[tex-live] TeXLive 2005 is slower than TeXLive2003

[Hartmut Henkel]

On Sat, 9 Sep 2006, Reinhard Kotucha wrote:

> But there is a significant difference between TL-2003 and TL-2005:
>
> This is e-TeXk, Version 3.141592-2.1 (Web2C 7.5.2)
> This is pdfeTeXk, Version 3.141592-1.30.4-2.2 (Web2C 7.5.5)
>
> It seems that the point is that LaTeX provided by TL-2003 is based on
> Knuth's TeX while it is based on PdfTeX in TL-2005.

then see this comparison, all with TeX Live 2005, again with debian
sarge and this CPU:

model name      : AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3700+
cpu MHz         : 2211.382
cache size      : 1024 KB
bogomips        : 4374.52

now all in DVI mode:

$ time tex pdftex-all
This is TeXk, Version 3.141592 (Web2C 7.5.5)

real    0m2.941s
user    0m1.347s
sys     0m0.044s

$ time pdftex_121a pdftex-all
This is pdfeTeXk, Version 3.141592-1.21a-2.2 (Web2C 7.5.3)

real    0m2.913s
user    0m1.417s
sys     0m0.038s

$ time pdftex pdftex-all
This is pdfTeXk, Version 3.141592-1.40.0-beta-20060906 (Web2C 7.5.5)

real    0m2.955s
user    0m1.454s
sys     0m0.037s

Pretty much the same speed (which is the expected). So if TeX Live 2005
is slower than 2003 (which i don't have), it might be

* different compiler
* different TeX tree
* different kpathsea library (any changes in the hashing mechanism?)
* different X window size

Regards, Hartmut