Mid-2012: Arch Linux vs. Slackware vs. Ubuntu vs. Fedora

[gens]

wierd about slackware
stock scheduler frequency is 1000hz, same as others
and packages are compiled (for64bit) usualy with SLKCFLAGS="-O2 -fPIC" (or -O3, this is from the fluxbox slackbuild)

almost all vanilla, except for security patches and if something has a problem by default(example X11 has a "x11.startwithblackscreen.diff.gz" patch)
only thing blatently different is that KDE is the default, althou theres alot more WM's there

maybe some1 else knows why shud it be 10-20% slower ?

[nightmarex]

You could set these systems up identically. That's where the futility of these tests lay. However that being said Ubuntu's default did fair better than I would of given it credit for.

I haven't done a install of Arch since the swap, mostly because my Arch box's never need a re-install and the server heads use the LTS branch so until I get a new computer to mess with I won't get to try the new scripts, may VM it just for fun.

[mitcoes]

I missed Sabayon a great gentoo precompiled distro

Nest time, please add Sabayon, a great gentoo precompiled distro, that in my experience is one of the best in desktop performance.

[schmidtbag]

I guess distros like Arch and Gentoo (apparently not slackware anymore) might not be as useful as someone has stated earlier. However, people still argue they're the fastest, and I think at this point its the same psychological thing as being told "this is $200 wine" and it tastes better compared to $20 wine when they both came from the same batch. Arch did prove to be pretty competitive in many of these tests, I haven oticed it seems to lag behind a little with the more server-like tasks, but I get the impression a lot of people don't use Arch for servers anyway.

[F i L]

I know these comparisons must take a lot of time, and the ones which include such a full range of Linux distros will remain more of a rare occurrence. That being said, I do appreciate you taking the time to work Arch Linux into them, as Arch is very minimal and uses the latest "stable" software it's a good reference point. Also, as an Arch user myself, it's good to get an idea of where the others stand in comparison, even if only to see that most are neck-to-neck with each other.

[PeterKraus]

I guess distros like Arch and Gentoo (apparently not slackware anymore) might not be as useful as someone has stated earlier. However, people still argue they're the fastest, and I think at this point its the same psychological thing as being told "this is $200 wine" and it tastes better compared to $20 wine when they both came from the same batch. Arch did prove to be pretty competitive in many of these tests, I haven oticed it seems to lag behind a little with the more server-like tasks, but I get the impression a lot of people don't use Arch for servers anyway.

I've used both Gentoo and am still using Arch. While "speed" was really the reason to go to Gentoo (and then move to Arch as I couldn't be arsed recompiling), it has a lot of other benefits compared to other distros. Arch's "KISS" principle and the fact that you have (mostly) vanilla packages mean, that bug reporting is very easy (you can go straight to upstream), configuration is really simple (now that's somewhat changing due to systemd, but the old "initscripts" still work), the packages are very new (rolling release), upgrades are not painful (rolling release again), the AUR has really everything you could ever want (and if it doesn't, writing a PKGBUILD and putting it on AUR is a doddle), and the Arch Wiki is simply amazing...

The thing about Arch is - it's for "power users" which don't want things to "just work out of the box", but "work the way they want it". You want to use pure ALSA? No problem. Or OSSv4? No problem. You want GTK and Qt apps ran in your Openbox with xfce-panel and PcManfm, but would like the Qt-Curve look? No problem. Just set it yourself - there will be no automated magic to do it for you, but also no automated magic to screw it up on the next reboot...

[blackout23]

Everytime I see Arch can easily switch from one technology to another (for example, adopt systemd for inintialization) , I am still amazed.

This should not be very distro specific. In the end having systemd just means having some exta files on your harddrive and adding init=/bin/systemd to your KERNEL line.

[mtelesha]

Desktop Environments Would Be Cool!

I know this seems useless but it proved that their really isn't much different in speed.

BUT I know my Son's Netbook can't play YouTube videos at above 320P UNLESS I use a Window Manager like Awesome!

Also the call of KDE bloat from Gnome people has always made me CRAZY since Gnome 2.X and 3.X always used more memory and cpu on my machines.

So can we have a test of:

Gnome 2
Gnome 3
Unity
KDE 4
Xfce
LXDE
OpenBox
Awesome

[schmidtbag]

I've used both Gentoo and am still using Arch. While "speed" was really the reason to go to Gentoo (and then move to Arch as I couldn't be arsed recompiling), it has a lot of other benefits compared to other distros. Arch's "KISS" principle and the fact that you have (mostly) vanilla packages mean, that bug reporting is very easy (you can go straight to upstream), configuration is really simple (now that's somewhat changing due to systemd, but the old "initscripts" still work), the packages are very new (rolling release), upgrades are not painful (rolling release again), the AUR has really everything you could ever want (and if it doesn't, writing a PKGBUILD and putting it on AUR is a doddle), and the Arch Wiki is simply amazing...

The thing about Arch is - it's for "power users" which don't want things to "just work out of the box", but "work the way they want it". You want to use pure ALSA? No problem. Or OSSv4? No problem. You want GTK and Qt apps ran in your Openbox with xfce-panel and PcManfm, but would like the Qt-Curve look? No problem. Just set it yourself - there will be no automated magic to do it for you, but also no automated magic to screw it up on the next reboot...

Oh yea I totally agree with all of that - that's really why I used Arch (I didn't care to get into the nitty gritty stuff to optimize performance) but I'm just saying that people using Arch and Gentoo for performance purposes (on new systems anyway) are just wishful thinkers at this point. However, Gentoo seems like it will always have an advantage over almost any distro considering how many architectures it works on.

[GreatEmerald]

I guess distros like Arch and Gentoo (apparently not slackware anymore) might not be as useful as someone has stated earlier. However, people still argue they're the fastest, and I think at this point its the same psychological thing as being told "this is $200 wine" and it tastes better compared to $20 wine when they both came from the same batch. Arch did prove to be pretty competitive in many of these tests, I haven oticed it seems to lag behind a little with the more server-like tasks, but I get the impression a lot of people don't use Arch for servers anyway.

Well, I'd say that it's relative. On fast machines, the difference should be pretty small. On slow machines, like netbooks and tablets, the difference can be huge, from both specific optimisations and choosing only essential software. I installed Gentoo on my tablet PC, and it works incredibly fast compared to anything I had before (it has other problems, but it's not related to distro choices). That said, compiling everything on slow machines is a rather long procedure. Makes me wonder if it wouldn't be possible to precompile things on a fast machine and then transfer it to the slower one...