Linux Kernel Comparisons

[Michael]

Like our driver and other hardware comparisons at Phoronix, we will be introducing kernel performance comparisons with each new major release. We will be comparing the new kernel (or latest rc kernel) against the previous releases to see how the performance of these kernels compare in a variety of benchmarks and environments.

Our first article is expected next week with a performance look at the Linux 2.6.20-rc6 kernel.

We welcome any thoughts or suggestions on what you would like to see in these Linux kernel performance comparisons.

[colo]

I/O-performance all the way, baby, because there are a few interesting changes to be made, for instance to the ieee1394-stack, or regarding SATA/IDE with libata.
Personally, I'm not overly thrilled pondering about seeing Quake 4 run with $X.5 fps under $RELEASE, and $X.7 fps under $RELEASE+1.

[Rob Williams]

Looking forward to this!

[StringCheesian]

Personally, I'm not overly thrilled pondering about seeing Quake 4 run with $X.5 fps under $RELEASE, and $X.7 fps under $RELEASE+1.

If there any exciting or alarming change in those results I'd want to see them, but otherwise I concur.

[Michael]

On top of our hardware reviews and comparisons at Phoronix we also cover and compare the latest ATI and NVIDIA drivers along with some of the other popular software packages; however, we have decided to feature Linux kernel performance comparisons with each major release. We will be covering some of the major highlights with each release as well as comparing its performance in a variety of tests against recent kernels. The intent of these articles will be to provide users with a better understanding for some of the prominent changes as well as to see how the performance is affected in some of our commonly used benchmarks. Without further ado, we present our kernel comparison for the Linux 2.6.20-rc6 kernel!

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=8577

[byteframe]

I think this fantastic site, for any applicable benchmarks, should benchmark a direct3d game under wine. I suggest Source.

[Michael]

I think this fantastic site, for any applicable benchmarks, should benchmark a direct3d game under wine. I suggest Source.

Welcome to the forums and thanks for your comments.

We haven't covered any Cedega or WINE testing lately, so I'll see if we can construct a WINE/Cedega gaming performance article.

[petabyte]

I would really like to see some file system comparison benchmarks on the next (stable) linux kernel you test. I haven't seen any good file system benchmarks since fefe's: http://bulk.fefe.de/scalability/, but it seems he's ceased his file system tests.
I know tests like these are hard to control, but you can use fefes guidelines to design your own, more current, file system benchmarks. I think reiserfs3, reiserfs4, ext3, ext4, jfs, xfs, and zfs would be a nice line up. I have lots of ideas, so please post back with any questions. Thanks.

[Jade]

I would really like to see some file system comparison benchmarks,....

I think reiserfs3, reiserfs4, ext3, ext4, jfs, xfs, and zfs would be a nice line up.
Funny, you should mention filesystem tests, because I just ran some over the weekend:

Smaller is better:


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Filesystem | Copy Sources | Disk Usage | Copy Sources | Tar & Gzip | Untar & Unzip | Delete All |
| | Across | Usage | Within | Sources | Sources | (seconds) |
| | Partitions | (MB) | Partition | (seconds) | (seconds) | |
| | (seconds) | | (seconds) | | | |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| REISER4 | 148 | 692 | 55 | 68 | 27 | 52 |
| NTFS-3g | 1328 | 772 | 1348 | 600 | 776 | 73+ |
| NTFS | 781 | 779 | 173 | X | X | X |
| REISER3 | 184 | 793 | 100 | 87 | 61 | 11 |
| XFS | 221 | 799 | 173 | 120 | 91 | 57 |
| JFS | 290 | 806 | 547 | 87 | 1248 | 89 |
| EXT2 | 204 | 816 | 81 | 73 | 40 | 24 |
| EXT3 | 181 | 816 | 77 | 77 | 46 | 26 |
| FAT32 | 252 | 988 | 162 | 126 | 88 | 19 |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


REISER4 wins (by far) in ALL the important categories.

It is not clear why NTFS preformed so poorly.

Everyone knew FAT32 was a dog.

The reiser4 filesystem clearly outperforms all the other filesystems, in almost all the measured categories. Using reiser4, rather than ext3, saves you a massive 816 - 692 = 124 MB of disk space (a 15% saving, mainly, from eliminating block alignment wastage). Not only do you save 124 MB, but your copy is finished significantly quicker.

As you can see, REISER4 is a truly remarkable filesystem.

This is the real reason that REISER4 has not been included in the Linux kernel.
This is the real reason that Hans Reiser languishes in an Oakland prison cell at this time.

From http://linuxhelp.150m.com/resources/fs-benchmarks.htm or,

http://m.domaindlx.com/LinuxHelp/resources/fs-benchmarks.htm

ALSO SOME BONNIE++ RESULTS


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Version 1.93c Sequential Create Random Create
SuSE 10.0 Create Read Delete Create Read Delete
files:max /sec %CP /sec %CP /sec %CP /sec %CP /sec %CP /sec %CP
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
REISER4 128:131072:0 779 21 893 19 1554 9 126 4 65 1 781 4
REISER3 128:131072:0 288 7 72 1 382 2 283 7 64 1 138 1
notail 128:131072:0 279 7 71 1 343 2 293 7 64 1 140 1
XFS 128:131072:0 222 3 525 8 914 5 280 4 71 1 111 1
EXT2 128:131072:0 263 53 764 13 766 2 265 53 83 8 133 11
EXT3 128:131072:0 224 5 87 1 172 1 224 6 86 1 167 1
FAT32 128:131072:0/5 49 93 94 82 294 97 72 89 34 30 94 95
NTFS-3g 128:131072:0 70 0 77 0 4744 3 59 0 38 0 435 0
JFS 128:131072:0 57 0 421 6 37 0 19 0 70 1 22 0
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Version 1.93c Sequential Output Sequential Input Random
Concurrency 1 Per Chr Block Rewrite Per Chr Block Seeks
Machine Size K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP /sec %CP
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
REISER4 1G 247 97 57710 12 28317 10 405 99 63709 10 210.3 6
REISER3 1G 541 98 52162 14 27133 6 1566 91 63820 7 218.0 3
notail 1G 518 99 53709 14 25820 5 1565 83 58242 6 219.0 3
XFS 1G 753 99 58613 11 27075 5 1242 95 63546 5 197.7 2
EXT2 1G 1103 98 54209 8 27425 5 1475 90 62867 5 215.3 2
EXT3 1G 399 99 48357 16 27124 5 1459 92 63209 6 213.9 3
FAT32 1G 966 98 50540 20 24478 10 1553 93 63883 15 195.1 5
NTFS-3g 1G 26 6 49060 7 20383 3 1629 93 57937 4 169.5 0
JFS 1G 1141 98 56314 9 27866 4 1582 92 63839 5 220.2 2
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------