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Preview: Ubuntu's Performance Over The Past Two Years

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  • #41
    Optimization-levels vs USE-Flags

    Originally posted by JS987 View Post
    There will be no/small difference in 90% cases. There are some benchmark results on Phoronix like these:
    Phoronix, Linux Hardware Reviews, Linux hardware benchmarks, Linux server benchmarks, Linux benchmarking, Desktop Linux, Linux performance, Open Source graphics, Linux How To, Ubuntu benchmarks, Ubuntu hardware, Phoronix Test Suite

    Phoronix, Linux Hardware Reviews, Linux hardware benchmarks, Linux server benchmarks, Linux benchmarking, Desktop Linux, Linux performance, Open Source graphics, Linux How To, Ubuntu benchmarks, Ubuntu hardware, Phoronix Test Suite

    http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...ore_avx2&num=2
    These are just _optimization-levels_. They make software unstable if used excessively!
    They don't make much difference, either. The USE-flags do!
    It's about what you include into your binary, and not only how much you optimize it.

    That's why Gentoo is faster; because you can influence the number of dependencies in the package-manager (Portage) and actually compile it into your program. This is not possible in normal binary-based-distributions.

    This is also the reason why the benchmarks you linked to are _irrelevant_ if you want to discuss Gentoo's overall performance.
    Last edited by frign; 14 July 2013, 09:59 AM.

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    • #42
      Some education for you

      Originally posted by BO$$ View Post
      Yes it's faster because you said so. Perhaps you get 3 times the framerate of Nexuiz because you compiled locally. Hahaha! The radeon driver is on par with fglrx on Gentoo because you compiled locally I'm sure. Compiling locally makes everything faster because I said so! Wah wah Gentoo isa faaaaaaaster! Ubuntu sucks! Wah wah!
      It's not faster, because I said so, but because it _is_.

      This fact can be directly derived from the nature of distribution:
      Ubuntu is a finished product full of software you might never need. Gentoo on the other hand is a custom product, an operating system you nearly build from scratch.
      The less software is loaded, the more resources are available to power software like Xonotic (Nexuiz has been proprietary for half a decade now, dude). Same applies to the OpenGL-stack, which in itself can pull in a lot of dependencies.

      I won't claim it will be 200% faster on Gentoo, but it will be faster, because the nature of a pre-distributed operating system like Ubuntu is to be slower than a custom one.

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      • #43
        Originally posted by JS987 View Post
        If new stable version of software is released after new Ubuntu release, you can wait up to 6 months or you have to create own deb package which is hard or impossible because of dependencies.
        Red Hat is used by companies which don't mind outdated software. Many of them still use Windows XP.
        Ubuntu has this nice ppa and backport system, so you can make anything you want cutting edge, even to the point of nightly builds. I run xorg edgers and the 3.10 kernel on 13.04.

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        • #44
          Then let me explain it to you

          Originally posted by BO$$ View Post
          Which makes me wonder why don't they distribute the code and compile locally for absolutely everything on all other distros?
          Because then we would have Gentoo more or less.

          Oh right. Because the performance difference is usually negligible. Do you really think that having more .so files on the disk will make your system slower?
          The performance difference is bigger than you might think. Let me explain it to you:

          Compiling identical binaries linked to identical shared libraries doesn't make a big difference. You are right! It's a myth, that excessive CFLAGS make a noticeable difference. The opposite is true: The higher you go (-O0 -> -O1 -> -O2 -> -O3 -> -Ofast), the more you risk breaking your program and having runtime-issues (segmentation faults, memory-leaks and even slower execution).

          You assume, that when you're using Gentoo, you're compiling the same code as the code binaries are based on under binary-based distributions. This is false and a common misunderstanding:
          In fact, when you "emerge" a program in Gentoo (using Portage), a set of package-specific USE-flags define, which features should be included into a given program.
          Let me give you GIMP as an example.

          The following USE-flags are available:
          {aalib alsa altivec bzip2 curl dbus debug doc exif gnome jpeg jpeg2k lcms mmx mng pdf png postscript python smp sse svg tiff udev webkit wmf xpm}}
          When you distribute a binary-distribution, you are forced to select most or even all of those flags.
          Look at webkit for instance, which is only needed for the help-browser plugin and blows up the GIMP-binary by around 10MB. If you install GIMP on a binary-based distribution, you are forced to install webkit as a dependency, as you have to follow the decision of the package-maintainer who included webkit in the build-process.
          Starting GIMP will take longer, as the webkit-engine has to be initialized first (among other things).
          This rule also applies to the other features, which can blow up a program considerably (e.g. alsa, gnome, ...). If you don't use Gnome, you don't need Gnome-support in your program. And why do you need ALSA-support (sound) for an image-editor?
          You don't even need to set those flags per package. You can also disable gnome globally for every program.

          I hope you get the idea what I mean. Just looking at the USE-flags-system, it becomes clear, what the advantages are.
          And I didn't even start with the great slot-system and the possibility to directly pull in software from SVN through Portage.

