FreeBSD 7.1 BETA 2 vs Opensolaris vs Ubuntu performance

[Alexander Leidinger]

Quoting Ivan Voras <ivoras at freebsd.org> (from Wed, 26 Nov 2008  
10:55:39 +0100):

> 2008/11/26 Alexander Leidinger <Alexander at leidinger.net>:
>
>> If you want to test OS performance and use Java programs in there to do so,
>> you would use the same Java version, wouldn't you? They didn't.
>
> Linux: 1.6.0_0-b12
> Solaris: 1.6.0_10-b33
> FreeBSD: 1.6.0_07-b02

The important part is the _XX, not the -bYY. The bYY may be something  
we don't care about, but the _XX part is something which may cause  
performance differences.

> Since system have their local patches (I know FreeBSD does), I don't
> think it's even possible to test "exactly the same" version ;)
>
> But this also goes into the "What OS ships with" category.

We don't ship with java at all... strictly speaking. ;)

>> If you want to run number crunching software, you are interested in high
>> computing throughput of your app, so you use a compiler which performs best
>> for your code in question (which would mean probably the Intel compiler or
>> the Portland compiler on Linux, maybe the Sun compiler on Solaris, and
>> probably gcc on FreeBSD). You also want to optimize the code for your CPU
>> (it makes a difference if you do floating point calculations and are allowed
>> to use the SSEx or whatever instructions), and not some generic settings the
>> OS comes with.
>
> I think they went with the "stock" configurations as that's what
> almost all users will use.

I fully agree. But number crunching (as benchmarked, and I'm not  
talking about LAME which has a 2% difference) is not something almost  
all users will do. Something the masses may do with the OS is not  
covered at all, no browser tests, no interactivity (maybe with high  
load in the background) tests. As I said, they don't even tell what  
they want to test (and as such, everything we can do is speculate...  
that's not something which will lead to interesting results in the  
thread).

Bye,
Alexander.

-- 
Man must shape his tools lest they shape him.
		-- Arthur R. Miller

http://www.Leidinger.net    Alexander @ Leidinger.net: PGP ID = B0063FE7
http://www.FreeBSD.org       netchild @ FreeBSD.org  : PGP ID = 72077137