
Experiment.

-- 
Martin 

Why can't these people just get along? Oh, yeah... because they all
think they've been specially chosen by God.
		-- theonion.com