As part of the various end-of-year Linux comparisons that I've made a habit of over the past 17 years, with the EOY 2021 benchmarking I was rather curious to see how Intel's Clear Linux distribution has evolved Xeon Scalable "Ice Lake" performance since that platform launched in Q2'2021. It turns out there have been some terrific optimizations squeezed out of that latest-generation Xeon Scalable platform on Intel's Clear Linux. In this article is a look at the Ubuntu and Clear Linux performance on the flagship Xeon Platinum 8380 2P reference server back around the time Ice Lake launched and then again using the latest software packages that closed out 2021.

Recently I looked at the macOS 12 performance against Linux when it comes to the Intel-based Macs. Stemming from reader requests and curiosity how Windows would perform in the mix, here are such benchmark results with macOS 12.1, Windows 10, Clear Linux, and Ubuntu 21.10.

With the Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen2 powered by the Ryzen 7 PRO 5850U prior to blowing the default Microsoft Windows installation on the device I ran some benchmarks for seeing how the performance stacks up against various Linux distributions. Going up against Windows 11 on this AMD Zen 3 laptop were Clear Linux, Fedora Workstation 35, Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS, Ubuntu 21.10, and Arch Linux.

It's been a while since last comparing the Apple macOS performance to Linux since in part because the newer Apple Silicon (M1) hardware isn't yet in good enough shape for performance tests on Linux. But for those wondering about the Intel-powered Macs and how the performance of the latest Linux distributions compare to that of macOS 12 Monterey, here are some benchmarks of the new macOS 12.1 up against Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS, Ubuntu 21.10, and Intel's own Clear Linux.

Earlier this month marked the general availability of CentOS Stream 9 as the bleeding-edge of Red hat Enterprise Linux 9 development. Since then I've been running benchmarks of CentOS Stream 9 and with modern hardware it's been offering some nice performance upgrades over CentOS Stream 8 / RHEL8 especially with modern hardware platforms like Intel Xeon Scalable "Ice Lake" and AMD EPYC 7003 "Milan" servers. Here are benchmarks of CentOS Stream8, CentOS Stream 9, Intel's Clear Linux, Fedora Server 35, Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS, and Ubuntu 21.10 on both AMD and Intel servers.

It's been a while since last having a hearty BSD benchmark comparison on Phoronix in part due to the latest hardware platforms generally lagging behind with how well supported they are by the various BSDs. But stemming from a Phoronix Premium supporter recently requesting some fresh BSD benchmarks, here is a look at how DragonFlyBSD 6.0.1, FreeBSD 13.0, NetBSD 9.2, and OpenBSD 7.0 are competing against various Linux distributions like CentOS, Clear Linux, and Ubuntu.

AWS recently introduced Amazon Linux 2022 in preview form as the latest iteration of their Linux distribution now based on Fedora with various alterations to catering to their customers running it on EC2. Last week were benchmarks looking at Amazon Linux 2022 compared to Amazon Linux 2 and other distributions like CentOS and Ubuntu. In this article we are seeing how Amazon Linux 2022 can compete with Intel's own Clear Linux performance-optimized distribution.

Last week Amazon Web Services released Amazon Linux 2022 in preview form and since then I've been trying out their new cloud-optimized Linux distribution. It's been working out well on AWS (to no surprise) but also great was the level of performance provided by this now-Fedora-based distribution.

While we are used to running AMD and Intel benchmarks between Microsoft Windows and Linux while most often finding that our favorite open-source operating systems normally lead the race from desktops through HEDT and server platforms, when it comes to the Core i9 12900K "Alder Lake" that is currently not the case. Going into this round of Windows vs. Linux testing quite curious given some Intel hybrid architecture oddities we have been seeing under Linux, indeed when hitting Windows 11 and an assortment of Linux distributions with benchmarks we were left disappointed. Not only did Windows 11 come out faster overall, but related is now Linux also had much higher run-to-run variance due to the mix of P and E cores with Thread Director not making the wisest choices under Linux.

