change dpkg-buildflags to default to -O3, not -O2, on ppc64el

Bug #1279128 reported by Steve Langasek
6
This bug affects 1 person
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
dpkg (Ubuntu)
Fix Released
Undecided
Matthias Klose

Bug Description

Per Debian policy, dpkg currently defaults to -O2 for optimization flags on all architectures. According to people more familiar with the architecture than I, -O3 is a better default for ppc64el; because while -O2 includes only those optimizations that *always* improve performance, whereas -O3 includes optimizations that will sometimes *decrease* performance, the architecture-specific trade-offs on POWER mean that -O3 is better for the vast majority of real software, and far outweighs any downsides.

So for ppc64/ppc64el, dpkg should default to -O3 in dpkg-buildflags, not -O2.

It may be the case that we should make this same change for other architectures as well, but not before proving that there's a benefit. The change should also be forwarded to Debian, but that will mean discussing first whether and with what evidence to change Debian policy.

Related branches

Steve Langasek (vorlon)
Changed in dpkg (Ubuntu):
assignee: nobody → Matthias Klose (doko)
Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :

This bug was fixed in the package dpkg - 1.17.5ubuntu4

---------------
dpkg (1.17.5ubuntu4) trusty; urgency=medium

  * Update the ppc64 buildflags vendor overrides for ppc64el instead, and
    make the implementation respect DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=noopt (LP: #1279128)
 -- Adam Conrad <email address hidden> Tue, 11 Feb 2014 18:49:27 -0700

Changed in dpkg (Ubuntu):
status: New → Fix Released
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