grpc takes a long time to install

[chrisseaton]

I think @eregon already identified some issues with it? Most of the time seems to be spent in ld doing LTO.

[eregon]

Is that with grpc/grpc#24632 or without?
If it's without, nothing we can do except asking the grpc maintainers to merge it.
If it's with it, can you time it? It's slow but I wouldn't say a lifetime.

Related issue: #2247

[chrisseaton]

For me installing the current release of grpc and dependencies without the patch takes up to 830s.

% time -p tool/jt.rb --use jvm ruby -Sgem install grpc 
Using Interpreted TruffleRuby: mxbuild/truffleruby-jvm
$ /Users/chrisseaton/src/github.com/Shopify/truffleruby/mxbuild/truffleruby-jvm/languages/ruby/bin/truffleruby \
  --experimental-options \
  --core-load-path=/Users/chrisseaton/src/github.com/Shopify/truffleruby/src/main/ruby/truffleruby \
  -Sgem \
  install \
  grpc
Fetching google-protobuf-3.14.0.gem
Fetching googleapis-common-protos-types-1.0.6.gem
Fetching grpc-1.35.0.gem
Building native extensions. This could take a while...
Successfully installed google-protobuf-3.14.0
Successfully installed googleapis-common-protos-types-1.0.6
Building native extensions. This could take a while...
Successfully installed grpc-1.35.0
3 gems installed
real       572.56
user      2738.71
sys        321.68

% time -p tool/jt.rb --use jvm-ce ruby -Sgem install grpc
Using TruffleRuby with Graal: mxbuild/truffleruby-jvm-ce
$ /Users/chrisseaton/src/github.com/Shopify/truffleruby/mxbuild/truffleruby-jvm-ce/languages/ruby/bin/truffleruby \
  --experimental-options \
  --core-load-path=/Users/chrisseaton/src/github.com/Shopify/truffleruby/src/main/ruby/truffleruby \
  -Sgem \
  install \
  grpc
Fetching google-protobuf-3.14.0.gem
Fetching googleapis-common-protos-types-1.0.6.gem
Fetching grpc-1.35.0.gem
Building native extensions. This could take a while...
Successfully installed google-protobuf-3.14.0
Successfully installed googleapis-common-protos-types-1.0.6
Building native extensions. This could take a while...
Successfully installed grpc-1.35.0
3 gems installed
real       830.87
user      5757.26
sys        438.94

% time -p tool/jt.rb --use native ruby -Sgem install grpc
Using Native TruffleRuby with Graal: mxbuild/truffleruby-native
$ /Users/chrisseaton/src/github.com/Shopify/truffleruby/mxbuild/truffleruby-native/languages/ruby/bin/truffleruby -Sgem install grpc
Fetching google-protobuf-3.14.0.gem
Fetching googleapis-common-protos-types-1.0.6.gem
Fetching grpc-1.35.0.gem
Building native extensions. This could take a while...
Successfully installed google-protobuf-3.14.0
Successfully installed googleapis-common-protos-types-1.0.6
Building native extensions. This could take a while...
Successfully installed grpc-1.35.0
3 gems installed
real       485.20
user      2354.97
sys        254.74

I'll try grpc/grpc#24632 next.

[eregon]

Can you also compare to CRuby to have a baseline, when compiling from source with:

time gem install --platform ruby grpc

[chrisseaton]

% ruby -v
ruby 2.7.2p137 (2020-10-01 revision 5445e04352) [x86_64-darwin19]
chrisseaton@Chris-Seatons-MacBook-Pro truffleruby % time -p gem install --platform ruby grpc
Fetching grpc-1.35.0.gem
Fetching google-protobuf-3.14.0.gem
Fetching googleapis-common-protos-types-1.0.6.gem
Building native extensions. This could take a while...
Successfully installed google-protobuf-3.14.0
Successfully installed googleapis-common-protos-types-1.0.6
Building native extensions. This could take a while...
Successfully installed grpc-1.35.0
Parsing documentation for google-protobuf-3.14.0
Installing ri documentation for google-protobuf-3.14.0
Parsing documentation for googleapis-common-protos-types-1.0.6
Installing ri documentation for googleapis-common-protos-types-1.0.6
Parsing documentation for grpc-1.35.0
Installing ri documentation for grpc-1.35.0
Done installing documentation for google-protobuf, googleapis-common-protos-types, grpc after 6 seconds
3 gems installed
real       243.45
user      1748.60
sys        186.62

Ah so it's normally installed as a binary, and the source version is still slow for MRI. I see it hard-codes -flto. Still 2x slower on TruffleRuby but maybe that's not so crazy.

