Performance, am I the only one.

foo_bar_foo · 11-14-2004, 09:41 PM

oh yea FWIW

i have two machines here side by side and networked together.
hardware is fairly the same asus motherboard P4
one Win 2K (has ide raid array)
one LFS 5.1 (slightly faster cpu)

The Linux machine is so much faster it's mind blowing
everything i do on it happens instantly

daihard · 11-14-2004, 09:52 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by foo_bar_foo
i have two machines here side by side and networked together.
hardware is fairly the same asus motherboard P4
one Win 2K (has ide raid array)
one LFS 5.1 (slightly faster cpu)

The Linux machine is so much faster it's mind blowing
everything i do on it happens instantly

I agree with what you say about tweaking Linux to suit your needs. The thing, though, is that Win2K is like that right out of the box, with its own bloated GUI and services running. If it takes that much to top that with Linux, it would turn away a lot of potential Linux users.

Commando464 · 11-14-2004, 10:02 PM

I use SuSE 9.1 Personal with KDE 3.3.1 and i have no problems with performance.

I have 762 meg RAM and a swap of 1.4 gig.

I have compared the speed with a friends winxp laptop with the same amount of memory and i came out ahead everytime. As a matter of fact he wants to dump winxp and install linux on his laptop.

So i think people should check their settings before complaining about speed of linux.

winsnomore · 11-14-2004, 10:21 PM

Commmando ..

I think you are saying something else .. I am not complainging I am just asking

Linux is "supposed to be" better

If it takes 768 Meg RAM ( I NEVER had a PC with that much ram for DESKTOP) ..
and/or tweaking the kernel (LFS .. your own compile) ..

then it implies that EVERYONE who doesn't do this should be having (some) problems ..
that's what I was (and still am) asking.

So .. let's stay with what most people have .. i.e. a reasoanable machine ( ~2 G CPU/ ~256M Ram .. ) and a standard distribution.

I really don't think compiling your own "is" the answer .. SUSE/FC/Mandrake/ .. and zillion others are then actually doing a disservice to everyone
by putting out stuff that "MUST" be fixed before use.

DaWallace · 11-14-2004, 10:42 PM

personally... in my opinion.... Fedora... is the buggiest most horribly bloated overly AND sloppily tinkered with and yet still somehow popular distribution in existence. I recommend you try something else if you don't want to have to mess with everything. then... if it works, which it will

you will have come to understand redhat as I have.

wow.. I'm really biased... oh well.. I have my reasons

Tinkster · 11-14-2004, 11:52 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by winsnomore
here i s ..

hdparm /dev/hda
/dev/hda:
multcount = 16 (on)
IO_support = 0 (default 16-bit)
unmaskirq = 0 (off)
using_dma = 1 (on)
keepsettings = 0 (off)
readonly = 0 (off)
readahead = 256 (on)
geometry = 16383/255/63, sectors = 234441648, start = 0
[root@localhost sbin]# /sbin/hdparm -tT /dev/hda

/dev/hda:
Timing buffer-cache reads: 232 MB in 2.00 seconds = 115.96 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 30 MB in 3.05 seconds = 9.83 MB/sec

Again .. this seems important enough .. but is it really ?
.. I don't hear anyone saying "their machines run FASTER than windows"

BTW I just doubled my SDRAM .. to 512 Meg .. the startup time (after boot) for FireFox is still ~8 seconds .. in windows machine it's less than 1.
That's what's pissing me off.

I think that there's something majorly wrong with
your RAM timing, and maybe your IDE bus ...

Here's the values from my notebook (!) ... a
1.8GHz P4 with a 5400rpm hdd ...

Code:

[root@diggn:~]$ hdparm -tT /dev/hda

/dev/hda:
 Timing buffer-cache reads:   1268 MB in  2.00 seconds = 634.00  MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads:  104 MB in  3.00 seconds =  34.67  MB/sec
[root@diggn:~]$ hdparm  /dev/hda

/dev/hda:
 multcount    = 16 (on)
 IO_support   =  0 (default 16-bit)
 unmaskirq    =  0 (off)
 using_dma    =  1 (on)
 keepsettings =  0 (off)
 readonly     =  0 (off)
 readahead    =  8 (on)
 geometry     = 4864/255/63, sectors = 78140160, start = 0
[root@diggn:~]$

The only noteable difference in the rest of hdarms
throughput is that yours has a read-ahead of 256
(my version of hdparm won't allow that value [invalid?])
as opposed to the 8 in mine ...

Cheers,
Tink

Adrohak · 11-15-2004, 05:45 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by winsnomore
Commmando ..

I think you are saying something else .. I am not complainging I am just asking

Linux is "supposed to be" better

If it takes 768 Meg RAM ( I NEVER had a PC with that much ram for DESKTOP) ..
and/or tweaking the kernel (LFS .. your own compile) ..

then it implies that EVERYONE who doesn't do this should be having (some) problems ..
that's what I was (and still am) asking.

So .. let's stay with what most people have .. i.e. a reasoanable machine ( ~2 G CPU/ ~256M Ram .. ) and a standard distribution.

