LinuxQuestions.org - Slackware 14.1 vs Debian 8 (some simple tests for fun)

- Slackware (https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/)

- - Slackware 14.1 vs Debian 8 (some simple tests for fun) (https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/slackware-14-1-vs-debian-8-some-simple-tests-for-fun-4175546974/)

Slackware 14.1 vs Debian 8 (some simple tests for fun)

Deciding whether to use Slackware or Debian for my private server, I decided to do some very few/short little comparisons/benchmarks for the fun of it (note these aren't the deciding factors but I just got bored). Benchmarks consist of boot time, and ram usage...of course this isn't perfect obviously, I tried to disable as many services on Debian as possible so it would match with Slackware and vice versa. This is a full install of Slackware and on Debian I used the netinstall and selected XFCE DE to install and disabled the "Debian desktop environment" or whatever the first pre-checked option was.

The tests were performed in Virtualbox (Each were given 1024mb of memory, and 1CPU)

First Test
(Boot time of each OS into terminal only)

Slackware 14.1 boot time: 20 seconds
Debian 8 Jessie: 18 seconds (so much for systemd's faster boot times)

(Because Slackware has the default 1min boot thingy, I just waited for Debian's 5sec countdown to finish and then hit enter on Slackware)

Second Test
(Boot time of each OS from terminal to XFCE using startx command)

Slackware 14.1 boot time into XFCE: 2.49s (yes I put in the milliseconds...)
Debian 8 Jessie boot time into XFCE: 11s (Weird, if I log out and do it again it loads literally in one second....I checked the XFCE autostart prior for both and disabled as much as possible).

(Note that, obviously because I am using Virtualbox I can't select enter at the same time. So I just did them one by one instead of how I did it for boot.

Third Test
(RAM usage when on terminal)

Slackware 14.1: http://i.imgur.com/bh7MEu1.png
Debian 8 Jessie: http://i.imgur.com/morWjO0.png

Did I do a test of RAM usage in XFCE....no...I got bored but I did check and Debian 8 had about 20more mb of memory free.

IN CONCLUSION
DON'T LET THESE BE THE DECIDING FACTORS OF WHAT OS YOU CHOOSE OR THINK IS BETTER OR WHICH TO CHOOSE (THIS ISNT A PHONE/iOS DEVICE). There's no point in that, I just did this for fun and wanted to compare a distro released in 2013 compared to a 2015 distro and also by how many people work on each distro...pretty amazing how Slackware competes.
Have a nice day guys!

Oh, here is a list that shows what is running on Slackware and Debian respectively.

Code:

  PID TTY          TIME CMD

    1 ?        00:00:00 init

    2 ?        00:00:00 kthreadd

    3 ?        00:00:00 ksoftirqd/0

    5 ?        00:00:00 kworker/0:0H

    6 ?        00:00:00 kworker/u2:0

    7 ?        00:00:00 migration/0

    8 ?        00:00:00 rcu_bh

    9 ?        00:00:00 rcu_sched

  10 ?        00:00:00 khelper

  11 ?        00:00:00 kdevtmpfs

  12 ?        00:00:00 netns

  13 ?        00:00:00 writeback

  14 ?        00:00:00 bioset

  15 ?        00:00:00 kblockd

  16 ?        00:00:00 ata_sff

  17 ?        00:00:00 khubd

  18 ?        00:00:00 md

  19 ?        00:00:00 devfreq_wq

  20 ?        00:00:00 kworker/0:1

  21 ?        00:00:00 rpciod

  40 ?        00:00:00 khungtaskd

  41 ?        00:00:00 kswapd0

  42 ?        00:00:00 khugepaged

  43 ?        00:00:00 fsnotify_mark

  44 ?        00:00:00 nfsiod

  45 ?        00:00:00 jfsIO

  46 ?        00:00:00 jfsCommit

  47 ?        00:00:00 jfsSync

  48 ?        00:00:00 xfsalloc

  49 ?        00:00:00 xfs_mru_cache

  50 ?        00:00:00 xfslogd

  51 ?        00:00:00 ocfs2_wq

  52 ?        00:00:00 user_dlm

  53 ?        00:00:00 bioset

  54 ?        00:00:00 crypto

  97 ?        00:00:00 kthrotld

  98 ?        00:00:00 kworker/u2:1

  99 ?        00:00:00 cciss_scan

  100 ?        00:00:00 fc_exch_workque

  101 ?        00:00:00 fc_rport_eq

  102 ?        00:00:00 fcoethread/0

  103 ?        00:00:00 fnic_event_wq

  105 ?        00:00:00 scsi_eh_0

  106 ?        00:00:00 scsi_eh_1

  108 ?        00:00:00 exec-osm

  109 ?        00:00:00 block-osm

  110 ?        00:00:00 speakup

  113 ?        00:00:00 deferwq

  114 ?        00:00:00 kworker/0:1H

  115 ?        00:00:00 jbd2/sda1-8

  116 ?        00:00:00 ext4-dio-unwrit

  148 ?        00:00:00 udevd

  196 ?        00:00:00 kpsmoused

  312 ?        00:00:00 syslogd

  316 ?        00:00:00 klogd

  351 ?        00:00:00 udevd

  352 ?        00:00:00 udevd

  448 ?        00:00:00 dhcpcd

  522 ?        00:00:00 inetd

  528 ?        00:00:00 sshd

  533 ?        00:00:00 ntpd

  541 ?        00:00:00 acpid

  554 ?        00:00:00 dbus-daemon

  557 ?        00:00:00 console-kit-dae

  625 ?        00:00:00 polkitd

  646 ?        00:00:00 crond

  648 ?        00:00:00 atd

  652 ?        00:00:00 gpm

  654 tty1    00:00:00 bash

  655 tty2    00:00:00 agetty

  656 tty3    00:00:00 agetty

  657 tty4    00:00:00 agetty

  658 tty5    00:00:00 agetty

  659 tty6    00:00:00 agetty

  760 ?        00:00:00 upowerd

  768 ?        00:00:00 udisksd

  870 ?        00:00:00 ModemManager

  896 ?        00:00:00 kworker/0:0

  907 ?        00:00:00 kworker/0:2

  923 tty1    00:00:00 bash

 1078 ?        00:00:00 blueman-mechani

 1093 tty1    00:00:00 ps

Code:

  PID TTY          TIME CMD

    1 ?        00:00:00 systemd

    2 ?        00:00:00 kthreadd

    3 ?        00:00:00 ksoftirqd/0

    5 ?        00:00:00 kworker/0:0H

    6 ?        00:00:00 kworker/u2:0

    7 ?        00:00:00 rcu_sched

    8 ?        00:00:00 rcu_bh

    9 ?        00:00:00 migration/0

  10 ?        00:00:00 watchdog/0

  11 ?        00:00:00 khelper

  12 ?        00:00:00 kdevtmpfs

  13 ?        00:00:00 netns

  14 ?        00:00:00 khungtaskd

  15 ?        00:00:00 writeback

  16 ?        00:00:00 ksmd

  17 ?        00:00:00 khugepaged

  18 ?        00:00:00 crypto

  19 ?        00:00:00 kintegrityd

  20 ?        00:00:00 bioset

  21 ?        00:00:00 kblockd

  23 ?        00:00:00 kswapd0

  24 ?        00:00:00 fsnotify_mark

  30 ?        00:00:00 kthrotld

  31 ?        00:00:00 ipv6_addrconf

  32 ?        00:00:00 deferwq

  66 ?        00:00:00 khubd

  67 ?        00:00:00 ata_sff

  68 ?        00:00:00 scsi_eh_0

  69 ?        00:00:00 scsi_tmf_0

  70 ?        00:00:00 scsi_eh_1

  71 ?        00:00:00 kworker/u2:2

  72 ?        00:00:00 scsi_tmf_1

  73 ?        00:00:00 scsi_eh_2

  74 ?        00:00:00 scsi_tmf_2

  77 ?        00:00:00 kworker/0:2

  81 ?        00:00:00 kworker/0:1H

  103 ?        00:00:00 jbd2/sda1-8

  104 ?        00:00:00 ext4-rsv-conver

  137 ?        00:00:00 kauditd

  142 ?        00:00:00 systemd-journal

  153 ?        00:00:00 systemd-udevd

  202 ?        00:00:00 kpsmoused

  382 ?        00:00:00 dhclient

  418 ?        00:00:00 sshd

  419 ?        00:00:00 cron

  420 ?        00:00:00 atd

  423 ?        00:00:00 systemd-logind

  426 ?        00:00:00 dbus-daemon

  585 ?        00:00:00 rsyslogd

  631 ?        00:00:00 acpid

  677 tty1    00:00:00 login

  693 ?        00:00:00 exim4

  699 ?        00:00:00 wicd

  706 ?        00:00:00 wicd-monitor

  714 ?        00:00:00 systemd

  716 ?        00:00:00 (sd-pam)

