Operating Systems Linux Reviews & Articles

There have been 979 Linux hardware reviews and benchmark articles on Phoronix for operating systems. Separately, check out our news section for related product news.

For those curious how the performance of Fedora 38 is looking ahead of its official release at the end of April, here are some preliminary benchmarks looking at the performance of this leading-edge Linux distribution as of the Fedora 38 Beta milestone last week. On both Intel Core i9 13900K "Raptor Lake" and AMD Ryzen 9 7950X "Zen 4" desktop systems, the Fedora 37 performance was compared to that of Fedora 38 Beta.

For those currently making use of Amazon Linux 2 (AL2) as the operating system for Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instances, the newly-released Amazon Linux 2023 (AL2023) is delivering some worthwhile speed-ups for maximizing your performance and value in their public cloud.

Bavarian Linux computer vendor TUXEDO Computers last year introduced TUXEDO OS as their tailored Linux distribution built atop Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. TUXEDO OS was delivering some performance improvements over stock (K)Ubuntu 22.04, ships with TUXEDO's configuration utilities by default, and other refinements to this desktop OS using the KDE Plasma desktop by default. The team in Augsburg is now preparing to ship TUXEDO OS 2 in the near future while this week they made available a public test snapshot.

As part of other ongoing performance tests of Intel 4th Gen Xeon Scalable "Sapphire Rapids" testing, I was curious to see how the more well-tuned Linux distributions are performing with the flagship Xeon Platinum 8490H processors relative to the common Ubuntu 22.04 LTS release. Here are those benchmark numbers alongside AMD's flagship Genoa server platform with two EPYC 9654 processors.

With many Phoronix readers having been excited by the recent helloSystem v0.8 release as a FreeBSD-powered OS taking major design inspiration from Apple's macOS, I decided to run some benchmarks to see how this FreeBSD 13.1 based operating system was competing with a few different Linux distributions from an AMD Ryzen 9 7950X (Zen 4) desktop.

Arch Linux has five different officially supported kernel builds: stable, hardened, long-term. real-time, and Zen, but which of these is the fastest for desktop Arch Linux users? Here are some fresh benchmarks looking at the performance out of these different kernel build options for Arch Linux and its derivatives.

With this weekend's release of helloSystem 0.8 as a macOS-inspired open-source desktop OS built atop FreeBSD, I decided to try out this new release on an AMD Ryzen 9 7950X desktop to see how it would go.

Over the holidays some fun benchmarking was to be had with the dual AMD EPYC 9654 "Genoa" processors providing a combined 192 cores / 384 threads and seeing how various modern Linux distributions were competing for this flagship 4th Gen EPYC server configuration. Up on the testing block was AlmaLinux 9.1, CentOS Stream 9, Clear Linux 37930, Debian 12 Testing, Fedora Server 37, Ubuntu 22.04.1 LTS, Ubuntu 22.10, and Ubuntu 23.04 daily.

Similar to the great results of Intel's performance-optimized Clear Linux on the Ryzen 9 7950X, making use of Clear Linux on the new 4th Gen EPYC "Genoa" processors also helps in maximizing performance for these AVX-512 server processors. Here are some initial benchmarks.

As we approach the end of 2022 and with Intel recently having revealed a January date for introducing Xeon Scalable "Sapphire Rapids", here is a look at how the upstream Linux performance has evolved since the debut of the current-generation Xeon Scalable "Ice Lake" processors debuted in early 2021. This article is looking at the Xeon Platinum 8380 Linux performance with benchmarks conducted on CentOS Stream, Clear Linux, and Ubuntu back when Ice Lake SP first debuted against now on the latest Linux OS releases.

Recently there have been a number of Phoronix readers writing in about CachyOS, an Arch Linux based distribution that is new and is focused on " better speed, security and ease of use," So of course there has been requests to see how well CachyOS performs against other distributions... In thus article is an initial look at the CachyOS performance compared to that of also Arch Linux based Endeavour OS, Ubuntu 22.10, Fedora Workstation 37, and then Intel's Clear Linux that is already well known for its performance attributes.

