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From: "Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM)" <ljs@kernel.org>
To: "Linus Torvalds" <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>,
	"Nathan Chancellor" <nathan@kernel.org>,
	"Nicolas Schier" <nsc@kernel.org>,
	"Nick Desaulniers" <ndesaulniers@google.com>,
	"Bill Wendling" <morbo@google.com>,
	"Justin Stitt" <justinstitt@google.com>,
	"Masahiro Yamada" <masahiroy@kernel.org>,
	"Alexey Gladkov" <legion@kernel.org>,
	"Thomas Gleixner" <tglx@kernel.org>,
	"Ingo Molnar" <mingo@redhat.com>,
	"Borislav Petkov" <bp@alien8.de>,
	"Dave Hansen" <dave.hansen@linux.intel.com>,
	x86@kernel.org, "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>,
	"Paul Walmsley" <pjw@kernel.org>,
	"Palmer Dabbelt" <palmer@dabbelt.com>,
	"Albert Ou" <aou@eecs.berkeley.edu>,
	"Alexandre Ghiti" <alex@ghiti.fr>,
	"Arnd Bergmann" <arnd@arndb.de>,
	"Catalin Marinas" <catalin.marinas@arm.com>,
	"Will Deacon" <will@kernel.org>,
	"Mark Rutland" <mark.rutland@arm.com>,
	"Ard Biesheuvel" <ardb@kernel.org>,
	"Ilias Apalodimas" <ilias.apalodimas@linaro.org>,
	"Josh Poimboeuf" <jpoimboe@kernel.org>,
	"Peter Zijlstra" <peterz@infradead.org>,
	"Miguel Ojeda" <ojeda@kernel.org>,
	"Boqun Feng" <boqun@kernel.org>, "Gary Guo" <gary@garyguo.net>,
	"Björn Roy Baron" <bjorn3_gh@protonmail.com>,
	"Benno Lossin" <lossin@kernel.org>,
	"Andreas Hindborg" <a.hindborg@kernel.org>,
	"Alice Ryhl" <aliceryhl@google.com>,
	"Trevor Gross" <tmgross@umich.edu>,
	"Danilo Krummrich" <dakr@kernel.org>,
	"Daniel Almeida" <daniel.almeida@collabora.com>,
	"Tamir Duberstein" <tamird@kernel.org>,
	"Alexandre Courbot" <acourbot@nvidia.com>,
	"Onur Özkan" <work@onurozkan.dev>,
	"Jonathan Corbet" <corbet@lwn.net>,
	"Randy Dunlap" <rdunlap@infradead.org>
Cc: linux-kbuild@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
	 llvm@lists.linux.dev, linux-riscv@lists.infradead.org,
	 linux-arch@vger.kernel.org,
	linux-arm-kernel@lists.infradead.org,  linux-efi@vger.kernel.org,
	rust-for-linux@vger.kernel.org,  linux-doc@vger.kernel.org,
	Jens Axboe <axboe@kernel.dk>,
	 "Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM)" <ljs@kernel.org>
Subject: [PATCH 05/23] kbuild: do not sort nm output where the order is irrelevant
Date: Tue, 08 Sep 2026 21:55:05 +0100	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20260908-build-speedup-v1-5-5dc1ac01672d@kernel.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20260908-build-speedup-v1-0-5dc1ac01672d@kernel.org>

Unless instructed otherwise, nm sorts by name.

There are places where this is unnecessary - an invocation from
scripts/sorttable every vmlinux link, scripts/check-function-names.sh run
after every vmlinux.o link, and the x86 VOFFSET and ZOFFSET listings
between vmlinux and bzImage.

Both GNU nm and llvm-nm accept the same '-p' parameter to disable sorting
in these instances, so use that to prevent this unnecessary work.

