Canonical Evaluating -O3 Optimized Packages For Ubuntu Linux

With Ubuntu 24.04 LTS the engineers at Canonical began focusing more on the performance of Ubuntu and establishing a performance team at the company. This work is ongoing and for Ubuntu 24.10 they are exploring another exciting area: leveraging "-O3" compiler optimizations for Ubuntu packages. Available today is an experimental build of the Ubuntu desktop and server ISOs that are compiled for the -O3 optimization level.

Canonical is exploring package builds with the "-O3" compiler optimization level rather than the "-O2" default to better the performance of Ubuntu Linux. As shown in the past with many -O3 performance articles, upping the compiler optimizations can offer a very real and often significant increase to the performance of applications/workloads pushing the system from creator applications to HPC computing and other areas.

Canonical will be exploring and benchmarking their -O3 optimized packages over the coming weeks before making any decisions whether it will become the default for Ubuntu moving forward. This would be really great to see happen and part of Canonical's broader effort to enhance the Ubuntu desktop/server performance. I'll be running my own benchmarks of the Ubuntu -O3 optimized ISOs in the coming days.

Those wanting to try it out can find the experimental server image and desktop image of Ubuntu 24.04 LTS rebuilt with the "-O3" optimization level. More details on the -O3 exploration via Ubuntu Discourse.

Stay tuned for my tests of the -O3'ed Ubuntu in the coming days.

Now if only they would consider the "performance" governor by default at least for their Ubuntu server images...