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From: miguel@sphinx.nuclecu.unam.mx (Miguel de Icaza)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.development.system,comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Why to not buy Matrox Millennium
Date: 07 Apr 1996 17:13:46 -0600
Organization: Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico
Lines: 76
Message-ID: <s8g2afwrth.fsf@sphinx.nuclecu.unam.mx>
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> >3. Linux is not "intel-specific": ask Linus about his Alpha,
> > or DaveM about his Sun.
>
> Linux up until recently has been tailored for Intel boxes. When Linux
> achieves performances comparable to OSF/1 on an Alpha, I will revise my
> opinion. And please note that this includes networking -- some of us
> use Alphas as routers.
Where recently is defined as two years ago? Keep in mind that Linux
exists only since 1991, so this is not too bad.
Linux on the Sparc is faster than SunOS and Solaris for operating
system functions (as shown by running lmbench on the machine). I also
think that Linux on the Alpha is faster than OSF/1, this is from a
quick glance at some recent lmbench posting on the developers list of
Linux.
Let me see, one second, here it is, lmbench figure for a SPARC classic
running SunOS, Solaris and Linux:
L M B E N C H 1 . 0 S U M M A R Y
------------------------------------
Processor, Processes - times in microseconds
--------------------------------------------
Host OS Mhz Null Null Simple /bin/sh Mmap 2-proc 8-proc
Syscall Process Process Process lat ctxsw ctxsw
--------- ------------- ---- ------- ------- ------- ------- ---- ------ ------
trombetas Linux 1.3.74 50 13 8.7K 39.1K 53K 334 80 95
negro.rut SunOS 4.1.3_U 49 124 18.3K 63.9K 110K 470 152 262
geneva.ru SunOS 5.5 50 31 33.7K 148.2K 274K 596 174 205
Oops! what do we have here? Linux can handle a system call 9 times
faster than SunOS and 2.3 faster than latest Solaris, mhm. Then we
can see that Linux is at least 2 times faster context switching than
all of the native operating systems for the Sparc.
*Local* Communication latencies in microseconds
-----------------------------------------------
Host OS Pipe UDP RPC/ TCP RPC/
UDP TCP
--------- ------------- ------- ------- ------- ------- -------
trombetas Linux 1.3.74 285 1004 1776 1406 2614
negro.rut SunOS 4.1.3_U 890 1375 2287 1573 2804
geneva.ru SunOS 5.5 530 1563 2080 1354 2398
More, more more...
*Local* Communication bandwidths in megabytes/second
----------------------------------------------------
Host OS Pipe TCP File Mmap Bcopy Bcopy Mem Mem
reread reread (libc) (hand) read write
--------- ------------- ---- ---- ------ ------ ------ ------ ---- -----
trombetas Linux 1.3.74 9 3.8 25.0 21.1 18 25 41 36
negro.rut SunOS 4.1.3_U 4 2.0 19.5 8.2 18 24 41 36
geneva.ru SunOS 5.5 8 7.0 12.6 19.5 18 18 40 36
I can't believe this! Linux can transfer 9 megs per sec on local
pipes (those used to contact X, for example) while SunOS only does 4
megs per sec. Solaris is 8 megs per sec, not too bad for the bad fame
it has these days.
Solaris is twice as fast for TCP, but it's much slower for file
operations (please, note that this is reading, not writing, so nothing
related to async metadata updating).
If you want the complete lmbench report you can dig the SparcLinux
mailing list archives.
Best wishes,
Miguel.
--
miguel@roxanne.nuclecu.unam.mx
The GNU Midnight Commander: http://stekt.oulu.fi/~jtklehto/mc
Linux/SPARC project: http://www.geog.ubc.ca/sparclinux.html