Size of C++ debug binaries with gcc 4.2.1

[Arjan van Leeuwen]

Hi,

Since updating to FreeBSD 7.0, the size of my C++ binaries with debug
symbols has quadrupled (on a specific binary I have to work with a lot, it
increased from around 200MB to 860MB). If I use gcc 4.1 from ports, the
debug size is only a bit bigger than what I used to have with gcc 3.4 on
FreeBSD 6. The big size slows me down: linking is a lot slower, and loading
the file into the debugger also takes a lot more time.

- Why is there such a big difference in size between gcc 4.1 and gcc 4.2?
What extra information is included?

- How do I turn it off, so I can go back to fast linking and stop fiddling
my thumbs a few minutes every time I want to start the debugger?

Thanks,

Arjan