Approaching a 10-Second Linux Kernel Build

A clean x86-64 defconfig Linux kernel build is now around 15 seconds on top-end hardware, with ten seconds a plausible next-generation target. Software work matters too: Lorenzo Stoakes’s 22-patch Kbuild series improves parallelism, with reported gains of about 36% for full builds and 70% for incremental builds. Phoronix measured 28→20 seconds on a dual EPYC 9754 system; the result depends on hardware and build configuration, and the patches are still under review for Linux 7.4.

Phoronix lists 12 comments, but I couldn’t retrieve the discussion in this scan, so I can’t summarize reader reactions.