Running The Linux 2.6.35 Kernel With A Core i7 Notebook

The Apache test always tends to be interesting when running with different kernel releases and file-systems. When looking at the Apache web server performance between the Linux 2.6.32 and 2.6.35 kernel releases on the Intel Core i7 notebook the performance has improved a great deal atop the EXT4 file-system -- over 70% faster! The biggest jump in performance for the Apache web server was between the 2.6.32 and 2.6.33 kernel releases while it seemed to regress a bit under the 2.6.34 kernel, but with this brand new Linux kernel the performance is great and the best that it has been as of late with the EXT4 file-system. Most of these gains can be attributed to the maturing of the EXT4 file-system along with other optimizations.

The PostgreSQL database server performance was rather uninteresting between the 2.6.32 and 2.6.34 kernel releases, but with the Linux 2.6.35 kernel there is a nice performance boost too with this Core i7 + SSD system by about 12%.

While PostgreSQL and Apache are running at their prime with the Linux 2.6.35 kernel, with the PostMark test profile that tries to represent the disk workload of a mail server, the 2.6.35 kernel is at a low-point. The best performance in PostMark was found with the Linux 2.6.33 kernel, but it regressed with the 2.6.34 release and now it has regressed even further with the EXT4 code in the Linux 2.6.35 kernel.