From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from lists.gentoo.org (pigeon.gentoo.org [208.92.234.80]) by finch.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2EADA198005 for ; Thu, 14 Mar 2013 14:05:13 +0000 (UTC) Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 07B50E0595; Thu, 14 Mar 2013 14:04:59 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail-we0-f178.google.com (mail-we0-f178.google.com [74.125.82.178]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-RC4-SHA (128/128 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 89EB4E0512 for ; Thu, 14 Mar 2013 14:04:57 +0000 (UTC) Received: by mail-we0-f178.google.com with SMTP id o45so2138259wer.37 for ; Thu, 14 Mar 2013 07:04:56 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20120113; h=x-received:message-id:date:from:user-agent:mime-version:to:subject :references:in-reply-to:content-type:content-transfer-encoding; bh=7X5sH5QGdIUg+HhxIToMm9EcLrXrDY7ATJXYeaMEFng=; b=Y2vSYVtUFHaH63QzupHOsy1kxkgNL5N/ZEN0x6QP8bXha6N+K3RX4SJS/cffY1niAR 8B7hs+z25YwZ6IYoXKxTWp10eYVzWRV8k2OdBHQp9dN77hOXdIMcspYoeAA4fR05B/ut rf2vn05Ew7AZ/WCL5Z7rlmlTpofW2IB9Rf/sEgbJbRxL4yuTP7khcrDSIiIZ4f6iPeCT YYlueGO0fugPZgqtC14sln/yfxJm8fD9ftu4lfDKOBECR9dBXySH6567WRAdD+R9yzQR ykhO3k4VCljajcUdtpNIyc8SXVOy1VeONENo/ODcUfjpQPraZQSHv0XYtP8b0/bYeBnr +6zQ== X-Received: by 10.180.83.39 with SMTP id n7mr4262758wiy.8.1363269896113; Thu, 14 Mar 2013 07:04:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [172.20.0.40] (196-215-205-209.dynamic.isadsl.co.za. [196.215.205.209]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id ej8sm9195476wib.9.2013.03.14.07.04.53 (version=TLSv1 cipher=ECDHE-RSA-RC4-SHA bits=128/128); Thu, 14 Mar 2013 07:04:54 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <5141D887.7010200@gmail.com> Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2013 16:02:47 +0200 From: Alan McKinnon User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:17.0) Gecko/20130304 Thunderbird/17.0.3 Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo speed comparison to other distros References: <51418728.7020406@gmail.com> <514194E9.2090808@iinet.net.au> <5141D07C.3010709@gmail.com> <5141D361.4030502@gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <5141D361.4030502@gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Archives-Salt: 8239ae78-1940-408a-ac42-4ef53a0d96db X-Archives-Hash: 471ab08a1db80943a4256f4327abf762 On 14/03/2013 15:40, Mark David Dumlao wrote: > On 03/14/2013 09:28 PM, Alan McKinnon wrote: >> On 14/03/2013 14:12, Pandu Poluan wrote: >>> On Mar 14, 2013 4:14 PM, "William Kenworthy" >> > wrote: >>>> Did this few years back for an online magazine sponsored by a local >>>> linux sysadmin company who wanted to see the difference between generic >>>> debian and optimised (not necessarily gentoo, but thats what I used.) >>>> >>>> Difference in times was ~10% across the board for graphics manipulations >>>> (gimp scripts), spreadsheet tasks (gnumeric) and the like. >>>> >>>> The "kicker" - simple optimisations gained far, far more than generic >>>> compiler settings. e.g., initially, the gnumeric versions were slightly >>>> different, with some wild times across the tasks. Make em the same >>>> version (and cuedos to the gnumeric maintainer for jumping in and >>>> helping diagnose/fix the problem - newer version on gentoo was heaps >>>> slower :) and there was little difference. >>>> >>>> Shared libs like glibc didnt make a huge difference, but being smart >>>> about how/what a "particular" task was handled gained more. If a debian >>>> app was compiled with similar options as to gentoo, little difference >>>> between them in performance which considering shared libs etc wasn't >>>> what I expected. >>>> >>>> The intel compilers are/were said to be a lot better than gcc, not sure >>>> if the gap is still there (supposedly 20% better again) >>>> >>>> Its how long is a piece of string kind of question if considered OS >>>> wide, but pick a narrow task and optimise away with smart programmers >>>> and you will do well on almost anything. >>>> >>>> Big advantage of gentoo - configurability, version control (what version >>>> is installed and changing it at short notice) and general flexibility. >>>> >>> This. >>> >>> Why I prefer Gentoo over other distros: Full control. >>> >>> I mean, I can (and do) leverage "-march=native". And I certainly have an >>> overly long USE flags... but it's the sheet satisfaction of knowing that >>> my system is MY system that made me stick with Gentoo... >>> >>> It's eminently satisfying -- a geekgasm, if you will -- to know that >>> one's kernel is lean and customized, all the toolchains have been tuned, >>> and there are no useless things being installed... >>> >>> In regards to performance, the benefits might not be groundbreaking, but >>> it's there, and when your server is being relentlessly hammered by >>> requests, Gentoo seems to have additional breathing space where other >>> distros choke... >> >> Gentoo excels as a -dev system where your devs need to test things in >> different environments. >> >> A classic case is different pythons. We have many Centos 4 machines in >> production that run python-2.4, the developers naturally run something >> bleeding edge like 2.7 or 3.3 on their laptops. >> >> Many many times they need to know if their bespoke code runs properly on >> Centos, or PyPy or whatever other valid environment difference could >> happen in the real world. >> >> Tweak USE, tweak the masking and let emerge world do it's thing. Now the >> dev can do valid tests. If the dev machines are VMs, snapshot them just >> before starting this and you have the best possible solution for my money. >> >> Or, try remove LDAP, NIS and PAM support for auth from a RHEL machine to >> test if it works without those things in place. >> RHEL? Impossible. >> Gentoo? Trivially easy. > "Trivially easy", of course, means an emerge -euDNtv world && emerge > -ctv && revdep-rebuild -i && revdep-rebuild ... ehehehe > > I dunno, it might actually be easier to setup the said distros in a VM. > And if those configurations don't work, you shouldn't have to support > them, eh? ;) > Well, devs tend to ask questions like "would this thing X work in practice? or do I have to munge my code?" They want to know if shipped code supports something. And, I don't get to say "I'm sorry, I cannot support Centos 4 on this" Business has a stock answer "Well, find a way to make it work." Flexibility is the key. At least with "emerge -euDNtv world && emerge -ctv && revdep-rebuild -i && revdep-rebuild" I can walk away and come back in three hours, look at logs and tell them to test. Plus I don't have to re-install their customer code everyt time from scratch (said code *never*, of course, coming with anything resembling a MakeFile) -- Alan McKinnon alan.mckinnon@gmail.com