Would Phoronix do Gentoo Linux versus Ubuntu Linux benchmarks?

[BlackStar]

Which optimizations should be done for Ubuntu, as you, after all, can compile your own package for Ubuntu (and Debian) too, using about the same optimizations as for Gentoo.

You don't understand, the point is to make Gentoo win the benchmark, not vice versa! I mean, otherwise the benchmarks will just show how pointless it is to turn to Gentoo purely for performance reasons.

I wonder why they didn't test 64bit though. Who in his right mind would use Gentoo on a 32bit (i.e. Atom) CPU anyway?

[duby229]

Personally I stopped using portage few years ago and never had problems with my systems There are better package managers for gentoo then old portage.

What package manager are you using right now? I've thought about giving paludis a try, but am still uncertain. Any advise or links how to get started?

[Shining Arcanine]

You don't understand, the point is to make Gentoo win the benchmark, not vice versa! I mean, otherwise the benchmarks will just show how pointless it is to turn to Gentoo purely for performance reasons.

I wonder why they didn't test 64bit though. Who in his right mind would use Gentoo on a 32bit (i.e. Atom) CPU anyway?

In a fair comparison (all important software versions being the same), Gentoo likely would win in benchmarks. It does not derive its name from the fastest species of penguin in the world for nothing. In principle, Gentoo could represent an upper limit for performance, which is an upper limit that other distributions's package maintainers might possibly be able to make their distributions closer to attaining.

On the other hand, it is possible that Gentoo would not outperform other distributions in some areas, which is where benchmarks would really become interesting, because it would likely highlight a performance regression in the GNU Compiler that negatively affects all Linux distributions.

[Ex-Cyber]

In principle, Gentoo could represent an upper limit for performance, which is an upper limit that other distributions's package maintainers might possibly be able to make their distributions closer to attaining.

Oh, I see. You're shooting for a quote on funroll-loops. Good luck and godspeed.

[Shining Arcanine]

Oh, I see. You're shooting for a quote on funroll-loops. Good luck and godspeed.

Gentoo is usually compiled with -march=native, which should make it equal to or faster than other distributions in itself. Citing funroll-loops.info in response to that notion makes no sense to me.

[Ex-Cyber]

Gentoo is usually compiled with -march=native, which should make it equal to or faster than other distributions in itself. Citing funroll-loops.info in response to that notion makes no sense to me.

It makes sense because you're using a relatively minor factor in performance to declare Gentoo the absolute upper limit of performance. Real-world performance tuning involves a lot more than "pick the best CFLAGS".

[duby229]

I agree. I think performance tuning has alot more to do with what is in RAM than anything else. Just my opinion, but lets face it memory is the bottleneck on most systems. You can move 100megs alot faster then you can move a gig for example.

[BlackStar]

Gentoo is usually compiled with -march=native, which should make it equal to or faster than other distributions in itself. Citing funroll-loops.info in response to that notion makes no sense to me.

Did you even read the linked article? There were tests where using the "better" -march resulted in a 50% performance degradation.

The funroll-loops quotation certainly fits, as you seem to be going into Gentoo with the very attitude they ridicule (Gentoo = CFLAGS = moar speed!)

[Shining Arcanine]

Did you even read the linked article? There were tests where using the "better" -march resulted in a 50% performance degradation.

The funroll-loops quotation certainly fits, as you seem to be going into Gentoo with the very attitude they ridicule (Gentoo = CFLAGS = moar speed!)

I am actually a regular on the forums and the general consensus is to use CFLAGS="-O2 -march=native -pipe" on amd64 platforms and possibly appending "-fomit-frame-pointer" on x86 platforms.

Where did you obtain your information regarding what Gentoo users ridicule?

[Shining Arcanine]

Did you even read the linked article? There were tests where using the "better" -march resulted in a 50% performance degradation.

The funroll-loops quotation certainly fits, as you seem to be going into Gentoo with the very attitude they ridicule (Gentoo = CFLAGS = moar speed!)

I forgot to mention, I saw a link to that webpage on the gentoo forums two months ago and read it in detail. While I found it to be hilarious, it is only a parody of things and not a perfect reflection of reality. If I recall correctly, the jokes on that webpage revolve around "-O4 -fultimate-optimization -fopt-a -fopt-b -fopt-c..." and many other pointless, redundant or non-existant optimizations such as those.

Anyway, your lack of knowledge on this topic suggests that you do not use Gentoo Linux. I would like to take this opportunity to suggest that you try switching to it and learn how Gentoo does things first hand. Setting your system CFLAGS is less than 0.1% of the stuff you will do to get a working system and while it is important that your system CFLAGS are configured correctly, Gentoo attempts not to maximize performance of your system, but to maximize the customizability of your system. Experiencing higher performance is often a side effect of that, where the choice of CFLAGS being one of the customization options you have when using Gentoo.