Mac OS X 10.5 vs. Ubuntu 8.10 Benchmarks

[kraftman]

@Thetargos

I've got your point, but those differences what are you talking about should be mentioned in the article. Without them many idiots think that Mac OS is faster. And why not use bigger file in bonnie++ benchmark?

[Thetargos]

Well, I see your point, but keep in mind that none of this was clear until this discussion took place. Maybe a follow up article with further investigation regarding how does MacOS handle fsync() and other things like the state of the drivers, etc, would be worth to clarify this issue.

[zAo_]

I love working with debian based linux, but this proves it: Linux is 5years + behind.

EDIT: nah; X is 7 years behind, Linux isn't.

[kraftman]

@Thetargos,

Yes, you're right. I hope that next benchmark will be a little more "fair". Thanks to Drag's, yours and few other people posts.

@zAo_

Linux is 5years + behind what? It's 2008 now, not 2013 (but, maybe is due to some mistake), so I recommend you to change your date in system settings. And, you just proved what I said in #51. Thanks a lot.

[deanjo]

@zAo_

Linux is 5years + behind what? It's 2008 now, not 2013 (but, maybe is due to some mistake), so I recommend you to change your date in system settings. And, you just proved what I said in #51. Thanks a lot.

As his edited message says, not really linux but X is behind by several years.which is a pretty accurate statement IMHO.

[kraftman]

As his edited message says, not really linux but X is behind by several years.which is a pretty accurate statement IMHO.

That's possible. Luckily, it seems that some people are paying more attention to X now, than some time ago - more frequently updates, they fix bugs faster etc. Maybe in the future Wayland will replace X Server on Linux.

[Thetargos]

As his edited message says, not really linux but X is behind by several years.which is a pretty accurate statement IMHO.

Actually I don't think it is/was... Linux became relevant as a desktop alternative fairly recently, and since focus has been placed on the desktop by various groups (Canonical's Ubuntu, SuSE's OpenSuSE, Red Hat's Fedora, and many, many other projects) Xorg development has been blazing fast with a LOT of new features in the past three-four years, to the point where Linux desktops (and some other Unix systems) have the prettiest and most useful desktop effects around. Sure the API is convoluted, big, messy and has been under several revisions since the switch from XFree86 to Xorg, but all in all, it has come together pretty nice. IIRC MacOS' Quartz was in development for at least four years before they could integrate it into OS X (ever since Jobs rejoined the company with his NextStep ideas and concepts), and Mac's focus has always been the desktop.

X is slowly evolving, yes, no doubt, and most likely the Server will end up being replaced with the possibility of a fall back for old applications, much like the case in MacOS. However, how long for X to become completely obsolete and redundant?, I don't know, it may indeed never become redundant or obsolete, but it may very well cease to be the primary graphics system for Unix systems.

[deanjo]

Actually I don't think it is/was... Linux became relevant as a desktop alternative fairly recently, and since focus has been placed on the desktop by various groups (Canonical's Ubuntu, SuSE's OpenSuSE, Red Hat's Fedora, and many, many other projects) Xorg development has been blazing fast with a LOT of new features in the past three-four years, to the point where Linux desktops (and some other Unix systems) have the prettiest and most useful desktop effects around. Sure the API is convoluted, big, messy and has been under several revisions since the switch from XFree86 to Xorg, but all in all, it has come together pretty nice. IIRC MacOS' Quartz was in development for at least four years before they could integrate it into OS X (ever since Jobs rejoined the company with his NextStep ideas and concepts), and Mac's focus has always been the desktop.

X is slowly evolving, yes, no doubt, and most likely the Server will end up being replaced with the possibility of a fall back for old applications, much like the case in MacOS. However, how long for X to become completely obsolete and redundant?, I don't know, it may indeed never become redundant or obsolete, but it may very well cease to be the primary graphics system for Unix systems.

While NeXT's Display Postscript was a predecessor to quartz it does differ in many ways, it was not a direct port over to OS X. In fact it was developed all in house at Apple and no code from NeXT was used in Quartz (OS X caches bitmaps of the window graphics and does not execute postscript).

Quartz has always been a part of OS X. It debuted in 10.0 (early 2001). Quartz Extreme debuted in 10.2 (early 2003). and Quartz 2D Extreme (Now called QuartzGL in 10.5) debuted in 10.4 (late 2005). It's now close to being 2009 and X still lags behind in many aspects.

[Thetargos]

While NeXT's Display Postscript was a predecessor to quartz it does differ in many ways, it was not a direct port over to OS X. In fact it was developed all in house at Apple and no code from NeXT was used in Quartz (OS X caches bitmaps of the window graphics and does not execute postscript).

Quartz has always been a part of OS X. It debuted in 10.0 (early 2001). Quartz Extreme debuted in 10.2 (early 2003). and Quartz 2D Extreme (Now called QuartzGL in 10.5) debuted in 10.4 (late 2005). It's now close to being 2009 and X still lags behind in many aspects.

Indeed, my point is that Quartz was in development for a long time before OS X debuted in 2001, and it has been extended over the last 7 years, supposedly having a major rework for 10.6 (supposedly, I know it is not a major rewrite or anything, most likely Apple's PR sweet talk). We all agree that X11 has to evolve, as it has in fact been doing. There are going to be some trade-offs that will have to be made, trade-offs that will mean Linux will be able to do some nice new things, but no longer able to do others (tunneling is most likely to disappear, according to some "experts"). For one thing I really hope that there is still some separation between kernel and graphics systems as that is one of the biggest strengths of Linux and Unix-like systems. So while KMS is a neat thing to have, I really hope a sane distance is preserved between the graphics layer and the kernel/console layer.

[deanjo]

Indeed, my point is that Quartz was in development for a long time before OS X debuted in 2001, and it has been extended over the last 7 years, supposedly having a major rework for 10.6 (supposedly, I know it is not a major rewrite or anything, most likely Apple's PR sweet talk).

It's a pretty massive enhancement, not a complete rewrite that's for sure with more focus being put on openCL, Grand Central, and HD video acceleration (at least it wasn't when I left Apple a couple months back and the HD acceleration can be found on the new Macbook line). Still, linux will be playing catch up for a few years after 10.6 comes out.