[chrisseaton]

With the patch. So the patch and --env native (which is really just there for the toolchain launchers I think) solves it.

% time -p gem install grpc/pkg/grpc-1.36.0.dev.gem 
Fetching google-protobuf-3.14.0-universal-darwin.gem
Fetching googleapis-common-protos-types-1.0.6.gem
Successfully installed google-protobuf-3.14.0-universal-darwin
Successfully installed googleapis-common-protos-types-1.0.6
Building native extensions. This could take a while...
Successfully installed grpc-1.36.0.dev
Parsing documentation for google-protobuf-3.14.0-universal-darwin
Installing ri documentation for google-protobuf-3.14.0-universal-darwin
Parsing documentation for googleapis-common-protos-types-1.0.6
Installing ri documentation for googleapis-common-protos-types-1.0.6
Parsing documentation for grpc-1.36.0.dev
Installing ri documentation for grpc-1.36.0.dev
Done installing documentation for google-protobuf, googleapis-common-protos-types, grpc after 6 seconds
3 gems installed
real       231.67
user      1780.94
sys        199.83

% time -p tool/jt.rb --use jvm ruby -Sgem install grpc/pkg/grpc-1.36.0.dev.gem
Using Interpreted TruffleRuby: mxbuild/truffleruby-jvm
$ /Users/chrisseaton/src/github.com/Shopify/truffleruby/mxbuild/truffleruby-jvm/languages/ruby/bin/truffleruby \
  --experimental-options \
  --core-load-path=/Users/chrisseaton/src/github.com/Shopify/truffleruby/src/main/ruby/truffleruby \
  -Sgem \
  install \
  grpc/pkg/grpc-1.36.0.dev.gem
Fetching google-protobuf-3.14.0.gem
Fetching googleapis-common-protos-types-1.0.6.gem
Building native extensions. This could take a while...
Successfully installed google-protobuf-3.14.0
Successfully installed googleapis-common-protos-types-1.0.6
Building native extensions. This could take a while...
Successfully installed grpc-1.36.0.dev
3 gems installed
real       349.83
user      1438.11
sys        166.93

% time -p tool/jt.rb --use jvm-ce ruby -Sgem install grpc/pkg/grpc-1.36.0.dev.gem
Using TruffleRuby with Graal: mxbuild/truffleruby-jvm-ce
$ /Users/chrisseaton/src/github.com/Shopify/truffleruby/mxbuild/truffleruby-jvm-ce/languages/ruby/bin/truffleruby \
  --experimental-options \
  --core-load-path=/Users/chrisseaton/src/github.com/Shopify/truffleruby/src/main/ruby/truffleruby \
  -Sgem \
  install \
  grpc/pkg/grpc-1.36.0.dev.gem
Fetching google-protobuf-3.14.0.gem
Fetching googleapis-common-protos-types-1.0.6.gem
Building native extensions. This could take a while...
Successfully installed google-protobuf-3.14.0
Successfully installed googleapis-common-protos-types-1.0.6
Building native extensions. This could take a while...
Successfully installed grpc-1.36.0.dev
3 gems installed
real       495.36
user      3133.19
sys        239.54

% time -p tool/jt.rb --use native ruby -Sgem install grpc/pkg/grpc-1.36.0.dev.gem
Using Native TruffleRuby with Graal: mxbuild/truffleruby-native
$ /Users/chrisseaton/src/github.com/Shopify/truffleruby/mxbuild/truffleruby-native/languages/ruby/bin/truffleruby -Sgem install grpc/pkg/grpc-1.36.0.dev.gem
Fetching google-protobuf-3.14.0.gem
Fetching googleapis-common-protos-types-1.0.6.gem
Building native extensions. This could take a while...
Successfully installed google-protobuf-3.14.0
Successfully installed googleapis-common-protos-types-1.0.6
Building native extensions. This could take a while...
Successfully installed grpc-1.36.0.dev
3 gems installed
real       263.52
user      1074.21
sys        103.97

[eregon]

Right, so 263s vs 231s seems quite close.
Could you comment on grpc/grpc#24632? Maybe that helps to move it forward.
I think we can close this, we already have a solution, but it depends on upstream merging it.