Gtk build system is way too slow

• Component: Tools / Tests
• Status: RESOLVED FIXED

[Eric Seidel (no email)]

Gtk build system is way too slow

Looking at the last few builds:
http://build.webkit.org/builders/GTK%20Linux%2064-bit%20Debug/builds/2335 447s compile
http://build.webkit.org/builders/GTK%20Linux%2064-bit%20Debug/builds/2334 511s compile
http://build.webkit.org/builders/GTK%20Linux%2064-bit%20Debug/builds/2333 513s compile
http://build.webkit.org/builders/GTK%20Linux%2064-bit%20Debug/builds/2333 1885s compile!

Adam Barth also complains that basically all of the time on the machine running the linux EWSes is spent building Gtk.  What's going on here?  Why is the gtk build so abysmally slow?  This hinders our ability to run gtk bots and keep the gtk build green. :(

I'd be very interested to hear from people who actually work on the Gtk port theories as to what could be going on here.

The code for what the EWS runs is here:
http://trac.webkit.org/browser/trunk/WebKitTools/Scripts/webkitpy/commands/early_warning_system.py#L76

The code for what the gtk builder runs is here:
http://trac.webkit.org/browser/trunk/WebKitTools/BuildSlaveSupport/build.webkit.org-config/master.cfg#L70

To see logs of the build commands, see the above urls or any build linked from build.webkit.org.

[Eric Seidel (no email)]

I'm also certain that the Gtk folks are well aware of this. :) I just wanted to make sure this was documented in the bug system, and hopefully spur some constructive relevant discussion and patches for this bug. :)

[Adam Barth]

"Adam Barth also complains"

I'm not sure I'm complaining...  The bot needs something to do to keep itself entertained.

[Gustavo Noronha (kov)]

This concern is already documented in the bug system, in a way: https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=32921

We have landed one patch that makes it faster, but I am having big trouble trying to give the second step. To be honest, the only way we'll get this build really faster seems to be by dropping automake, perhaps autotools as a whole, but that would lose us some advantages.

Notice you are looking at debug builds, too - are the EWS bots doing debug builds?

[Eric Seidel (no email)]

The EWS currently only does either release or debug, but once all the builds are fast enough, it will do both.  The commit-queue for instance, does both Debug and Release builds and then tests on Release.  Once are tests are faster (soon!) it will test on both.

[Martin Robinson]

Is this still an issue? A quick check of recent builds shows the length of our debug builds are on the same order as those for Debug Leopard.

[Martin Robinson]

It's actually much faster now with CMake + ninja. I think it's safe to close this weirdly enough.