Each nm run on its own, x86-64, median of 5:

                             GNU nm 2.47              llvm-nm 22
                          before  after   delta    before  after   delta
  defconfig
  sorttable, nm -S vmlinux 0.080s 0.039s -0.041s   0.265s 0.113s -0.152s
  check-function-names.sh  0.072s 0.033s -0.039s   0.244s 0.102s -0.142s
  VOFFSET                  0.077s 0.034s -0.043s   0.261s 0.113s -0.148s
  ZOFFSET                  0.007s 0.005s -0.002s   0.005s 0.005s  0.000s
  TOTAL                                  -0.125s                 -0.442s

  allmodconfig
  sorttable, nm -S vmlinux 0.156s 0.063s -0.093s   0.539s 0.223s -0.316s
  check-function-names.sh  0.149s 0.054s -0.095s   0.537s 0.217s -0.320s
  VOFFSET                  0.146s 0.052s -0.094s   0.524s 0.221s -0.303s
  ZOFFSET                  0.007s 0.005s -0.002s   0.006s 0.004s -0.002s
  TOTAL                                  -0.284s                 -0.941s

llvm-nm appears to be a lot slower than GNU nm, so these builds naturally
improve the most.

The four run one after another in the serial tail of every build that links
vmlinux so impact kernel builds directly.

In an allmodconfig the decompressor is built in parallel while the modules,
so only the two before the vmlinux link contribute to build time.

The build outputs remain unchanged.

Whole build, 128-thread Threadripper 9980X, median of 3:

                                         before    after     delta
                                       ----------------------------------
  x86 defconfig, touch mm/vma.c, gcc    10.02s     9.83s    -0.19s (-2%)
  x86 defconfig, touch mm/vma.c, clang   9.52s     9.24s    -0.28s (-3%)
  x86 defconfig, clean, gcc             28.71s    28.58s    -0.13s (-0.5%)
  x86 defconfig, clean, clang           28.69s    28.31s    -0.38s (-1%)
  x86 allmodconfig, touch mm/vma.c, cl  40.52s    39.83s    -0.69s (-2%)

Assisted-by: LLM
Signed-off-by: Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM) <ljs@kernel.org>
---
 arch/x86/boot/Makefile            | 2 +-
 arch/x86/boot/compressed/Makefile | 2 +-
 scripts/check-function-names.sh   | 3 ++-
 scripts/link-vmlinux.sh           | 2 +-
 4 files changed, 5 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)

diff --git a/arch/x86/boot/Makefile b/arch/x86/boot/Makefile
index 3f9fb3698d66..4a9bce32586d 100644
--- a/arch/x86/boot/Makefile
+++ b/arch/x86/boot/Makefile
@@ -74,7 +74,7 @@ SETUP_OBJS = $(addprefix $(obj)/,$(setup-y))
 sed-zoffset := -e 's/^\([0-9a-fA-F]*\) [a-zA-Z] \(startup_32\|efi.._stub_entry\|efi\(32\)\?_pe_entry\|input_data\|kernel_info\|_end\|_ehead\|_text\|_e\?data\|_e\?sbat\|z_.*\)$$/\#define ZO_\2 0x\1/p'
 
 quiet_cmd_zoffset = ZOFFSET $@
-      cmd_zoffset = $(NM) $< | sed -n $(sed-zoffset) > $@
+      cmd_zoffset = $(NM) -p $< | sed -n $(sed-zoffset) > $@
 
 targets += zoffset.h
 $(obj)/zoffset.h: $(obj)/compressed/vmlinux FORCE
diff --git a/arch/x86/boot/compressed/Makefile b/arch/x86/boot/compressed/Makefile
index 06934f9691d6..6ec5e031db1d 100644
--- a/arch/x86/boot/compressed/Makefile
+++ b/arch/x86/boot/compressed/Makefile
@@ -76,7 +76,7 @@ HOST_EXTRACFLAGS += -I$(srctree)/tools/include
 sed-voffset := -e 's/^\([0-9a-fA-F]*\) [ABbCDGRSTtVW] \(_text\|__start_rodata\|_sinittext\|__inittext_end\|__bss_start\|_end\)$$/\#define VO_\2 _AC(0x\1,UL)/p'
 
 quiet_cmd_voffset = VOFFSET $@
-      cmd_voffset = $(NM) $< | sed -n $(sed-voffset) > $@
+      cmd_voffset = $(NM) -p $< | sed -n $(sed-voffset) > $@
 
 targets += ../voffset.h
 
diff --git a/scripts/check-function-names.sh b/scripts/check-function-names.sh
index 08071133e5a5..94883e690627 100755
--- a/scripts/check-function-names.sh
+++ b/scripts/check-function-names.sh
@@ -13,7 +13,8 @@ if [ ! -f "$objfile" ]; then
 	exit 1
 fi
 
