Linux 5.0 Kernel Performance Is Sliding In The Wrong Direction

For I/O workloads, Linux 5.0 was a bit noisy but in cases like BlogBench it was trailing slightly the performance level of Linux 4.20.0 but around that of Linux 4.19. Certainly far from the levels of pre-Spectre/Meltdown.

In the Sockperf throughput benchmark, this system at least has been noticeably slower since Linux 4.20 when more mitigations were introduced.

In NPB's FFT benchmark, Linux 5.0 was the slowest of the kernel releases tested.

The Java-based DaCapo H2 benchmark was also slower on Linux 5.0.

Not all of the benchmarks shined bad light on Linux 5.0.