For those wondering about the out-of-the-box performance of different modern Linux distributions when running the new Intel Raptor Lake processors, here are six different distributions running on the current flagship Core i9 13900K processor. Tested this round was CentOS Stream 9, Clear Linux, Debian Bookworm (Testing), EndeavourOS, Fedora Workstation 37, and Ubuntu 22.10.

Following my Core i5 13600K and Core i9 13900K Linux reviews for these new Raptor Lake processors, which were carried out under Ubuntu Linux, I've been carrying out my usual follow-up tests like looking at how well these new Intel CPUs are running under other distributions. To little surprise, Intel's own rolling-release Clear Linux distribution can offer some big-time improvements over a stock Ubuntu installation.

Linux PC retailer TUXEDO Computers earlier this month released TUXEDO OS 1. The Bavarian Linux PC vendor has long modified their stock Ubuntu installations to cater toward their intended customers/audience and ship with the various software modifications while now with TUXEDO OS is an easy-to-setup ISO image of their customized Ubuntu-based Linux OS. I've been trying out TUXEDO OS on the AMD Ryzen powered TUXEDO Aura 15 Gen2 and ran some comparison benchmarks against (K)Ubuntu 22.04.1 LTS.

This shouldn't be too surprising to long-time Phoronix readers, but Intel's performance-optimized Clear Linux operating system is yielding great performance with AMD Ryzen 7000 series "Zen 4" processors. Intel's Clear Linux has long shipped HWCAPS support and tuning for AVX-512 and the like to be able to provide optimized libraries when running on their own AVX-512 processors. But with AMD now joining the AVX-512 party -- and Zen 4's AVX-512 implementation performing great -- Intel's Clear Linux distribution is showing leading performance numbers on these new AMD desktop processors.

One of the leading test requests at Phoronix around my AMD Zen 4 Linux benchmarking has been some side-by-side comparisons against Microsoft Windows 11. While older, high core count AMD systems have particularly performed very well under Linux against Windows, with new hardware there is sometimes hiccups and various limitations with the at-launch support especially on the open-source Linux side. So for your viewing pleasure today are some initial AMD Ryzen 9 7950X benchmarks under Microsoft Windows 11 22H2 up against Ubuntu 22.04.1 LTS and a near-final development snapshot of the upcoming Ubuntu 22.10.

Now that Ubuntu 22.10 is into its feature freeze and its Linux 5.19 based kernel landed as well as moving to the GCC 12.2 compiler, I've begun testing this forthcoming Ubuntu Linux (non-LTS) release on more systems. For the current-flagship Intel Xeon Platinum 8380 "Ice Lake" processors, Ubuntu 22.10 does deliver some performance advantages over the current Ubuntu 22.04.1 LTS release. However, Ubuntu 22.10 still trails in a distance behind Intel's own Clear Linux platform for the most aggressive out-of-the-box performance.

With the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D as the first consumer processor with AMD 3D V-Cache technology that launched earlier this year, the Linux performance has been fantastic for a variety of workloads especially in areas of technical computing and other non-gaming workloads -- similar to the great results we've enjoyed with AMD EPYC Milan-X processors too. One of the areas I hadn't had a chance to look at until recently was how the Windows 11 vs. Linux performance is looking for this Ryzen CPU with its 96MB L3 cache. Here are those quick benchmarks.

With Intel Xeon Sapphire Rapids expected to make more of a splash coming up, it's a good time to revisit the Intel Xeon Platinum 8380 "Ice Lake" performance to see how the Linux software performance has evolved since last year's launch. In this article are benchmarks of the dual Xeon Platinum 8380 server from May 2021 with CentOS Stream, Clear Linux, and Ubuntu compared to fresh installs now of those latest Linux distribution releases.

