Re: 1.2x to 1.9x speedup for sha1sum using SSE2

[Marco Gerards]

dean gaudet <address@hidden> writes:

> at <http://arctic.org/~dean/crypto/sha1.html> you'll find a coreutils
> patch which includes a new implementation of SHA1 using SSE2 hardware for
> a speedup ranging from 1.2x to 1.9x depending on which SSE2-capable CPU is
> used.
> 
> there's a complication to compiling this code -- it requires the intel
> compiler for one file (gcc should compile it, but it trips a bug which has
> been reported).  i've included icc-generated assembly... and a makefile
> hack to use the assembly.  it's all enabled with --enable-sse2.

Is this intel compiler Free Software?  It would be really bad if
coreutils has a feature for which non-free software would be required
IMHO.

Isn't there any way to avoid the gcc bug?  Very often this is possible
by using autoconf to check if the gcc version has the bug and activate
some code to avoid the bug.

Thanks,
Marco