Comment 161 for bug 803943

Daniel: I must say that I've never encountered any issues using perf against executables or libraries with stripped debug symbols. While, admittedly, I nearly never strip debug symbols from my own builds, these are still linked against distribution libraries, most of which have separate symbols. While I could be wrong, a quick Google search turns up plenty of evidence suggesting that the separate symbol configuration is supported[1][2][3][4]. That being said, much of this evidence is in the form of bug reports or patches fixing breakage, so you could very well be encountering a known issue.

[1] http://www.spinics.net/lists/linux-perf-users/msg00262.html
[2] https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/608775
[3] http://www.spinics.net/lists/linux-perf-users/msg01131.html
[4] http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=661193