New tool to reduce emacs start-up time on Linux

New tool to reduce emacs start-up time on Linux

[Blake Miller]

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Hello,

If you use emacs on linux, you may be interested in this tool which I just
released:

https://gitlab.com/blak3mill3r/emacs-ludicrous-speed

As the name suggests, it can provide you with the fastest emacs startup
time in the west, by using CRIU checkpoint/restore to "clone" emacsen.

It starts in ~300ms for me, and my entire (large) config is loaded eagerly.

If you try it out, I would love to hear from you.

Cheers,
Blake

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Re: New tool to reduce emacs start-up time on Linux

[Rafi Khan]

Hi Blake,

This looks really neat! It's exciting to see work being done on
improving startup performance.

I'll take a look to see if I can get it working on my setup.

Thanks,
Rafi

Re: New tool to reduce emacs start-up time on Linux

[Stefan Monnier]

> As the name suggests, it can provide you with the fastest emacs startup
> time in the west, by using CRIU checkpoint/restore to "clone" emacsen.

Hmmm... an "unexec" that's not Emacs-specific, interesting,


        Stefan

Re: New tool to reduce emacs start-up time on Linux

[Blake Miller]

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That's it exactly. This time the crazy hacks are in the Linux kernel and in
CRIU (and they are there to stay, as they have broad utility), instead of
in glibc (from which they might possibly be removed as emacs is the only
use-case?).

https://lwn.net/Articles/673724/

On Mon, Jul 13, 2020 at 5:38 AM Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>
wrote:

> > As the name suggests, it can provide you with the fastest emacs startup
> > time in the west, by using CRIU checkpoint/restore to "clone" emacsen.
>
> Hmmm... an "unexec" that's not Emacs-specific, interesting,
>
>
>         Stefan
>
>

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Re: New tool to reduce emacs start-up time on Linux

[T.V Raman]

Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

the biggest drawback I  saw at a quick-read was the need to run as root,
 I'd never run emacs as root.>> As the name suggests, it can provide you with the fastest emacs startup
>> time in the west, by using CRIU checkpoint/restore to "clone" emacsen.
>
> Hmmm... an "unexec" that's not Emacs-specific, interesting,
>
>
>         Stefan
>
>

-- 

Re: New tool to reduce emacs start-up time on Linux

[Blake Miller]

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I'd never run emacs as root either. CRIU has to run as root, but the
processes it creates when restoring a snapshot are regular non-root
processes, just like the one that was checkpointed.

On Mon, Jul 13, 2020 at 4:22 PM T.V Raman <raman@google.com> wrote:

> Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:
>
> the biggest drawback I  saw at a quick-read was the need to run as root,
>  I'd never run emacs as root.>> As the name suggests, it can provide you
> with the fastest emacs startup
> >> time in the west, by using CRIU checkpoint/restore to "clone" emacsen.
> >
> > Hmmm... an "unexec" that's not Emacs-specific, interesting,
> >
> >
> >         Stefan
> >
> >
>
> --
>

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Re: New tool to reduce emacs start-up time on Linux

[T.V Raman]

I see, I dont understand all the terminology here, which explains my
confusion. As long as neither the emacs daemon or client run as Root,
then that would take away my concern. Could you also elaborate on what
it is that runs as Root?
Blake Miller writes:
 > I'd never run emacs as root either. CRIU has to run as root, but the
 > processes it creates when restoring a snapshot are regular non-root
 > processes, just like the one that was checkpointed.
 > 
 > On Mon, Jul 13, 2020 at 4:22 PM T.V Raman <raman@google.com> wrote:
 > 
 > > Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:
 > >
 > > the biggest drawback I  saw at a quick-read was the need to run as root,
 > >  I'd never run emacs as root.>> As the name suggests, it can provide you
 > > with the fastest emacs startup
 > > >> time in the west, by using CRIU checkpoint/restore to "clone" emacsen.
 > > >
 > > > Hmmm... an "unexec" that's not Emacs-specific, interesting,
 > > >
 > > >
 > > >         Stefan
 > > >
 > > >
 > >
 > > --
 > >

-- 
Id: kg:/m/0285kf1 

-- 
Id: kg:/m/0285kf1 

Re: New tool to reduce emacs start-up time on Linux

[Blake Miller]

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Sure. I should improve this in the readme.

