Ruby ten times slower as a global command

[iandol]

Checks

• I have checked that this issue has not already been reported.

• I have confirmed this bug exists on the latest version of pixi, using pixi --version.

Reproducible example

pixi global install ruby
pixi global install python
pixi global install hyperfine
hyperfine --warmup 3 "/Users/ian/.pixi/bin/ruby -e 'puts \"Ruby Hello\"'"
hyperfine --warmup 3 "/Users/ian/.pixi/envs/ruby/bin/ruby -e 'puts \"Ruby Hello\"'"
hyperfine --warmup 3 "/Users/ian/.pixi/bin/python -c 'print(\"Python Hello\")'"
hyperfine --warmup 3 "/Users/ian/.pixi/envs/python/bin/python -c 'print(\"Python Hello\")'"

Issue description

Running ruby results in 355ms time vs. 29.6ms when run from the enviroment bin directory directly. Python for comparison shows roughly the same performance.

ε ➪ hyperfine --warmup 3 "/Users/ian/.pixi/bin/ruby -e 'puts \"Ruby Hello\"'"
Benchmark 1: /Users/ian/.pixi/bin/ruby -e 'puts "Ruby Hello"'
  Time (mean ± σ):     355.7 ms ±   7.5 ms    [User: 126.6 ms, System: 207.4 ms]
  Range (min … max):   351.1 ms … 376.9 ms    10 runs
 
ε ➪ hyperfine --warmup 3 "/Users/ian/.pixi/envs/ruby/bin/ruby -e 'puts \"Ruby Hello\"'"
Benchmark 1: /Users/ian/.pixi/envs/ruby/bin/ruby -e 'puts "Ruby Hello"'
  Time (mean ± σ):      29.6 ms ±   0.4 ms    [User: 24.7 ms, System: 4.4 ms]
  Range (min … max):    28.2 ms …  30.8 ms    92 runs
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 
ε ➪ hyperfine --warmup 3 "/Users/ian/.pixi/bin/python -c 'print(\"Python Hello\")'"
Benchmark 1: /Users/ian/.pixi/bin/python -c 'print("Python Hello")'
  Time (mean ± σ):      10.3 ms ±   0.2 ms    [User: 7.4 ms, System: 2.2 ms]
  Range (min … max):     9.8 ms …  11.1 ms    228 runs
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  
ε ➪ hyperfine --warmup 3 "/Users/ian/.pixi/envs/python/bin/python -c 'print(\"Python Hello\")'"
Benchmark 1: /Users/ian/.pixi/envs/python/bin/python -c 'print("Python Hello")'
  Time (mean ± σ):       8.2 ms ±   0.2 ms    [User: 6.6 ms, System: 1.2 ms]
  Range (min … max):     7.8 ms …   8.7 ms    274 runs

Expected behavior

Ruby should be the same speed no matter where it is run from...

[wolfv]

Awesome, thank you for the benchmark! We are actually currently working on a slightly adjusted way of launching the executables. The new way caches the activation variables and so it should be faster. This will be helpful.

cc @nichmor maybe you can run this locally?

[iandol]

It does seem this might just be lots of conda cruft:

ε ➪ cat .pixi/bin/ruby
   1 #!/bin/sh
   2 export PATH="/Users/ian/.pixi/envs/ruby/bin:${PATH}"
   3 export CONDA_PREFIX="/Users/ian/.pixi/envs/ruby"
   4 . "/Users/ian/.pixi/envs/ruby/etc/conda/activate.d/activate-gfortran_osx-arm64.sh"
   5 . "/Users/ian/.pixi/envs/ruby/etc/conda/activate.d/activate_clang_osx-arm64.sh"
   6 . "/Users/ian/.pixi/envs/ruby/etc/conda/activate.d/activate_clangxx_osx-arm64.sh"
   7 . "/Users/ian/.pixi/envs/ruby/etc/conda/activate.d/libxml2_activate.sh"
   8 . "/Users/ian/.pixi/envs/ruby/etc/conda/activate.d/ruby_activate.sh"
   9 "/Users/ian/.pixi/envs/ruby/bin/ruby" "$@"

If I comment out lines 4-7 then ruby takes ~33ms, much better!

ε ◎ hyperfine --warmup 3 "/Users/ian/.pixi/bin/ruby -e 'puts \"Ruby Hello\"'"
Benchmark 1: /Users/ian/.pixi/bin/ruby -e 'puts "Ruby Hello"'
  Time (mean ± σ):      33.1 ms ±   0.4 ms    [User: 26.1 ms, System: 5.9 ms]
  Range (min … max):    31.8 ms …  34.0 ms    84 runs

[nichmor]

Benchmarks results using new way of launching executables:

hyperfine --warmup 3 "/Users/graf/.pixi/bin/ruby -e 'puts \"Ruby Hello\"'"
Benchmark 1: /Users/graf/.pixi/bin/ruby -e 'puts "Ruby Hello"'
  Time (mean ± σ):      33.2 ms ±   0.7 ms    [User: 26.3 ms, System: 5.8 ms]
  Range (min … max):    31.9 ms …  34.6 ms    85 runs

hyperfine --warmup 3 "/Users/graf/.pixi/envs/ruby/bin/ruby -e 'puts \"Ruby Hello\"'"
Benchmark 1: /Users/graf/.pixi/envs/ruby/bin/ruby -e 'puts "Ruby Hello"'
  Time (mean ± σ):      32.0 ms ±   0.8 ms    [User: 25.7 ms, System: 5.3 ms]
  Range (min … max):    30.5 ms …  34.4 ms    84 runs

I think by switching to the new way of launching them we will avoid this slow problem