Re: jobserver: what's the point of the point?

[Paul D. Smith]

%% "Martin d'Anjou" <address@hidden> writes:

  md> Can someone explain what is the problem jobserver is trying to
  md> solve? Is this for multi CPU machines? I don't understand what the
  md> advantage is if only have one CPU.

It's mainly for multi-cpu systems, but sometimes -j2 can get you faster
builds even on single CPU systems, depending on your environment.  For
example, while the CPU is waiting for disk activity it could be working
on another compile, etc.  You have to experiment with this to see if it
makes things faster for you or not.

  md> Does it try to solve the problem of distributing N jobs to M CPUs
  md> across a network (does not sound to me like this belongs to
  md> GNUmake anyway)?

There's a difference between parallel and distributed builds, although
allowing parallel builds is a prerequisite for distributed builds (it
doesn't make as much sense to distribute builds if they're going to be
run serially anyway).  The jobserver doesn't do distributed builds, but
there are add-ons to GNU make that will do so.

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