Fedora 10 vs. Ubuntu 8.10 Benchmarks

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Fedora 10 vs. Ubuntu 8.10 Benchmarks

With Fedora 10 finally entering the world earlier this week, we have performed benchmarks comparing the performance of Ubuntu 8.10 and Fedora 10. In our testing we used both the 32-bit and 64-bit builds of each distribution and then ran a series of automated tests through the Phoronix Test Suite.

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=13174

[hdas]

this should hopefully make it clear that performance in different distros is nearly identical, especially with similar versions of software. so pick any one that suits you. i had 'realized' it long time back when i saw almost no performance difference between debian i386 and gentoo with CFLAGS="-O2 -march=pentium4", although i prefer gentoo for more freedom and more elegance, features and tools that suit my needs.

taking it further, imho different os'es too have similar performance in most applications. (although i am heavily biased towards linux.) ultimately it just comes down to hardware power .

[visik7]

Why you don't make sane tests ?
like
Installation of a program from the repository or time to open firefox or openoffice or other programs or time to boot the system
those are real benchmark
not time to encrypt 2 gb of file
sorry man

[apanloco]

Basically agree with visik7. What about boot time?

[Yfrwlf]

I still think it's kind of silly treating them like they're separate OSes when it simply comes down to what versions of drivers they have or quite simply what software they are using, as well as perhaps what options they have turned on or off in their kernel. If anything it makes more sense to me to compare different software, but obviously your tests are good for an end calculation of the performance effects of the total software differences.

The boot times would be different since Fedora is using Plymouth and Ubuntu isn't. Big surprise. Speaking of which, is there any news about if Ubuntu is going to come pre-installed with Plymouth in the future? IS Plymouth the future? I wonder what theme they'll use for the Ubuntu boot process if so. I hope not replace the sun with a pile of poo and animate flies buzzing around it to match their brown theme.

I'm classy I know. ^^

[Sacha]

I think the most interesting conclusion is 64-bit distros run the OpenSSL test more than twice as fast as 32-bit distros. I didn't know the gap was so big anyway. Not sure how it helps my every day activities though.

[Takla]

I think the more interesting comparison is with the series of tests which showed Ubuntu's performance decline very sharply after 7.04 and recover a little with 8.10. The fact that Fedora 10 and Ubuntu 8.10 are in effect identical performers leads me to wonder if all desktop distributions have suffered a big performance hit after kernel 2.6.15 (the Ubuntu 7.04 kernel). Maybe Ubuntu 7.04 was by some chance simply vastly better than all other distros at the time but I doubt it. Another factor is the Desktop Environment. Maybe recent versions of Gnome are simply sucking the life out of systems...again unlikely and it doesn't reflect my experience with Gnome, KDE, Xfce, Fluxbox, Openbox etc. I'm inclined to think that Phoronix's tests are illustrating a general and severe decline in performance of the Linux kernel based desktop.

[kraftman]

I think the more interesting comparison is with the series of tests which showed Ubuntu's performance decline very sharply after 7.04 and recover a little with 8.10. The fact that Fedora 10 and Ubuntu 8.10 are in effect identical performers leads me to wonder if all desktop distributions have suffered a big performance hit after kernel 2.6.15 (the Ubuntu 7.04 kernel). Maybe Ubuntu 7.04 was by some chance simply vastly better than all other distros at the time but I doubt it. Another factor is the Desktop Environment. Maybe recent versions of Gnome are simply sucking the life out of systems...again unlikely and it doesn't reflect my experience with Gnome, KDE, Xfce, Fluxbox, Openbox etc. I'm inclined to think that Phoronix's tests are illustrating a general and severe decline in performance of the Linux kernel based desktop.

Maybe just newer version of some apps/libraries etc. etc. included in newer versions of Ubuntu and other distros "do things" other way then before? For example: lame compress files better then before even with the same options - it's clearly theoretically and stupid example. I have low end PC and new Ubuntu is faster then previous. And Mac OS was faster in Phoronix benchmark, so it's something wrong with those tests :>

[Yfrwlf]

Maybe just newer version of some apps/libraries etc. etc. included in newer versions of Ubuntu and other distros "do things" other way then before? For example: lame compress files better then before even with the same options - it's clearly theoretically and stupid example. I have low end PC and new Ubuntu is faster then previous. And Mac OS was faster in Phoronix benchmark, so it's something wrong with those tests :>

That's really what these benchmarks should be about, is are there speed differences with different kernels, and how does different software compare. On the Mac tests, were they using completely different libraries or were they similar or the same. It's just really really hard to do any kind of fair comparisons, and harder to try to find out what is causing the performance differences. Those are the things that are fun to look at for me.

But, Phoronix still does good by pointing out the end results of everything put together in these software bundles aka distrobutions. That's "real world". But if there are different libraries or software users can switch to that are faster or whatnot, those things should be noted, since you should be able to install whatever the hell you want on your computer.

[deanjo]

That's really what these benchmarks should be about, is are there speed differences with different kernels, and how does different software compare. On the Mac tests, were they using completely different libraries or were they similar or the same. It's just really really hard to do any kind of fair comparisons, and harder to try to find out what is causing the performance differences. Those are the things that are fun to look at for me.

But, Phoronix still does good by pointing out the end results of everything put together in these software bundles aka distrobutions. That's "real world". But if there are different libraries or software users can switch to that are faster or whatnot, those things should be noted, since you should be able to install whatever the hell you want on your computer.

OS vs OS comparisons should really be done utilizing the distro's packages anyhows as that is how most people run those packages. In a hardware comparison test then the same version of OS should be used and the packages recompiled.