Performance characterization of prelinking and preloadingfor embedded systems

Abstract

Application launching times in embedded systems are more crucial than in general-purpose systems since the response times of embedded applications are significantly affected by the launching times. As general-purpose operating systems are increasingly used in embedded systems, reducing appli-cation launching times are one of the most influential factors for performance improvement. In order to reduce the application launching times, three factors should be considered at the same time: relocation time, symbol resolution time, and binary loading time. In this paper, we propose a new application execution model using a combination of prelinking and preloading to reduce the relocation, symbol resolution, and binary load overheads at the same time. Such application execution model is realized using fork and dlopen execution model instead of traditional fork and exec execution model. We evaluate the performance effect of the proposed fork and dlopen application execution model on a Linux-based embedded system using XScale processor. By applying the proposed application execution model using both prelinking and preloading, the application launching times are reduced up to 71% and relocation counts are reduced up to 91% in the benchmark programs we used.