Optimization of Fontconfig Library
Srb, Michal (2017)
Oulun ammattikorkeakoulu
2017
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-201704124735
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-201704124735
Tiivistelmä
Fontconfig is a library that manages a database of fonts on Linux systems. The aim of this Bachelor's thesis was to explore options for making it respond faster to application's queries.
The library was identified as a bottleneck during the startup of graphical applications. The typical usage of the library by applications was analyzed and a set of standalone benchmarks were created. The library was profiled to identify hot spots and multiple optimizations were applied to it.
It was determined that to achieve an optimal performance, a complete rewrite would be necessary. However, that could not be done while staying backward compatible. Nevertheless, the optimizations applied to the existing fontconfig yielded significant performance improvements, up to 98% speedups in benchmarks based on the real-world usage.
The library was identified as a bottleneck during the startup of graphical applications. The typical usage of the library by applications was analyzed and a set of standalone benchmarks were created. The library was profiled to identify hot spots and multiple optimizations were applied to it.
It was determined that to achieve an optimal performance, a complete rewrite would be necessary. However, that could not be done while staying backward compatible. Nevertheless, the optimizations applied to the existing fontconfig yielded significant performance improvements, up to 98% speedups in benchmarks based on the real-world usage.