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yeah, it seems that most of the 'os vs os' benchmarks are really compiler benchmarks. what gives?

yeah, it seems that most of the 'os vs os' benchmarks are really compiler benchmarks. what gives?

If I look at what Geekbench does, it seems to be very primary operations, and simple system-calls.

GCC is also available on Solaris. It's what I'm using here under Solaris 2.9, in fact. :-)

Either way, I'm impressed. In the benchmarks from the previous Solaris/Windows test, Solaris slammed WinXP in just about every category, and in this set of benchmarks, it looks like Linux is a real competitor. I'm sure they're out there, but I'd like to see the same set of benchmarks for Linux vs Winxp and Vista.

" it looks like Linux is a real competitor"

I would say Solaris is a real competitor.

" it looks like Linux is a real competitor"

I would say Solaris is a real competitor.


You may think linux super in desktop area though only has .4% market share. But in server area, linux is just a toy box. Proprietary unix like Solaris, SGI, HPUX, AIX, XENIX, etc, and FreeBSD were out there for a long time. Recently Solaris goes open source, so people can compare it with linux.

Well, Solaris x86 has been out there for much longer than Linux has, and you'd think with all the dough they've poured into it, that it would be the absolute best of breed.

So I agree with you that Solaris is a real competitor, but I think the underdog is Linux, with less time to mature and (theoretically) less centralized corporate involvement.

Well, Solaris x86 has been out there for much longer than Linux has, and you'd think with all the dough they've poured into it, that it would be the absolute best of breed.

If this graph http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0e/Unix.svg is to be believed, then Linux pre-dates Solaris 2.x (not only x86). I think the earliest Solaris x86 was release for version 2.4 in 1994.

Even if it is primarily depending on the compiler, I think that this is still very appropriate. As is the benchmark will reflect the relative performance of the common configurations of the 2 operating environments. When people install Solaris, chances are they'll be using the SUN compilers. When people install Linux, chances are, they'll be using GCC. Sure you can use GCC on Solaris and Sun Studio on Linux, but I would venture to say that most people don't.

Yes, I never realised the Solaris compiler was so far ahead of gcc on x86, let alone SPARC. So I found these compiler benchmarks very interesting.

This makes the Linux kernel all the more impressive when you see results like these, IMO.

http://www.stdlib.net/~colmmacc/2006/04/13/more-ubuntu-on-t2000/

Although the kernel may not tend to benefit so much from compiler optimisations as things like these benchmarks, it wouldn't be unlikely to get at least another 5% or so on the above test.

I would think that the OS would definitely have some part in the multi-threaded tests, wouldn't you?

Yes, looking at the FAQ, the multi-threaded tests have four threads and this test was run on a 2-core system so there will be some context switching. However, I suspect the impact of the OS is much smaller than the compiler; given that the test has two independent variables it's impossible to tell for sure.

Geekbench uses a number of different benchmarks to measure system performance

Integer benchmarks measure integer performance by performing a variety of processor-intensive tasks that make heavy use of integer operations

Floating point benchmarks measure floating point performance by performing a variety of processor-intensive tasks that make heavy use of floating-point operations.

Memory benchmarks measure both memory hardware and memory library performance

Stream benchmarks measure both floating point performance and sustained memory bandwidth.

Indeed, and if you look at all the geekbench benchmarks it's clear that its propose is to compare "systems", aka "different machines with different hardware". The benchmarks are compiler-biased, which is great to compare different systems running the same OS, but not two different OSes running diffrent compilers. the one remotely interesting benchmark seems to be the "memory benchmarks", which measure stdlib performance (aka, libc)

I'm amazed at how good is the sun compiler in many cases, BTW.

Edited 2006-10-27 19:59

Why does John and Matt use Fedora Core as a target when they could use CentOS or a similar "release quality" Linux distribution?

Calling Fedora Core 'beta software' is going to rub the people behind FC very wrongly.

Somebody send me a Sun box that can run Solaris and Linux, and I'll put it through some REAL paces. You know, webserving, database work, etc. I can't believe people have yet to do respectable benchmarking, it's not exactly rocket science.

http://www.sun.com/tryandbuy/

There ya go. I eagerly await your report.

Can I look for it in, say, about a month?

We're utilizing that program for testing production operations, and they can't be dedicated to benchmarking against linux boxes at this point (we have no interest in running linux, and cannot spare the try-before-buy boxes to benchmarking.)

Again, I'll make it clear. Heck, if anybody in Hawaii has a Sun box sitting around, I'll gladly travel to your location and give it a go. Or, you're welcome to come by my data center and set it up in there.

I do appreciate your sarcasm, however, bravo.

There you go:
http://corenode.com/

http://uadmin.blogspot.com/2006/03/zfs-to-rescue.html

i just noticed they are actually talking about YOU! haha. sorry for the whole misunderstanding

It's ok. And yes, they are discussing me.

" I can't believe people have yet to do respectable benchmarking, it's not exactly rocket science"

Well, most benchmarks are useless and don't really represent the real world. You should build a real world application that makes a good and fair use of OS facilities to test performance. Even then, what works best for you would not work well for others. So it's rather poinless. Look, most business are using Windows as their platform with all its problems of performance and security.

Well, why don't you make a better comparison then.