Gentoo Speed Increases (was Re: [linux] Fun with Ubuntu)

[Abe Olson]

My experiences with suse 9.2, FC3, Ubuntu and Gentoo (all for amd64) are 
that there is no appreciable performance improvement if you use your 
machine as a general work station (ie email, web browsing, word 
processing, cd ripping, etc.) Although, overall I found ubuntu to feel 
the most responsive. I have no idea if you will see performance 
improvements over i386 if you are using the machine as a web server or 
to run a database on though.

I gave them all a shot over the course of the past few months and none 
of them impressed me enough to use for more then a few weeks.

Just for perspective, I've used gentoo for a few years now and I don't 
like it much either. I keep trying other distros and coming back to 
gentoo though. Maybe its familiarity breeds contempt?

I'm going to give solaris 10 a shot soon too. That should be good for 
some laughs.


Abe


Garrett Cooper wrote:
>    I just tried icc a bit and read some feedback from people and it's a 
> pain in the neck to implement even though it's supposed to be gcc 
> compliant...
>    Failed on a vector loop before or something when compiling when gcc 
> didn't >_<...
> -Garrett
> 
> Andrew P. Becherer wrote:
> 
>>     I have heard that one way to really squeeze some performance out 
>> of gentoo is to install the intel compiler (if you are using an intel 
>> part). The install process is fairly straightforward, you do have to 
>> get a license from intel. The license is free for non-commercial use. 
>> After emerging the compiler and putting your license file in the 
>> proper location you add a USE flag for the intel compiler. Not all 
>> applications will benefit from the intel compiler. I understand that 
>> media encoders and decoders among other applications will benefit from 
>> use of the intel compiler.
>>     I am not taking advantage of it currently as I only have one intel 
>> part in my inventory and it does light duty as a firewall/router. I 
>> have it on good authority from the president of the Tacoma LUG that 
>> the intel compiler can result in dramatic speed increases with certain 
>> applications, YMMV. Not to say I don't love GCC, my Motorola G4 would 
>> be a paperweight without it.
>>
>> Setup instructions are here:
>> http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Setup_ICC
>>
>> On Mar 7, 2005, at 6:03 PM, Doug McLean wrote:
>>
>>> This is a good point.  It may simply not be worth the extra effort to 
>>> squeeze out, say %5.  But I always hear about how 64-bit processors 
>>> are revolutionary compared to 32-bit ones, and wanted to see this.  
>>> The Athlon64 I have really is alot faster than my old computer, even 
>>> with 32-bit windows.  I haven't had quite such luck with Linux 
>>> though.  It always seems to still be a bit slow, though I haven't 
>>> spent the time to find out why.  :p
>>>
>>> Phillip Garland wrote:
>>>
>>>> How much improvement does compiling for a specific CPU get you vs. 
>>>> the standard compilation for the architecture? I seem to recall 
>>>> hearing 20-30% for pentium vs. i386, but I don't think I've seen 
>>>> numbers for more recent CPUs. I doubt most desktop and server usage 
>>>> is cpu-limited enough for cpu-specific compilation to be worth it 
>>>> for most people.
>>>> ~Phillip
>>>
>>>
>>
>> Andrew Becherer
>>
>