After recently looking at the AMD Rembrandt Windows 11 vs. Linux performance using the new Ryzen 7 PRO 6850U laptop SoC, you may be wondering about the latest Windows vs. Linux performance over on the Intel side with their latest "Alder Lake P" wares. If so, today's benchmarks are for you with putting the Core i7 1280P on Windows 11 up against Ubuntu 22.04 LTS and Intel's own Clear Linux platform.

Yesterday I delivered my initial arsenal of AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 6850U Linux benchmarks against various other AMD Ryzen and Intel Core notebooks. That ongoing Ryzen 7 PRO 6850U is happening from a Lenovo ThinkPad X13 Gen 3 AMD notebook and this new "Rembrandt" device continues looking good under Linux. But prior to installing Linux, I did run some benchmarks of Lenovo's Windows 11 Pro on there for seeing how the Linux vs. Windows performance is looking for this Zen 3+ SoC.

Last year when the Intel Core i9 12900K "Alder Lake" processor launched, Windows 11 was outperforming Linux to much surprise in general but explainable due to some late Linux kernel patches around Intel's hybrid architecture. Back in February I looked at the situation again and Linux started outrunning Windows 11 on the i9-12900K with the latest Linux kernel at the time. But with a few more months having passed and for the Intel Alder Lake hybrid processors to mature under Windows and Linux, how do things stand now? Here are some new benchmarks.

Given the recent releases of openSUSE Leap 15.4 and AlmaLinux 9.0, here are some fresh Linux server/workstation-oriented benchmarks on a dual Intel Xeon Platinum 8380 "Ice Lake" platform and running the fresh releases of various enterprise Linux choices.

As a follow-up to last week's HP Dev One review for the HP laptop that is pre-loaded with System76's Pop!_OS and optimized for a good Linux experience complete with Fwupd/LVFS support, here are benchmarks of the HP Dev One while trying out Arch Linux, Ubuntu 22.04, Fedora Workstation 36, openSUSE Tumbleweed, and Clear Linux in addition to the default Pop!_OS 22.04 installation.

Released at the end of May was AlmaLinux 9.0 as the first "community" distribution out of the gates based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.0 that reached GA in mid-May. I've been running AlmaLinux 9.0 on a few Intel and AMD servers to great success. And, yes, as expected the performance matches that of upstream RHEL9.

Last month I published a review on the TUXEDO Aura 15 Gen2 laptop that is powered by an AMD Ryzen 5000 series SoC and initially shipped with Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. But with Ubuntu 22.04 LTS now having been released -- and TUXEDO Computers shifting over to Ubuntu 22.04 LTS -- here is a look at the performance uplift that can be expected from this new Ubuntu long-term support version.

Last month RHEL 9.0 reached GA as the newest major update to Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Since then I've been trying out RHEL 9.0 on a few servers. To little surprise, especially for latest-generation Intel Xeon Scalable and AMD EPYC servers, RHEL 9.0 is offering significant uplift compared to the existing RHEL8 series. Here are some Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.0 benchmarks comparing the performance to RHEL 8.6.

While SiFive has sadly shutdown production on the current HiFive Unmatched development board in order to focus on new products expected later this year, those with a SiFive HiFive Unmatched RISC-V developer board can enjoy seeing continued performance improvements with newer Linux distributions. Here is a look at the SiFive FU740 SoC performance under the recently released Ubuntu 22.04 LTS compared to the prior 21.10 and 20.04 releases.

Last week the rolling-release openSUSE Tumbleweed switched to the new GCC 12 as the default system compiler and rebuilt its package set under this annual feature upgrade to the GNU Compiler Collection. For those curious here are some benchmarks before and after that GCC 12 transition for openSUSE Tumbleweed.

Given the recent releases of Ubuntu 22.04 LTS and Fedora 36 among other recent OS updates, it's time for a fresh look at how various Linux distributions are performing. This Linux benchmarking bout is looking at the Xeon Platinum 8380 2P "Ice Lake" performance across Arch Linux, Debian, openSUSE, CentOS Stream, AlmaLinux, Fedora, Ubuntu, and Intel's Clear Linux.