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]

Originally Posted by colo

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]

Originally Posted by Phoronix

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]

Originally Posted by byteframe

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]

Originally Posted by petabyte

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/res...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
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------