361
When O3 is 2x slower than O2
An deep dive into a pathological case.
Topics /
Systems & Performance
The most popular blog posts about systems & performance on Hacker News. 380 posts.
362
Default musl allocator considered harmful to performance
In a real world benchmark, the default musl allocator caused a 7x slowdown compared to other allocators. I recommend all Rust projects immediately swap to a different allocator in a musl environment.
363
Indices, not Pointers
There is a pattern I’ve learned while using Zig which I’ve never seen used in any other language. It’s an extremely simple trick which - when applied to a data structure - reduces memory usage, reduces memory allocations, speeds up accesses, makes freeing instantaneous, and generally makes everything much, much…
364
Linux CVEs, more than you ever wanted to know
It’s been almost 2 full years since Linux became a CNA (Certificate Numbering Authority) which meant that we (i.e. the kernel.org community) are now responsible for issuing all CVEs for the Linux kernel. During this time, we’ve become one of the largest creators of CVEs by quantity, going from nothing to number 3 in…
365
Thrashing
I’ve invested in a new odometer to help my car go faster. Accountability is important, and as a driver I believe the most important thing I can do is set measurable, achievable and inspiring goals for the people pushing my car down the road.
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Preparing for the .NET 10 GC
In .NET 9 we enabled DATAS by default. But .NET 9 is not an LTS release so for many people they will be getting DATAS for the first time…
369
After 47 years, OpenVMS gets a package manager (VSP)
Published: 17-03-2025 20:33 | Author: Remy van Elst | Text only version of this article
370
Zig Profiling on Apple Silicon
If you’re a developer rocking an Apple Silicon Mac and writing in Zig, congratulations - you’ve chosen the scenic route through the desert of profiling tools. It’s just you, your code, and a tumbleweed named Apple Instruments. But don’t worry - we’ll try to find some oases. Okay, it’s not that bad, but we’re far away…
371
Carmack on Operating Systems (1997)
I have gotten a significant amount of response on the Quake 2 extension mechanism. I do read everything that comes my way (I can't respond to all of it, though), and I have learned a few things from the mail.
372
Windows 7 x64 Extended Support Page
Windows 7 ESU extended support for all Windows 7 users out there!
373
FreeBSD for hi-fi audio: real-time processing, equalizer, MPD and FFmpeg
High-quality sound in FreeBSD: system parameters, bitperfect signal, real-time operation, equalizer, MPD, FFmpeg filters.
374
How to check if your Apple Silicon Mac is booting securely
How to check your Mac is booting in Full Security, and how to read its log to verify all the key steps involved in that process.
375
Exploring the Fragmentation of Wayland, an xdotool adventure
In 2007, I was spending a my norther-hemisphere summer experimenting with UI automation. Born of those efforts, xdotool came into being when I separated it from another project. The goal was modest - write some scripts that execute common keyboard, mouse, and window management tasks. The first commit had only a few…
376
Here be dragons: Preventing static damage, latchup, and metastability in the 386
I've been reverse-engineering the Intel 386 processor (from 1985), and I've come across some interesting circuits for the chip's input/outpu...
377
A P2P Vision for QUIC (2024)
Using QUIC to achieve everything needed for NAT traversal, from address discovery to proxying UDP
378
The curious case of the Unix workstation layout
Cathode Ray Dude recently did an excellent video about the history of the PC case, particularly the early- and mid-1990s, and the various mainboard layouts that pre-date the ATX standard. You should watch it. Here it is.
379
Closures as Win32 Window Procedures
Back in 2017 I wrote about a technique for creating closures in C using JIT-compiled wrapper. It’s neat, though rarely necessary in real programs, so I don’t think about it often. I applied it to qsort , which sadly accepts no context pointer. More practical would be working around insufficient custom allocator…
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Writing a storage engine for Postgres: An in-memory table access method (2023)
Writing a storage engine for Postgres: an in-memory Table Access Method