On average, how many cores do the Googlers on this project have on their build machines?

[Christopher Nugent]

I currently use a 6 core laptop that is perfect for most of my needs, except for large project software compilations, like this one and the Linux kernel.

I'm debating whether or not to use AWS on-demand to help out, but I want to hear what other developers on this project use.

Some additional, relevant questions: How much RAM do you use, and what storage technology do you use to hold the source code and chroot?

[Kevin Chowski]

I have an SSD, and a lot of cores and RAM :)  I'm not actually sure how utilized it is during a full build, so I'm not sure the exact number would help. (I also no longer have access to my desktop to double-check for you, sorry about that.) But I do know that I tried to compile the project on an 8-core/16GB laptop and the full build from scratch took over 12 hours if I recall correctly. I didn't try that very much after the first few times, so I don't have incremental build info for you.

Also: building often involves download pre-built objects, so having a fast internet connection will also help.

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[Colin Williams]

Not a googler but building on a 4 core / 8 thread laptop circa 2013. I checked out a release branch and build packages might be building chromium so it will probably take 12-16 hours. I think I need to look for the options to pull some pre-built binaries next time. If I had a more powerful environment handy, I would not be doing this.

When building from master I think it built more quickly. If I had a more powerful environment handy, I would not be doing this.

[Alan Cutter]

Googlers typically use Goma so for them it's more important to have a fast internet connection.

[Kevin Chowski]

Goma is not used by most Chrome *OS* developers, at least not as far as I have heard. (According to this (internal) issue, it still doesn't work with build_packages: b/156329936.) But (as far as I know) it is indeed used by many Chrome (browser) developers who are Googlers.

I am pretty sure by default a prebuilt for Chrome is downloaded during a Chrome OS build, rather than using Goma. That said, as I mentioned in my prior mail, downloading prebuilts means that having a faster internet will still help.

If I am mistaken perhaps Alan will correct me :)

[Dominik Behr]

I have built Chromium OS (and Chrome) on 4 to 8 core laptops and the most important part is 64GB of RAM (for Chrome build, 32GB may be fine for OS build), NVME SSD helps too. But a decent 36 core workstation with 192GB of RAM takes it to the next level.

Chrome linking stage is a pain though no matter what.

If I was upgrading my laptop I would start from more RAM and then fast NVME SSD. If you can have only one SSD, partition it and put chromiumos tree on partition mounted with "noatime".