Ubuntu 9.04 vs. Fedora 11 Performance

[Azmo]

a typo in the article:

Ubuntu 9.04 ships with the Linux 2.6.29 kernel,

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/JauntyJackalope/TechnicalOverview#Linux%20kernel%202.6.28

[kxmas]

I agree with the objections, but I think compilation of a rather large project has historically been used as an overall system benchmark because it exercises CPU, memory and disk read/writes. So, besides the caveats you all provided, it's still a nice benchmark if taken with a grain of salt

In summary, it's the best benchmark ever, except that it doesn't mean anything.

[mendieta]

As the article says in the ifrst page: "The x86_64 builds of both Fedora 11 and Ubuntu 9.04 were used."

Arrg, how lame of me, thanks for pointing it out. Then it would be nice to add the 32 bit ;-) Seriously, this is the most FAQ I see in forums from people who just bough a 64 bit system (namely: "Does 64 bit perform better?").

[Kano]

Maybe better give a gui rating not a performance rating I prefer solutions executed by scripts - run it, then something works. Of course lots of distros provide extra guis for this and that. I did not try Mandriva nor Fedora lately, but from history usually Mandriva is maybe just behind SuSE's yast from gui tools. When you like the tools a distro provides additionally to its preconfig/stability that's usally the logical reason to choose it. Nobody would use Mac OS X because it is faster in a few benchmarks - same applies for any distro. I don't know of anybody who selects a distro because some apps run slightly faster.

As PTS compares mainly selfcompiled binaries it would not be that hard to bootstrap a newer compiler if needed. I never did that because the default compiler was slower or generated slower binaries. The only time i definitely had to compile even an older gcc (2.95) instead of using the default (some 2.96 prerelease) of old Red Hat 7.x systems was because the compiler was so broken that it was not able to generate binaries from standard source code, i still have got no idea how many changes red hat did to compile everything they shipped precompiled Well i did not prefer to fix the code, i just added another compiler - all in my home only, so nothing could hurt the rest of the system.

[glyj]

What about Mandriva ?

I regret there is nothing about Mandriva this time.
I'd love to see "Ubuntu vs Fedora vs Mandriva performance" ;-)

regards,
glyj

[cruiseoveride]

Other than the kernel related performance differences, Ubuntu kicks Fedora anal. Time to switch.

[mtippett]

It is a bad idea to have compilation benchmarks with different versions of a compiler. Because the speed of different compilers is an added variable to determining the speed of the OS. In fact, the difference of speed between different compilers might be the only reason for a speed difference between the OSes.

Also, as a developer, the speed of compilation is one of the last factors for consideration when choosing a compiler. I'd be primarily concerned with the speed of generated executable and supported languages, standards, and libraries.

Most (casual) developers don't look to closely at the compiler that ships with the system, if it has gcc they start using. It is only in more formal environments where there is tool selection (or an individual developer is really focused on some metric like above.

I have built *way* too many compilers myself (crosstool really rocks), but for most purposes, I don't bother looking to closely at the compiler for general ad-hoc development tasks.

Finally, remember that a lot of people _like_ to stay bleeding edge with end user functionality, like kernels, gnome, firefox, etc. They aren't focused on speed or size of the result, but they know they will be building on a regular basis. They too don't focus on selecting the right compiler, but instead grab what is easily available.

Matt

[Kano]

U uses a patched 2.6.28 kernel.

[Apopas]

It's obvious why Fedora might be faster (newer kernel, and ext4)

Both use 2.6.29 kernel.

[Apopas]

Michael: are you planning a 64 bit comparison? It would be nice to add it to the mix. Also, would it be possible to run Ubuntu on ext4 too see how much of the disk performance is coming from other factors? (different kernel, different compiler, libraries perhaps?)

As the article says in the ifrst page: "The x86_64 builds of both Fedora 11 and Ubuntu 9.04 were used."