Four-Way ARM Linux Distribution Comparison

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Four-Way ARM Linux Distribution Comparison

The latest ARM Linux benchmarks to share at Phoronix is a comparison of Ubuntu 12.10, Linaro 12.10, Fedora 17, and Arch Linux when running from the dual-core Cortex-A9 OMAP4460-based PandaBoard ES development board.

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=18113

[schmidtbag]

I'm a little surprised at these results. I didn't expect arch to fall that far behind, although i have got the impression their ARM support is a little lacking. One of the things i found so weird about arch is its relatively poor support for anything that isn't x86, because you'd think a distro that sometimes compiles things on-the-fly would be easily cross platform.

[fuzz]

I'm a little surprised at these results. I didn't expect arch to fall that far behind, although i have got the impression their ARM support is a little lacking. One of the things i found so weird about arch is its relatively poor support for anything that isn't x86, because you'd think a distro that sometimes compiles things on-the-fly would be easily cross platform.

Well, Arch is no Gentoo.

[deanjo]

Disappointing that the recently released openSUSE 12.2 for ARM wasn't included in the mix but I imagine Michael was way to deep into these tests when it came out to include them.

[Cyber Killer]

Disappointing that the recently released openSUSE 12.2 for ARM wasn't included in the mix but I imagine Michael was way to deep into these tests when it came out to include them.

Exactly what I was about to say.

It would be also interesting to see results for some mid or low end amd64 system for comparison as to how much slower arm is.

[marjancek]

Why are all distributions being tested from the console while Linaro is being teted with Unity2D?
This seams to be a handicap for Linaro (which otherwise does quite well, together with Ubuntu)

[coder111]

Oy, where's Debian? It's probably one of the oldest ARM distributions out there, how could you forget it?

--Coder

[mitcoes]

Thanks for your work, I read you every day.

But I would like to know this benchmarks:

Multiple pandaboards as server -

How well they scale?

How much are needed to equal an i7 more or less?

How much would cost this multi Panda board server vs a single i7? cost/performance

And how many energy this multi PAnda spend vs a single i7 energy efficiency

Also how well i7 scales vs ARM, then 4 i7s vs 4 multi Panda Borads alike systems, with the intermediate steps.

I know it would be quite a work but nobody is actually doing this benchmarks, and surely it would be a great benchmark to read if you are thinking in making a server or a small suoercomputer.

I recently watched a video where a university makes its own supercomputer and they waited to the new i7 to make it instead of using cheaper ARM boards, perhaps with future ARM64 boards the choose would have been different, but as a tech reader I cannot find now benchmarks between multi intel i7 / AMDs and ARM for servers and supercomputers with actual costs and energy budget for a similar power.

Thanks in advance for your future work in this field if you accept the suggestion.

[sabriah]

Oy, where's Debian? It's probably one of the oldest ARM distributions out there, how could you forget it?

--Coder

Perhaps because it may have been faster than Obonto?

[JS987]

Exactly what I was about to say.

It would be also interesting to see results for some mid or low end amd64 system for comparison as to how much slower arm is.

H.264 Video Encoding
1.4 GHz ARM9 Calxeda Quad Core - 11.82 fps
3.2 GHz Core i5 3470 - 107.36 fps
9 times slower
4 times slower at same frequency

7-Zip Compression
1.4 GHz ARM9 - 2176 MIPS
3.2 GHz Core i5 - 13778 MIPS
6.3 times slower
2.8 times slower at same frequency

Source:
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...000_atom&num=3
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...ei5_3470&num=5