What runs as root are these three things only:

1. A little service that is part of my project, written in babashka, called
els-cloner
2. The criu binary
3. the criu-ns python script

That's all. CRIU currently cannot be run as non-root. The other two things
wrap CRIU and so also need to run as root... except I think I could make
the els-cloner service run as an els-cloner user and give it permission
only to invoke criu & criu-ns as root, and I should do that.

On Mon, Jul 13, 2020 at 8:58 PM T.V Raman <raman@google.com> wrote:

> I see, I dont understand all the terminology here, which explains my
> confusion. As long as neither the emacs daemon or client run as Root,
> then that would take away my concern. Could you also elaborate on what
> it is that runs as Root?
> Blake Miller writes:
>  > I'd never run emacs as root either. CRIU has to run as root, but the
>  > processes it creates when restoring a snapshot are regular non-root
>  > processes, just like the one that was checkpointed.
>  >
>  > On Mon, Jul 13, 2020 at 4:22 PM T.V Raman <raman@google.com> wrote:
>  >
>  > > Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:
>  > >
>  > > the biggest drawback I  saw at a quick-read was the need to run as
> root,
>  > >  I'd never run emacs as root.>> As the name suggests, it can provide
> you
>  > > with the fastest emacs startup
>  > > >> time in the west, by using CRIU checkpoint/restore to "clone"
> emacsen.
>  > > >
>  > > > Hmmm... an "unexec" that's not Emacs-specific, interesting,
>  > > >
>  > > >
>  > > >         Stefan
>  > > >
>  > > >
>  > >
>  > > --
>  > >
>
> --
> Id: kg:/m/0285kf1
>
> --
> Id: kg:/m/0285kf1
>

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Re: New tool to reduce emacs start-up time on Linux

[T.V Raman]

Thanks. Also, for those of  us not in the know, saying what CRIU is
would also alleviate a lot of the concerns 
Blake Miller writes:
 > Sure. I should improve this in the readme.
 > 
 > What runs as root are these three things only:
 > 
 > 1. A little service that is part of my project, written in babashka, called
 > els-cloner
 > 2. The criu binary
 > 3. the criu-ns python script
 > 
 > That's all. CRIU currently cannot be run as non-root. The other two things
 > wrap CRIU and so also need to run as root... except I think I could make
 > the els-cloner service run as an els-cloner user and give it permission
 > only to invoke criu & criu-ns as root, and I should do that.
 > 
 > On Mon, Jul 13, 2020 at 8:58 PM T.V Raman <raman@google.com> wrote:
 > 
 > > I see, I dont understand all the terminology here, which explains my
 > > confusion. As long as neither the emacs daemon or client run as Root,
 > > then that would take away my concern. Could you also elaborate on what
 > > it is that runs as Root?
 > > Blake Miller writes:
 > >  > I'd never run emacs as root either. CRIU has to run as root, but the
 > >  > processes it creates when restoring a snapshot are regular non-root
 > >  > processes, just like the one that was checkpointed.
 > >  >
 > >  > On Mon, Jul 13, 2020 at 4:22 PM T.V Raman <raman@google.com> wrote:
 > >  >
 > >  > > Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:
 > >  > >
 > >  > > the biggest drawback I  saw at a quick-read was the need to run as
 > > root,
 > >  > >  I'd never run emacs as root.>> As the name suggests, it can provide
 > > you
 > >  > > with the fastest emacs startup
 > >  > > >> time in the west, by using CRIU checkpoint/restore to "clone"
 > > emacsen.
 > >  > > >
 > >  > > > Hmmm... an "unexec" that's not Emacs-specific, interesting,
 > >  > > >
 > >  > > >
 > >  > > >         Stefan
 > >  > > >
 > >  > > >
 > >  > >
 > >  > > --
 > >  > >
 > >
 > > --
 > > Id: kg:/m/0285kf1
 > >
 > > --
 > > Id: kg:/m/0285kf1
 > >

-- 
Id: kg:/m/0285kf1 

-- 
Id: kg:/m/0285kf1 

Re: New tool to reduce emacs start-up time on Linux

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

  > I'd never run emacs as root either. CRIU has to run as root, but the
  > processes it creates when restoring a snapshot are regular non-root
  > processes, just like the one that was checkpointed.

Based on this, Emacs could perhaps, in principle, use CRIU _when_ it
is installed in the system.  But CRIU can't replace the existing
undumping facility, since users must be able to build and dump Emacs
in their own directories too.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)