From owner-freebsd-performance@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Sep 29 23:21:50 2009 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-performance@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 27071106568B for ; Tue, 29 Sep 2009 23:21:50 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from ohartman@mail.zedat.fu-berlin.de) Received: from outpost1.zedat.fu-berlin.de (outpost1.zedat.fu-berlin.de [130.133.4.66]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AA2228FC17 for ; Tue, 29 Sep 2009 23:21:49 +0000 (UTC) Received: from inpost2.zedat.fu-berlin.de ([130.133.4.69]) by outpost1.zedat.fu-berlin.de (Exim 4.69) with esmtp (envelope-from ) id <1Msm0y-0005h4-L6>; Wed, 30 Sep 2009 01:21:48 +0200 Received: from e178010082.adsl.alicedsl.de ([85.178.10.82] helo=thor.walstatt.dyndns.org) by inpost2.zedat.fu-berlin.de (Exim 4.69) with esmtpsa (envelope-from ) id <1Msm0y-0001nu-IX>; Wed, 30 Sep 2009 01:21:48 +0200 Message-ID: <4AC2968C.6020206@mail.zedat.fu-berlin.de> Date: Wed, 30 Sep 2009 01:21:48 +0200 From: "O. Hartmann" User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.23 (X11/20090822) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Attilio Rao References: <689d500ec8c95542a53440b8a23ae773@mail.liquidphlux.com> <458792029.144491254249841202.JavaMail.root@shee.earlham.edu> <3bbf2fe10909291209h3c2b1c57se68e6030c2a5a044@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <3bbf2fe10909291209h3c2b1c57se68e6030c2a5a044@mail.gmail.com> X-Enigmail-Version: 0.95.7 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Originating-IP: 85.178.10.82 X-Mailman-Approved-At: Wed, 30 Sep 2009 02:06:36 +0000 Cc: freebsd-performance@freebsd.org, Randy Schultz Subject: Re: FreeBSD vs Ubuntu - Discuss... X-BeenThere: freebsd-performance@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Performance/tuning List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 29 Sep 2009 23:21:50 -0000 Attilio Rao wrote: > 2009/9/29 Randy Schultz : >> ----- "Andrew Kuriger" spaketh thusly: >> >> | >> | Since the article says that they left the debugging features on I >> | think >> | this has a bit to do with it. Obviously the testers didn't care to >> | read the >> | documentation, and didn't seem to care to use the same compiler which >> | is >> | available in ports, I believe it is safe to chuck this lame >> | benchmark. >> >> >> Hrm. IMHO, this benchmark actually tells us something interesting. It tells us >> that with the anchor thrown overboard, freebsd is nearly as fast as linux. > > I don't think this is the case. > The tester claims to be using FreeBSD-RC1 which has all the mentioned > debugging options off. > And yes, we should adjust UPDATING in order to remove the (now) > misleading writing about the debugging options. > > I think that the most interesting opionion these benchmarks tell is > that we are slow on random, threaded I/O operations. I think we need > to investigate more in this direction. > > Attilio > > Well, since FreeBSD 8.0 started, I realized on several boxes (doens't matter whether SMP or UP, 2 GB or 8 GB or 16 GB) massive performance issues when compiling, even on a 8-core box. This is not 'measured' in hard numbers, it is the 'feeling' since we swapped to 8.0, but still using the same setup and software environment. On boxes with X11, on heavy disk I/O and/or heavy compiling, X11 clients sometimes stops for 90 seconds, mouse gets jumpy etc. This is well known and well ignored, although I'm not the only one experiencing this. I think this will not change soon. ZFS is, at this moment, the only thing that keeps me with FreeBSD. In every other case, serving, number crunching (oh, we need a lot of I/O performance in those number crunching environments) and even simple desktop, Linux, mostly Ubuntu and RedHat, outperforms FreeBSD.