Recently I ran benchmarks showing how Ubuntu 21.10 performance has improved for AMD EPYC 7003 "Milan" even compared to just six months ago with Ubuntu 21.04. In this article is a broader look at AMD EPYC Milan on the autumn 2021 Linux distributions with firing up not only Ubuntu 21.10 but Fedora Server 35, Clear Linux 35150, CentOS Stream, and AlmaLinux 8.4 as other common alternatives in the Linux server space.

As a good sign ahead of the important Ubuntu 22.04 LTS release in the spring, Ubuntu 21.10 further ups the 64-bit ARM (AArch64) performance. Here is a look at some of the gains in going from Ubuntu 21.04 to the recently released Ubuntu 21.10.

Now that Windows 11 has been out as stable and the initial round of updates coming out, I've been running fresh Windows 11 vs. Linux benchmarks for seeing how Microsoft's latest operating system release compares to the fresh batch of Linux distributions. First up is the fresh look at the Windows 11 vs. Linux performance on an Intel Core i9 11900K Rocket Lake system.

It's been a half-year already since AMD introduced the EPYC 7003 "Milan" processors that continue performing well and gaining marketshare. While the recently released Ubuntu 21.10 is not a long-term support (LTS) release, for those wondering what this latest Linux distribution means for EPYC 7003 series performance, here is a look at its performance across many benchmarks against that of Ubuntu 21.04 that was released right after the Milan launch and then Ubuntu 20.04 as the current LTS stable series.

While we recently looked at autumn 2021 Linux distributions on Intel Tiger Lake for seeing how these various latest distributions are competing on client platforms, in today's article is a look at how well the latest Linux distributions perform when using the latest-generation Intel Xeon Scalable 3rd Gen "Ice Lake" server hardware with two Xeon Platinum 8380 processors. AlmaLinux, Arch Linux, CentOS Stream, Clear Linux, Debian, Fedora, openSUSE, and Ubuntu were battling it out on this Intel reference server.

Earlier this month were benchmarks looking at how Intel Tiger Lake performance has improved from Ubuntu 21.04 to Ubuntu 21.10, but how does Canonical's latest Linux offering compete with other autumn 2021 distributions? In this article from the Dell XPS Core i7-1165G7 Tiger Lake notebook are benchmarks of Ubuntu 21.10 going up against Arch Linux, Clear Linux, Fedora Workstation 35, and openSUSE Tumbleweed for getting an idea how the performance compares with this latest-generation Intel EVO notebook.

With Ubuntu 21.10 due for release this week I've been running various Ubuntu Linux performance comparisons across a variety of hardware and overall this new release is looking to be in great shape. One of the tests I recently carried out for curiosity is seeing how the AMD Zen 2 performance has evolved now over the past two years on Linux going from Ubuntu 19.10 to Ubuntu 21.10.

Earlier this week I posted benchmarks showing how Intel Tiger Lake performance has improved nicely for Ubuntu 21.10 compared to Ubuntu 21.04. Of course, readers immediately wondered whether this also applied on the AMD laptop side... So here are some tests using an AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX with the ASUS ROG Strix G15 AMD Advantage laptop under Ubuntu 21.04, Ubuntu 21.10, and then also looking at running Linux 5.15 + Mesa 21.3-devel Git for an even more bleeding edge experience.

It's been one year now since Intel launched Tiger Lake mobile processors and since then we've been running routine benchmarks of the Core i7 1165G7 on Linux. Tiger Lake at launch was performing well under Linux but its performance has continued evolving nicely since on Linux, especially as it pertains to the Xe Graphics with the open-source OpenGL/Vulkan drivers. With Ubuntu 21.10 due out later this month, there is another performance boost to enjoy.

Given this week's release of Fedora 35 Beta I have begun my benchmarking to look at how this next installment of Fedora Linux is shaping up given that it tends to be at the forefront of open-source innovations given Red Hat's investments. For our initial F35 benchmarking is looking at the Fedora Server 35 Beta performance compared to Fedora 34 on a dual Intel Xeon Platinum 8380 server.

