Gdb: how to speed up debugging on a very large binary?

Question

Is there a way to speed up gdb when it loads a very large C ++ binary?

The binary I am talking about is about 50 MB in a release build (no debug symbols)

The debug build is more than 400 MB, and it takes more than 2 minutes to download.

Perhaps there are some settings that speed up loading the application in gdb?

Any help is much appreciated!

Environment: ubuntu karmic 64bit with gdb v6.8, 32GB Ram, 8 cpu-core

Answer 1

Start by upgrading to GDB 7.0.1 . GDB developers spent a lot of effort in 2009, making GDB 7.0 faster (and in 7.1: -) even more.