diff --git a/HACKING.md b/HACKING.md
index 2b0493155a..3891e9defe 100644
--- a/HACKING.md
+++ b/HACKING.md
@@ -288,7 +288,7 @@ In this example, `10.0.0.2` will be sent up to 16 jobs and the local machine wil
 
 When a compilation is in progress, the status of jobs on all remote machines can be visualized in the terminal with `distccmon-text` or graphically as a GTK application with `distccmon-gnome`.
 
-One thing to keep in mind is that linking object files happens on the coordinating machine, which can be a bottleneck. See the next section speeding up this process.
+One thing to keep in mind is that linking object files happens on the coordinating machine, which can be a bottleneck. See the next sections speeding up this process.
 
 ### Using the `gold` linker
 
@@ -298,6 +298,24 @@ Linking Scylla can be slow. The gold linker can replace GNU ld and often speeds
 $ sudo alternatives --config ld
 ```
 
+### Using split dwarf
+
+With debug info enabled, most of the link time is spent copying and
+relocating it. It is possible to leave most of the debug info out of
+the link by writing it to a side .dwo file. This is done by passing
+`-gsplit-dwarf` to gcc.
+
+Unfortunately just `-gsplit-dwarf` would slow down `gdb` startup. To
+avoid that the gold linker can be told to create an index with
+`--gdb-index`.
+
+More info at https://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/DebugFission.
+
+Both options can be enable by passing `--split-dwarf` to configure.py.
+
+Note that distcc is *not* compatible with it, but icecream
+(https://github.com/icecc/icecream) is.
+
 ### Testing changes in Seastar with Scylla
 
 Sometimes Scylla development is closely tied with a feature being developed in Seastar. It can be useful to compile Scylla with a particular check-out of Seastar.
diff --git a/configure.py b/configure.py
index 4e8a885d44..7245084fbd 100755
--- a/configure.py
+++ b/configure.py
@@ -433,6 +433,8 @@ arg_parser.add_argument('--python', action='store', dest='python', default='pyth
                         help='Python3 path')
 add_tristate(arg_parser, name='hwloc', dest='hwloc', help='hwloc support')
 add_tristate(arg_parser, name='xen', dest='xen', help='Xen support')
+arg_parser.add_argument('--split-dwarf', dest='split_dwarf', action='store_true', default=False,
+                        help='use of split dwarf (https://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/DebugFission) to speed up linking')
 arg_parser.add_argument('--enable-gcc6-concepts', dest='gcc6_concepts', action='store_true', default=False,
                         help='enable experimental support for C++ Concepts as implemented in GCC 6')
 arg_parser.add_argument('--enable-alloc-failure-injector', dest='alloc_failure_injector', action='store_true', default=False,
@@ -1030,6 +1032,8 @@ if args.gcc6_concepts:
     seastar_flags += ['--enable-gcc6-concepts']
 if args.alloc_failure_injector:
     seastar_flags += ['--enable-alloc-failure-injector']
+if args.split_dwarf:
+    seastar_flags += ['--split-dwarf']
 
 debug_flags = ' ' + debug_compress_flag(compiler=args.cxx) + ' ' + dbgflag
 modes['debug']['opt'] += debug_flags