https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=77821
--- Comment #8 from PeteVine <tulipawn at gmail dot com> --- Nah, the whole issue's just some sort of build-system artifact, namely, switching to cmake: $ du ufo*cmake* 2076 ufo-gcc4.9-lto-cmake 2140 ufo-gcc4.9-nonlto-cmake 2064 ufo-gcc7-lto-cmake 2124 ufo-gcc7-nonlto-cmake Note how the binaries got smaller but 4.9 was not able to match the previously smallest size. Due to the different build system could be apples and oranges, though. (-O2 seems to be enforced here, just noticed)