Portmaster and make flags

[tanked]

Hello,

Can someone tell me how (or if I should) pass the -j make flag to portmaster as I'm now using a multi-core machine.

Thanks.

 

[hedwards]

Add something like MAKE_JOBS_NUMBER=3 to your /etc/make.conf should make it so, at least for those ports that are safely compiled like that. EDIT: By which I mean give you that extra job on a dual core processor rather than defaulting to one per core.

http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-ports/2009-March/053736.html has more information on that.

EDIT: Thanks for asking, I was too lazy to look it up for myself earlier today.

 

[tanked]

Thankyou - does that option also apply to kernel & userland compiles?

 

[tankist02]

To compile kernel and world in parallel manner I use the -j flag on 4-core machine:

cd /usr/src && make cleanworld && make -j8 buildworld && make -j8 kernel

 

[DutchDaemon]

I think you're supposed to feed (cores + 1) to -j, not (cores * 2).

 

[phoenix]

The "rule of thumb" is (cores + 1). However, it's very dependent on the system, and some local testing will show the optimal number. Some machines work better with more than (cores + 1). Others work better with less.

Running [cmd=]time -h make -j X buildworld[/cmd] with different values of X is quite enlightening. Especially if you put /usr/obj onto a separate filesystem and newfs it between runs (and reboot to clear out RAM).