Linux 4.0 To Linux 4.15 Kernel Benchmarks

Ebizzy, a benchmark trying to resemble web server workloads, is down on Linux 4.15 compared to Linux 4.14. But the Linux 4.15 kernel performance is still ahead of where it was on Linux 4.12 and prior.

The time needed to compile the GCC compiler was one of the real-world workloads we found impacted by the KPTI/Retpoline additions, making it take longer than on Linux 4.14, but the time it required for this compilation process is still lower than what it took around the 4.10~4.11 days. Interestingly when using the Linux 4.3 through 4.5 kernels was noticeably shorter build times for GCC.

The boot time on this Core i7 5960X system is similar between the 4.15 and 4.14 releases, doing better than many of the other kernel updates but not as quick as during the 4.5 days and prior.

The PostgreSQL performance has been mixed in our kernel benchmarking of Linux 4.15 following KPTI/Retpoline. Generally it takes a minor to moderate impact on this latest kernel release.