Here's some interesting times from time -p of a kernel build(both with clean trees from scratch) and the same system conditions. System is a p2 400, 192 MB RAM
gcc-3.1-1mdk: real: 1787.50 user: 1644.70 sys: 112.03 gcc-2.96-0.76mdk: real: 1569.71 user: 1413.98 sys: 129.74 Interesting that the sys time was slower for 2.96 but the other times are faster. -- Chad Young Linux User #195191