-bad_symbols=$(${NM:-nm} "$objfile" | awk '$2 ~ /^[TtWw]$/ {print $3}' | grep -E '^(startup|exit|split|unlikely|hot|unknown)(\.|$)')
+bad_symbols=$(${NM:-nm} -p "$objfile" | awk '$2 ~ /^[TtWw]$/ {print $3}' |
+	      grep -E '^(startup|exit|split|unlikely|hot|unknown)(\.|$)')
 
 if [ -n "$bad_symbols" ]; then
 	echo "$bad_symbols" | while read -r sym; do
diff --git a/scripts/link-vmlinux.sh b/scripts/link-vmlinux.sh
index e88604150d2c..970ca10f8fa9 100755
--- a/scripts/link-vmlinux.sh
+++ b/scripts/link-vmlinux.sh
@@ -161,7 +161,7 @@ mksysmap()
 
 sorttable()
 {
-	${NM} -S ${1} > .tmp_vmlinux.nm-sort
+	${NM} -p -S ${1} > .tmp_vmlinux.nm-sort
 	${objtree}/scripts/sorttable -s .tmp_vmlinux.nm-sort ${1}
 }
 

-- 
2.55.0


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  parent reply	other threads:[~2026-09-08 20:56 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 90+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2026-09-08 20:55 [PATCH 00/23] kbuild: significantly speed up kernel builds Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM)
2026-09-08 20:55 ` [PATCH 01/23] scripts/mksysmap: drop the MODULE_INFO() symbols from kallsyms Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM)
2026-09-09 19:47   ` Nicolas Schier
2026-09-10 11:00     ` Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM)
2026-09-10  4:19   ` Nathan Chancellor
2026-09-10 11:03     ` Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM)
2026-09-10 19:00   ` Nicolas Schier
2026-09-08 20:55 ` [PATCH 02/23] scripts/mksysmap: fix escape of '$' in the __pi_ pattern Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM)
2026-09-09 19:47   ` Nicolas Schier
2026-09-10 11:04     ` Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM)
2026-09-10  4:19   ` Nathan Chancellor
2026-09-10 11:21     ` Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM)
2026-09-10 19:00   ` Nicolas Schier
2026-09-08 20:55 ` [PATCH 03/23] kallsyms: index symbols by token to speed up table compression Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM)
2026-09-08 20:55 ` [PATCH 04/23] kallsyms: output binary data to speed output and kallsyms assembly Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM)
2026-09-09 14:35   ` Linus Torvalds
2026-09-10  9:29   ` David Laight
2026-09-11 11:07     ` Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM)
2026-09-12  6:38     ` [4/23] " Markus Elfring
2026-09-08 20:55 ` Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM) [this message]
2026-09-10  4:19   ` [PATCH 05/23] kbuild: do not sort nm output where the order is irrelevant Nathan Chancellor
2026-09-08 20:55 ` [PATCH 06/23] kbuild: only emit vmlinux relocations when required Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM)
2026-09-10  4:19   ` Nathan Chancellor
2026-09-08 20:55 ` [PATCH 07/23] elf-parse: add section flags, symbol binding and a read-only mapping Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM)
2026-09-08 20:55 ` [PATCH 08/23] kallsyms: reimplement mksysmap in C Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM)
2026-09-11 18:52   ` Markus Elfring
2026-09-11 19:15   ` Markus Elfring
2026-09-11 19:42   ` Markus Elfring
2026-09-08 20:55 ` [PATCH 09/23] kbuild: do not allocate .modinfo in vmlinux Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM)
2026-09-10  4:19   ` Nathan Chancellor
2026-09-10 10:59     ` Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM)
2026-09-08 20:55 ` [PATCH 10/23] kbuild: cache list, composite object state per object Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM)
2026-09-08 20:55 ` [PATCH 11/23] kbuild: implement and use depcheck to check dependency timestamps Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM)
2026-09-09 15:26   ` Linus Torvalds
2026-09-08 20:55 ` [PATCH 12/23] kbuild: avoid re-running compiler and linker probes Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM)
2026-09-10  4:19   ` Nathan Chancellor
