Linux Performance Analysis Tools

The state of Linux performance analysis tools is in rather dire straits (this is true for freeware in general, not just Linux). Commercial products currently have an edge in this area. For example, Digital Unix comes with an excellent tool (or rather tool-generator) called ATOM [SE94]. ATOM is basically a tool that can rewrite any executable. While rewriting, it can add arbitrary instrumentation code to each function or basic-block. Digital Unix comes with a bunch of tools built with ATOM: 3rd degree (a memory-leaks and -bounds checker like the well-known purify) and a number of tools that give very detailed information on the performance behavior of a program (such as cache miss frequency, issue rates, and so on). At present, the freeware community can only dream of such versatile tools.