Moblin V2 vs. Ubuntu Netbook Remix vs. Ubuntu MID

Last week Intel had pushed out a second alpha release of Moblin V2 and now it boots even faster, which means they are down to the point of being able to boot in just a few seconds. Beyond a very quick boot process, they have already incorporated kernel mode-setting and other newer Linux/X.Org technologies while also working to build a desktop environment around the Clutter OpenGL tool-kit. Moblin is certainly turning into an interesting Intel creation, but how does its performance compare to other mobile-focused Linux distributions? We have benchmarked Moblin V2 Alpha 2 and compared it against what is likely their biggest competitor in the mobile space, Ubuntu Netbook Remix, and the LPIA-based Ubuntu MID edition. Which of these mobile operating systems is the fastest? We hope to find out today.

Similar to our Ubuntu MID power testing last week, all testing was done on an Atom-based Samsung NC10 netbook with 2GB of RAM and an OCZ Core Series V2 SSD added in. On the Moblin side, we used Moblin V2 Alpha 2 while we used the 9.04 beta releases of Ubuntu MID and Ubuntu Netbook Remix. For reference, Moblin V2 Alpha 2 uses the Linux 2.6.29-rc7 kernel, X Server 1.6.0, xf86-video-intel 2.6.3, and the EXT3 file-system. The two Ubuntu mobile distributions use the Linux 2.6.28 kernel, X Server 1.6.0, xf86-video-intel 2.6.3, and the EXT3 file-system. The main package difference between Moblin and Ubuntu MID/NR is the use of the Linux 2.6.29 kernel in the Intel distribution.

With the Phoronix Test Suite we looked at the performance of these three distributions in several different tests. The Linux benchmarks we ended up using were Gzip compression, FFmpeg, GnuPG, IOzone, OpenSSL, and SQLite. All distributions were left in their default states. Before beginning with the Linux performance results, on the next page are our Bootchart numbers.