2026-09-10 15:42     ` Nicolas Schier
2026-09-11 10:30       ` Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM)
2026-09-11 18:10         ` Nicolas Schier
2026-09-11 18:25           ` Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM)
2026-09-11 17:33       ` David Laight
2026-09-11 18:17         ` Nicolas Schier
2026-09-11 18:24           ` Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM)
2026-09-11 19:34             ` Nicolas Schier
2026-09-11 21:01             ` David Laight
2026-09-12  7:11             ` Nathan Chancellor
2026-09-11 10:26     ` Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM)
2026-09-12  6:51       ` Nathan Chancellor
2026-09-12 10:03     ` David Laight
2026-09-08 20:55 ` [PATCH 13/23] modpost: hash module source per-file, not per-byte Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM)
2026-09-10 12:52   ` Petr Pavlu
2026-09-11 10:41     ` Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM)
2026-09-11 11:57       ` Petr Pavlu
2026-09-11 12:21         ` Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM)
2026-09-08 20:55 ` [PATCH 14/23] modpost: cache section relocation mismatch state Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM)
2026-09-08 20:55 ` [PATCH 15/23] modpost: emit module descriptors as assembly Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM)
2026-09-09 14:59   ` Linus Torvalds
2026-09-08 20:55 ` [PATCH 16/23] kbuild: batch module finalisation Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM)
2026-09-10 15:48   ` Nicolas Schier
2026-09-11 10:23     ` Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM)
2026-09-08 20:55 ` [PATCH 17/23] modpost: perform srcversion hashing in parallel Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM)
2026-09-10 10:32   ` David Laight
2026-09-11 10:49     ` Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM)
2026-09-12 11:50   ` Yann Droneaud
2026-09-08 20:55 ` [PATCH 18/23] objtool: cache relocations and function dead end state, do less work Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM)
2026-09-08 20:55 ` [PATCH 19/23] objtool: decode instructions and resolve branch targets in parallel Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM)
2026-09-08 20:55 ` [PATCH 20/23] kbuild: rust: parallelise rustc front end Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM)
2026-09-08 21:13   ` Miguel Ojeda
2026-09-09 14:22     ` Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM)
2026-09-09 10:22   ` Björn Baron
2026-09-09 12:59     ` Miguel Ojeda
2026-09-09 14:26       ` Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM)
2026-09-10 12:25     ` Nicolas Schier (FRITZ!)
2026-09-11 19:00   ` Nicolas Schier
2026-09-08 20:55 ` [PATCH 21/23] rust: make exports.o depend on the headers generated for it Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM)
2026-09-08 20:55 ` [PATCH 22/23] kbuild: build rust crates in parallel with the rest of the build Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM)
2026-09-08 20:55 ` [PATCH 23/23] kbuild: use pigz for gzip compression if available Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM)
2026-09-10  4:19   ` Nathan Chancellor
2026-09-11 11:03     ` Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM)
2026-09-12  6:38       ` Nathan Chancellor
2026-09-08 21:06 ` [PATCH 00/23] kbuild: significantly speed up kernel builds Nick Desaulniers
     [not found]   ` <aqFptJRjLZIL-NX7@gremlin>
2026-09-09 22:09     ` Nick Desaulniers
2026-09-11 11:25       ` Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM)
2026-09-09 15:37 ` Linus Torvalds
2026-09-09 16:30   ` Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM)
2026-09-09 21:58 ` Florian Fainelli
2026-09-11 11:28   ` Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM)
2026-09-12  6:44     ` Nathan Chancellor
2026-09-10  4:19 ` Nathan Chancellor
2026-09-11 11:13   ` Lorenzo Stoakes (ARM)

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