Ubuntu vs. Fedora vs. openSUSE vs. Clear Linux On Intel Kabylake

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Ubuntu vs. Fedora vs. openSUSE vs. Clear Linux On Intel Kabylake

After running my initial Intel Kaby Lake Linux tests last week using a Core i5 MSI Cubi 2 with new "KBL" processor, which was done under Ubuntu 16.10, I turned my focus to testing a few other distributions with this newest-generation Intel processor...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=KBL-Fedora-Ubuntu-SUSE-CLR

[GreatEmerald]

Hm, I don't get why openSUSE would perform so poorly. The components seem to be about the same. Could it be some scheduler differences?..

[Steffo]

Strange, that Ubuntu outperforms Clear Linux.

[Termy]

with these kind of benches i always think it would be nice to have an arch-based distro included - as it's always said that arch should be the fastest ^^
for the sake of simplicity/comparability maybe something like antergos or manjaro?
Or do you refrain from it due to the RR?

[tomtomme]

with these kind of benches i always think it would be nice to have an arch-based distro included - as it's always said that arch should be the fastest ^^
for the sake of simplicity/comparability maybe something like antergos or manjaro?
Or do you refrain from it due to the RR?

Arch is the fastest if you customize. If you go for defaults (e.g. antergos or manjaro) its barely different from the others if the same software-versions are used.

[toxa]

IMHO the better choice to test openSUSE would be not the Tumbleweed, but the Leap-version (42.1).

[bug77]

with these kind of benches i always think it would be nice to have an arch-based distro included - as it's always said that arch should be the fastest ^^

I seriously doubt any distribution can be "the fastest". It all comes down to workloads and configurations.

[treba]

Do the games have native wayland backends and does gnome-shell allow unredirected rendering on wayland now?

[DJViking]

What is the difference between Linux kernel 4.8.6-300.fc25 from Fedora and 4.8.6-2 from OpenSUSE that would account for this performance difference?

[Linuxxx]

What is the difference between Linux kernel 4.8.6-300.fc25 from Fedora and 4.8.6-2 from OpenSUSE that would account for this performance difference?

OpenSuse activates pre-emption in the kernel by default (uname -a --> PREEMPT), which means it's a soft real-time kernel. (As does Arch, by the way; although they use a weird-ass kernel tick of 300 Hz, instead of the logical choice of 1000 Hz!)
Note that using a soft real-time kernel will generally lead to slightly worse performance & higher average latency, but should greatly reduce the maximum latency under heavy workloads (like gaming).
I personally use the so-called 'lowlatency' kernel package provided by Ubuntu on Linux Mint, which also has PREEMPT activated. This way, I have noticed better & smoother frame-timings while gaming and also less input lag.

Another thing that will be interesting to observe going forward is how Valve will handle the Linux kernel situation on SteamOS:
Right now, they are using Debian's stock kernel, which is less than adequate for gaming, but they seem to be aware of the issue...

http://www.phoronix.com/image-viewer.php?id=2016&image=valve_vr_kubuntu_lrg

If one looks closely, one can read: "linuxsteamrt64" which most likely stands for 'Linux + Steam REAL-TIME(!) 64-bit'.

Interesting times ahead! (Because of VR & all that stuff...)