Benchmarks Of The Gentoo-based Sabayon

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Benchmarks Of The Gentoo-based Sabayon

For those looking to experiment with a Gentoo-based Linux system but are not looking forward to the obstacles of installing Gentoo itself, an easier and quicker approach can be to use a distribution like Sabayon Linux. Sabayon uses pre-compiled x86 and x86_64 packages for installing the Linux distribution from its LiveDVD and uses their own Entropy system for package management, though these binary packages are compiled from Gentoo's Portage and using the Portage system is still available. The LiveDVD installer is also very easy to use and is just like using Ubuntu's Ubiquity or Red Hat's Anaconda. With all the benchmarking though of Ubuntu and Fedora as of late on Phoronix, we found it time to put out some benchmarks of Sabayon Linux. Up today are benchmarks from the recently released Sabayon 5.1 along with the older Sabayon 4.2 and for comparison is Kubuntu 9.10.

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=14481

[Palatis]

docache seems pointless. Just do a readahead on the filesystem image on the CD and it'll do the same, in the background, and still work on systems that can't cache the entire thing.

well, it pretty much won't if your livecd/livedvd/live{rotating_media} is using a squashfs archive as the root filesystem.

squashfs doesn't order files for faster boot, so the boot process might want something at the very beginning of the image, then something at the middle, then something at the beginning again, and the middle, and the biginning... you see the point. but seeking in CD is a HELL!

in my opinion is to "group" only the files needed for booting in one squashfs image, and other files (like firefox/openoffice) in another squashfs image, then mount them together with unionfs (or aufs). that way you minimize the seek (on booting only, tho...)

And, if you take Quick Install Guide (http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/gentoo-...ickinstall.xml) into account, it took you 15 min of reading + ~20 min to dl the stage3 + minimal system service (linux-kernel/cron/syslog/bootloader/xxxfsutils/whatever) source tarball, plus 15~30 min of compiliation time for an MINIMAL (REALLY MINIMAL) setup.

yes, if you take custom stage4 into account, then only "steps" to install a gentoo system are "fdisk + mount + untar + reboot"

[Ant P.]

I wasn't talking about boot, but apps launch.
docache in fact will seriously prolong boot time since it has to copy whole image to RAM.
and then it works so sweet

docache seems pointless. Just do a readahead on the filesystem image on the CD and it'll do the same, in the background, and still work on systems that can't cache the entire thing.

[sanne]

I'd like to see a comparison to a "aggresively tuned" version of Gentoo or Sabayon.
It's known that Ubnuntu also does some general purpose optimization, while distros like Sabayon don't really focus on performance out-of-the-box as you should tune it yourself: cpu arch but not only, like disabling global stuff you don't use and building smaller prelinked binaries.

About the "10% not worth it", that's silly: even if I spend 10 hours rebuilding my system, I'll not be there reading the screen and waiting for it, I'll be breathing some fresh air outside.
Every single 1% i get back is just a win for my own time, and less stress waiting for stuff.

[chronomatic]

The article title is misleading. First of all, Sabayon is nothing like Gentoo anymore -- the devs don't even encourage the use of portage (they encourage the use of their binary package manager).

Second, all packages are precompiled, which provides none of the advantages of Gentoo. The whole point of Gentoo is to compile one's own packages with the proper optimization flags for the specific cpu architecture in question.

I would be interested in seeing a gentoo benchmark when the CFLAGS were optimized for the CPU and a "make -e system && make -e world" was done beforehand.

[Apopas]

Heh that's what I thought too till 2004.

[squirrl]

Come on guys,

1 Recompile GLibC
2 Recompile Kernel
3 Recompile GCC

That's really all it takes on any distribution.

[n0nsense]

Doubt it's faster then Machboot for LiveCD boots.

I wasn't talking about boot, but apps launch.
docache in fact will seriously prolong boot time since it has to copy whole image to RAM.
and then it works so sweet

[deanjo]

Always? I seem to recall the Suse installer requiring manual input of ftp mirrors without listing available mirrors and this was not documented anywhere a reasonable person would expect before, so anyone not familiar with SuSe's mirrors would be up a creek without a paddle before they were bought by Novell. That is not what I would call a plus in the documentation column.

Early suse installers had a list of available mirrors, later versions used a redirector, and there has always been a list of mirrors along with their type of mirror on suse's web page.

If you doubt me check out the left hand column,

http://web.archive.org/web/199902021.../index_us.html

[yogi_berra]

Novell's documentation is nothing to sneeze at either. Documentation in fact has always been one of SuSE's strong points. A hand holding approach works for most people but the documentation is also there for the more demanding, your just not forced into having to use it.

Always? I seem to recall the Suse installer requiring manual input of ftp mirrors without listing available mirrors and this was not documented anywhere a reasonable person would expect before, so anyone not familiar with SuSe's mirrors would be up a creek without a paddle before they were bought by Novell. That is not what I would call a plus in the documentation column.