          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nexuiz doesn't seem so proprietary to me.
          Originally posted by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nexuiz
          On March 1, 2010, it was revealed a company known as Illfonic purchased the rights to the name Nexuiz, and a proprietary license to the source-code, the details of any potential legal conflicts are not yet known.
          On March 22, 2010, the fork Xonotic of Nexuiz was announced. Many of the core contributors and community members of Nexuiz moved to this new project as they felt that sale of the name Nexuiz mishandles the original project.

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          • #45
            Originally posted by frign View Post
            These are just _optimization-levels_. They make software unstable if used excessively!
            They don't make much difference, either. The USE-flags do!
            It's about what you include into your binary, and not only how much you optimize it.

            That's why Gentoo is faster; because you can influence the number of dependencies in the package-manager (Portage) and actually compile it into your program. This is not possible in normal binary-based-distributions.

            This is also the reason why the benchmarks you linked to are _irrelevant_ if you want to discuss Gentoo's overall performance.
            Actually it is not just optimisations, the second set of cited benchmarks compares different CPU instruction architectures. That does make a difference if the extended instruction set is beneficial to the benchmark. In those particular results, AVX2 operations do result in real performance improvements.

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            • #46
              My mistake

              Originally posted by chrisb View Post
              Actually it is not just optimisations, the second set of cited benchmarks compares different CPU instruction architectures. That does make a difference if the extended instruction set is beneficial to the benchmark. In those particular results, AVX2 operations do result in real performance improvements.
              Okay, you're right.
              I just like to call them CPU-specific optimizations, because you don't really go beyond the compiler and given AVX2-operations for instance are factually shortcuts on the ASM-level.

              To avoid confusion, let's talk about compiler-flags in general, which includes both optimizations and specific instruction-sets.

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              • #47
                Originally posted by BO$$ View Post
                You should do your homework before discussing, the files you link to are from 2009. Newer versions of Nexuiz use the CryEngine 3, which is definitely not open source. Go figure about the validity of your other arguments.

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                • #48
                  You still got to learn

                  Originally posted by BO$$ View Post
                  We have so much memory these days if that is your concern.... Disk space and memory we have plenty. Most applications aren't really that performance hungry so it doesn't matter. For those that are you can compile locally in Ubuntu. Gentoo serves no purpose and has the shitty market share that it has exactly because of this. You are simply fighting reality. People don't use it because there are no benefits and it's too complicated. If you like wasting your time using something this niche, please go ahead I don't mind.

                  http://sourceforge.net/projects/nexuiz/files/ looks pretty open to me.
                  You still don't know what you're talking about.

                  Programs have become more and more resource-hungry over the years and the demand for efficient applications is increasing. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should. This also applies to software. This is the reason why people started developing Wayland: Because Xorg is bloated.
                  Even though we have faster computers, you can definitely notice the shorter startup-times when a program is small and snappy. Don't think it doesn't make a difference, especially when you've never used Gentoo before. And don't forget about the people with slower computers.
                  You can't just compile locally in Ubuntu, because there is high a risk of breaking your system and it's even too complicated for me, because Ubuntu itself is unpredictable as soon as you start modifying it.

                  And stop talking about market-share. Even if I was the only Gentoo-user in the world, it wouldn't change the fact it's a faster system . And that's the point we're talking about at the moment.

                  Talking about market-share in general, a bigger user-base doesn't identify a better product or show usefulness. An operating system is like a tool, which has it's specific purpose. It's about choosing and using this tool the right way.
                  Last edited by frign; 14 July 2013, 01:50 PM.

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                  • #49
                    You're getting off-topic

                    Originally posted by BO$$ View Post
                    Nobody cares that X.org is bloated but that it couldn't do some things that are necessary for this century when it comes to desktops. It also accumulated a lot of cruft requiring people to write code that never gets used just to be compatible with the X standard.

                    And about that user-base doesn't identify a better product isn't actually always true. If trillions of users have windows installed and only you use Gentoo it might not be that you are a misunderstood genius. The support windows will have will simply destroy anything you might be able to do with gentoo simply because windows is so much bigger and popular and tons of applications get written for it. A lot of times popularity really is linked to quality, it's just that losers don't want to admit that. They may select a few issues where their system might be superior and claim definitive superiority.
                    You're just wrong!
                    If nobody had cared about Xorg's bloatedness, then we wouldn't have had Wayland in the first place. Xorg isn't compatible with current demands, because it's too complex to be modified fundamentally. The tape-code you are talking about had to be written just because of that.

                    And please stop bullshitting around about popularity: We are talking about the technology only and I get the impression you try to avoid my arguments by constantly changing the topic.
                    I acknowledge popularity is an important factor, but not in a way it would cover up Gentoo's technological advantages. A comparison with Microsoft's Windows is unsuitable, because it's proprietary software. If everyone had followed your reason, GNU/Linux wouldn't have existed in the first place, because in the beginning, there's always a corporate dominance.

                    Please, don't let me lose my already weak faith in your sanity and start giving rational arguments.
                    Last edited by frign; 14 July 2013, 02:16 PM.

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                    • #50
                      Originally posted by frign View Post
                      ...
                      you try to avoid my arguments by constantly changing the topic.
                      ...
                      Both of you have been off-topic for some time already, but it is entertaining

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