Recently I carried out some updated Windows 11 benchmarks against Linux to look at how this forthcoming Microsoft operating system release is competing with Ubuntu. In this article is a fresh look at the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL2) performance on the near-final Windows 11 against Ubuntu Linux.

With less than one month out from the official release of Microsoft Windows 11, I was curious to run some fresh benchmarks of the latest Windows 11 Insider Preview build against Windows 10 21H1 to see how the performance is looking. Of course, also to see how Windows 11 is shaping up against Ubuntu 21.10 also due for release in October.

While there is still two months to go until the Ubuntu 21.10 "Impish Indri" release, since the feature freeze has now begun I've started some early testing of this next Ubuntu release. So far things are looking good as a nice upgrade over Ubuntu 21.04 and prior. Here is the first round of Ubuntu 21.04 vs. 21.10 development tests using an AMD Ryzen 9 5950X with Radeon RX 5700 XT graphics.

This past weekend marked the release of Debian 11 "Bullseye" as the newest version of this major Linux distribution that is also the basis for many others. Given the popularity of Debian stable on servers, our first round of Debian 11.0 benchmarking is looking at the performance relative to Debian 10.10 on latest-generation Intel Xeon "Ice Lake" and AMD EPYC "Milan" hardware.

Last month after Microsoft began publishing their Windows Insider Preview builds of Windows 11, I ran some early Windows 11 benchmarks against Linux using an AMD Ryzen 9 5950X. Linux led in those benchmarks on the AMD Zen 3 desktop while for those wondering if that still holds true for Intel hardware, here are benchmarks of a Core i9 11900K "Rocket Lake" desktop with Windows 10 21H1, Windows 11 in its latest preview build as of testing, and then compared to Arch Linux / Clear Linux / Ubuntu.

Following last month's look at the ASUS ROG Strix G15 AMD Advantage laptop with Ryzen 9 5900HX processor and some of the initial hurdles seen on Ubuntu, readers were curious about how well other Linux distributions fared compatibility wise or if offering better performance elsewhere. Here are some tests across Arch Linux, Clear Linux, Fedora Workstation, and Ubuntu 21.04 for reference.

While the AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX performance is great on Linux once overcoming any laptop support quirks like with the ASUS ROG Strix G15 "AMD Advantage" laptop running into keyboard and WiFi issues on Linux depending upon the kernel version, how does the performance compare to Microsoft Windows 10? Here are some benchmarks of that ROG Strix G15 AMD laptop under Windows 10 as shipped by ASUS against Ubuntu 21.04 when upgraded to the Linux 5.13 stable kernel.

This past week were the initial Linux benchmarks of the Ryzen 9 5900HX with the ASUS ROG Strix G15 laptop. Ubuntu was used as the default test platform as usual given its popularity and arguably the most relevant Linux distribution to use given that it's the most common Linux distribution at the moment for preloads on laptops by multiple vendors. In any case, as usual many users were quick to say "but Arch Linux!" as if it was going to make a dramatic difference in my findings. Well, here are some Ubuntu 21.04 versus Arch Linux benchmarks on that AMD Advantage laptop.

With the recent release of System76's Pop!_OS 21.04 if you are thinking about upgrading to this release from Pop!_OS 20.04 LTS or choosing between the two, here are some benchmarks from the AMD Ryzen Threadripper powered System76 Thelio Major.

With having hands on with a Dell XPS 13 9310 (Dell 0DXP1F) with the Core i7 1185G7 Tiger Lake processor (compared to prior Linux tests with the i7-1165G7), here is a fresh look at the performance of Microsoft Windows 10 Pro as shipped by Dell with all available stable updates versus a clean install of Ubuntu 21.04 Linux.

For those making use of Microsoft's Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL2) for enjoying Linux application support within Windows, here are some early benchmarks of the inaugural Windows Insider Preview build of Windows 11 with WSL2 against Windows 10 and then Ubuntu Linux bare metal on the same hardware.