  718 tty1    00:00:00 bash

  827 ?        00:00:00 polkitd

  853 ?        00:00:00 kworker/0:0

  878 ?        00:00:00 udisksd

  914 ?        00:00:00 pulseaudio

  915 ?        00:00:00 rtkit-daemon

 1001 ?        00:00:00 kworker/0:1

 1038 tty1    00:00:00 su

 1040 tty1    00:00:00 bash

 1049 tty1    00:00:00 ps

Quote:

Originally Posted by Altiris (Post 5385894)

First Test
(Boot time of each OS into terminal only)

Slackware 14.1 boot time: 20 seconds
Debian 8 Jessie: 18 seconds (so much for systemd's faster boot times)

(Because Slackware has the default 1min boot thingy, I just waited for Debian's 5sec countdown to finish and then hit enter on Slackware)

you can change the default lilo waiting time

if you are not impressed by ~10% faster boot time, multiply the 2 seconds with 1000, and than you know why you might get a fix job when you are able to have 10% improvent out of the box, In fact you can become rich for even 1% improvement
but on a typcial desktop/notebook it's irrelevant

In my experience, Debian has quite a lot of unnecessary services enabled by default.

Anybody using Debian jessie (8.1) can check which .services are enabled with:

Code:

ls -lR /etc/systemd/system

Then disable the un-needed ones with:

Code:

# systemctl disable <name of .service or .socket>

Some need to be `mask`ed *cough*Avahi*cough*:

Code:

# systemctl mask <name of .service or .socket>

You should test Aaditya Bagga's OpenRC port in SBo also for a good comparison and fun on the bun.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Head_on_a_Stick (Post 5385982)

In my experience, Debian has quite a lot of unnecessary services enabled by default.

Anybody using Debian jessie (8.1) can check which .services are enabled with:

Code:

ls -lR /etc/systemd/system

Then disable the un-needed ones with:

Code:

# systemctl disable <name of .service or .socket>

Some need to be `mask`ed *cough*Avahi*cough*:

Code:

# systemctl mask <name of .service or .socket>

That's a good tip. :) However Debian, compared for example to Ubuntu/Mint, is light and faster. Standard System Utilities and XFCE only gives you one clear and responsive desktop. Of course avoid the first option in tasksel. I also avoid the whole desktop in tasksel. I prefer to build things from the ground up.

You should also retune journald to use plaintext logging rather than binary logs to avoid the log corruption issue if you have an improper /(root) dismount.

is slackware on XFS ?
is this on a single core ?

xfce starting much faster on the 2nd time is because of file caching
if i had to guess id say debian added things like a heavier theme and such

@Head_on_a_Stick
in this test debian doesn't start much more things then slackware
and we all know slackware does a couple just-in-case things that debian doesn't

Quote:

Originally Posted by Altiris (Post 5385894)

First Test
(Boot time

I stopped reading round about here.

To me honestly there's no real way to determine if Slackware is better than Debian. Different software and versions.

You could test sysvinit versus openrc against each other on Slackware or toss in Dlackware for a more rounded comparison, but judging two unrelated distributions is really pointless.

Quote:

Originally Posted by cynwulf (Post 5386049)

I stopped reading round about here.

LOL. Same here. :D

Quote:

Originally Posted by ReaperX7 (Post 5386053)

To me honestly there's no real way to determine if Slackware is better than Debian. Different software and versions.

Agreed. That makes as much sense as the BSD is better than Linux debate. Each to his/her own. Use whatever OS floats your boat.

Quote:

Originally Posted by cynwulf (Post 5386049)

I stopped reading round about here.

Lol, I don't have a lot of time on my hands otherwise Id do the Phoronix test suite which would be cooler.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ReaperX7 (Post 5386053)

If you thought I did this to see which dusted is better, I wasn't. I'm having difficulty with deciding to with Slackware (I like the simple philosophy more) or Debian (their main goal is basically complete free software, separate nonfree, in which Slackware has nonfree components in the kernel) and I was testing both out to see how much different configuration was and I just wondered how Slackware faired in these regards (since it was released in 2013 and using different init systems and all that, wouldn't he much point to compare a distro that uses same init).Zac

Quote:

Originally Posted by Altiris (Post 5386328)

Lol, I don't have a lot of time on my hands otherwise Id do the Phoronix test suite which would be cooler.

That would most definitely be cooler if not kewler.

My system boots in less than 3 seconds with systemd what do I win?? :jawa: