GNU ld version 2.13.90.0.2 extreme (>1000 times) slowness

[Keith Slavin]

I have just installed Red Hat Linux 8 on my 1GHz AMD Athalon machine. 
Everything is working fine, except that final linking of one of my 
applications is taking a VERY VERY long time (17 minutes with ld version 
2.13.90.0.2 verses about 1 second using ld version 2.10.90).

I timed the runs (see below), also showing that the CPU is over 90% busy 
in ld itself. There is 1GByte of system RAM, and linking only uses 47MBytes.

I traced the problem back to ld by copying the old version (and its .so 
file) and temporarily swapping old and new in /usr/bin. While the final 
program worked, so this is not strictly a bug, I believe that a factor 
of 1000 slowdown probably qualifies it as such. It is certainly very 
painful for my development work, and forces me to use the old linker.

I can give you the object files on request, so you can duplicate the 
problem if you wish, but they are fairly large. The output executable 
sizes are: 26210740 bytes for the new (slow) loader, and 26646358 bytes 
for the old.

Thanks,

   Keith


Here is the link line (using -static with both new and old as this was 
needed for the old loader to work, but static verses dynamic linking 
does not seem to affect the linking speed):

time gcc -static cache_cda.o cda_interface.o cda_main.o 
cpu_interface_cda.o my_getopt.o read_ppm_header.o resizer.o 
resizer_interface.o /home/kslavin/atools/libraries/asim/wrapper_lib.o 
/home/kslavin/atools/libraries/asim/asim_lib.o 
../../o_intermediates/age_machine.o ../../o_intermediates/asim_models.o 
../../o_intermediates/cache_update.o ../../o_intermediates/cda_cache.o 
../../o_intermediates/dram.model.o 
../../o_intermediates/get_transfer_mask.o 
../../o_intermediates/mask_table.o 
../../o_intermediates/system_RAM_CDA.o 
../../o_intermediates/top_level.model.o 
../../o_intermediates/transfer_machine.o -o cda2_sim -lm -lpthread -v
Reading specs from /usr/lib/gcc-lib/i386-redhat-linux/3.2/specs
Configured with: ../configure --prefix=/usr --mandir=/usr/share/man 
--infodir=/usr/share/info --enable-shared --enable-threads=posix 
--disable-checking --host=i386-redhat-linux --with-system-zlib 
--enable-__cxa_atexit
Thread model: posix
gcc version 3.2 20020903 (Red Hat Linux 8.0 3.2-7)
/usr/lib/gcc-lib/i386-redhat-linux/3.2/collect2 -m elf_i386 -static -o 
cda2_sim /usr/lib/gcc-lib/i386-redhat-linux/3.2/../../../crt1.o 
/usr/lib/gcc-lib/i386-redhat-linux/3.2/../../../crti.o 
/usr/lib/gcc-lib/i386-redhat-linux/3.2/crtbeginT.o 
-L/usr/lib/gcc-lib/i386-redhat-linux/3.2 
-L/usr/lib/gcc-lib/i386-redhat-linux/3.2/../../.. cache_cda.o 
cda_interface.o cda_main.o cpu_interface_cda.o my_getopt.o 
read_ppm_header.o resizer.o resizer_interface.o 
/home/kslavin/atools/libraries/asim/wrapper_lib.o 
/home/kslavin/atools/libraries/asim/asim_lib.o 
../../o_intermediates/age_machine.o ../../o_intermediates/asim_models.o 
../../o_intermediates/cache_update.o ../../o_intermediates/cda_cache.o 
../../o_intermediates/dram.model.o 
../../o_intermediates/get_transfer_mask.o 
../../o_intermediates/mask_table.o 
../../o_intermediates/system_RAM_CDA.o 
../../o_intermediates/top_level.model.o 
../../o_intermediates/transfer_machine.o -lm -lpthread -lgcc -lgcc_eh -lc
-lgcc -lgcc_eh /usr/lib/gcc-lib/i386-redhat-linux/3.2/crtend.o 
/usr/lib/gcc-lib/i386-redhat-linux/3.2/../../../crtn.o

real    17m48.835s
user    16m11.469s                        <--------------- NOTE!!!!!!!
sys     0m1.893s


If I temporarily replace ld using the old GNU ld version 2.10.90 (also 
with the -static flag), I get the following:

time gcc -static cache_cda.o cda_interface.o cda_main.o 
cpu_interface_cda.o my_getopt.o read_ppm_header.o resizer.o 
resizer_interface.o /home/kslavin/atools/libraries/asim/wrapper_lib.o 
/home/kslavin/atools/libraries/asim/asim_lib.o 
../../o_intermediates/age_machine.o ../../o_intermediates/asim_models.o 
../../o_intermediates/cache_update.o ../../o_intermediates/cda_cache.o 
../../o_intermediates/dram.model.o 
../../o_intermediates/get_transfer_mask.o 
../../o_intermediates/mask_table.o 
../../o_intermediates/system_RAM_CDA.o 
../../o_intermediates/top_level.model.o 
../../o_intermediates/transfer_machine.o -o cda2_sim -lm -lpthread -v
Reading specs from /usr/lib/gcc-lib/i386-redhat-linux/3.2/specs
Configured with: ../configure --prefix=/usr --mandir=/usr/share/man 
--infodir=/usr/share/info --enable-shared --enable-threads=posix 
--disable-checking --host=i386-redhat-linux --with-system-zlib 
--enable-__cxa_atexit
Thread model: posix
gcc version 3.2 20020903 (Red Hat Linux 8.0 3.2-7)
/usr/lib/gcc-lib/i386-redhat-linux/3.2/collect2 -m elf_i386 -static -o 
cda2_sim /usr/lib/gcc-lib/i386-redhat-linux/3.2/../../../crt1.o 
/usr/lib/gcc-lib/i386-redhat-linux/3.2/../../../crti.o 
/usr/lib/gcc-lib/i386-redhat-linux/3.2/crtbeginT.o 
-L/usr/lib/gcc-lib/i386-redhat-linux/3.2 
-L/usr/lib/gcc-lib/i386-redhat-linux/3.2/../../.. cache_cda.o 
cda_interface.o cda_main.o cpu_interface_cda.o my_getopt.o 
read_ppm_header.o resizer.o resizer_interface.o 
/home/kslavin/atools/libraries/asim/wrapper_lib.o 
/home/kslavin/atools/libraries/asim/asim_lib.o 
../../o_intermediates/age_machine.o ../../o_intermediates/asim_models.o 
../../o_intermediates/cache_update.o ../../o_intermediates/cda_cache.o 
../../o_intermediates/dram.model.o 
../../o_intermediates/get_transfer_mask.o 
../../o_intermediates/mask_table.o 
../../o_intermediates/system_RAM_CDA.o 
../../o_intermediates/top_level.model.o 
../../o_intermediates/transfer_machine.o -lm -lpthread -lgcc -lgcc_eh -lc
-lgcc -lgcc_eh /usr/lib/gcc-lib/i386-redhat-linux/3.2/crtend.o 
/usr/lib/gcc-lib/i386-redhat-linux/3.2/../../../crtn.o

real    0m1.868s
user    0m0.949s                        <--------------- NOTE!!!!!!!
sys     0m0.527s