I really don't think compiling your own "is" the answer .. SUSE/FC/Mandrake/ .. and zillion others are then actually doing a disservice to everyone
by putting out stuff that "MUST" be fixed before use.

I use the Slackware 9.1 bare.i kernel right off the install CD with a 2.4GHz Pentium 4 and 256MB RAM without any problems. :\

winsnomore · 11-15-2004, 04:34 PM

Tinkster .. I scripted the hdparm and I can get pretty close to what you have .. so there is nothing wrong with IDE either.
(It took about 4+ runs of hdparam to show imporoved performance .. something to think about later).

I did change the winodws "theme" from Bluecurve to KDE Default .. That seems to have improved the responsiveness quiet a bit.
It's still not "greate", but is now more tolerable than before.

I always thought Gnome was faster.

Tinkster · 11-16-2004, 11:37 AM

Quote:

Tinkster .. I scripted the hdparm and I can get pretty close to what you have ..
so there is nothing wrong with IDE either.

I'm not an expert on hardware, but I would have
thought that with your machine's specs your results
should be WAY better than mine, not close to mine.

As for the behaviour of the DEs... I use fluxbox, so can't
really say a lot in this respect ;) ... I know that logging into
KDE on my machine will take ~13 seconds before I can
start using the DE, fluxbox gives me that in ~ 1 :)

Cheers,
Tink

jon3k · 11-16-2004, 02:25 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by exvor
Redhat = Slow in general

Please don't make blanket statements like that regarding any distribution. Its all linux, using basically the same software packages, just different versions. There's no reason one distro can't be built to be just as fast than any other.

Tinkster · 11-16-2004, 02:34 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by jon3k
Please don't make blanket statements like that regarding any distribution. Its all linux, using basically the same software packages, just different versions. There's no reason one distro can't be built to be just as fast than any other.

Yup, I second that notion - the correct statement should have been:

Redhat = slow defaults

Cheers,
Tink

winsnomore · 11-16-2004, 03:23 PM

Well I have switched !!! I bit the bullet and downloaded Suse 9.1
EVERYTHING is much much better, my disk performance is about 30% better than FC2

Only thing I don't like about Suse is their initial setup .. it has a few surprises.

1. I have 2 ethernet cards and 1 is not connected, Suse gets the IP address for one from my router but then fails to init the network, it gets very confused and I have to use Yast to "delete" the other port and restart it by hand. .. I will fix it by connecting the cable to the other ports also. I someday want to use it as a router/firewall.

2. Suse doesn't care about installed grub and /boot partition (FC2) .. so net result is that it makes it's own / partition active and leaves everything else hanging .. I can fix it.

Suse does handle NTFS that FC2 didn't do (or FC1).
Oh .. K3b is still broken, but I don't think even god can't fix that.

I was tempted to use Slack, but it's boot process is way too different than others, I passed.

All in all I am able to use the machine much mre comfortably than with FC2. I wasted about 3 months with FC2, wish
I had done this before.

I would still stay that my Win2K machine (though much lower CPU/Disk PIII 1G/5400 RPM) is faster respoding, but at least this machine is usable now !! and yes with 256Meg.

NginUS · 11-24-2004, 10:09 PM

i just started using linux, on suse 9.1... i put it on an old pentium 200mhz mmx w/ 168 ram (pc66).
running kde, opera, relatively basic gui...i turned off every effects like setting i could find, looked for minimal window styles, etc... using opera rather than konq, and things are quick enough that I dont even kvm back to my windows 1.4Ghz machine to look stuff up on google. i think it helps that i didnt install much of anything, and removed every package i could. all ive added so far is opera. (not by choice, really....i cant get anything else installed yet)

jonr · 11-24-2004, 10:19 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by ElllisD
i just started using linux, on suse 9.1... i put it on an old pentium 200mhz mmx w/ 168 ram (pc66).
running kde, opera, relatively basic gui...i turned off every effects like setting i could find, looked for minimal window styles, etc... using opera rather than konq, and things are quick enough that I dont even kvm back to my windows 1.4Ghz machine to look stuff up on google. i think it helps that i didnt install much of anything, and removed every package i could. all ive added so far is opera. (not by choice, really....i cant get anything else installed yet)

You might like it even better if you try out a lightweight, fast window manager like IceWM or fluxbox or blackbox eventually...nothing against KDE, but it does take a lot of resources and is slow compared to the smaller, more "minimal" window managers.

Sounds like you're doing good! Enjoy...

DraaX · 11-25-2004, 11:46 AM

I am currently using Slackware 10 and have AMD athlon 1 ghz proc and 312 mb RAM and a swap of just under 1 gb. I am dual booting Win XP Pro. I currently have adopted Fluxbox as my WM but started with KDE. KDE would take almost as long as my Win XP to boot, but once it was running, it ran slightly faster than XP. Using Fluxbox, however, runs like lightening! Way faster than XP. The only thing that I do not like is when it is booting the Nvidia splash screen sits on the screen for about 3-4 seconds, then BAM Fluxbox is up and running. IMHO, from my experience, Linux has been way faster than XP. I have tried SuSe and Slack which both were way faster than XP and RedHat9 that was on par with Wndows.