Linux Kernel Benchmarks, 2.6.24-2.6.29 38
Ashmash writes "Phoronix has posted benchmarks of the Linux kernel from versions 2.6.24 to 2.6.29. They ran a number of desktop benchmarks from the Phoronix Test Suite on each of the six kernels on an Ubuntu host with an Intel Core 2 processor. The points they make with the new Linux 2.6.29 kernel are 1. there's a regression with 7-Zip compression 2. OpenSSL has improved significantly 3. a regression drastically impacting the SQLite performance has been fixed 4. the OpenMP GraphicsMagick performance is phenomenally better with this new kernel. In all of their other tests, the kernel performance was the roughly the same."
Re:Why no comparison to OS X? (Score:3, Informative)
Besides, how do you expect a different binary to be fair? At least in this test the only variable was the kernel, whereas on OSX you have the kernel, application specific code, and the compiler to consider. They can't exactly copy the ELF binaries and libraries straight over from Linux.
That is the question... (Score:2, Informative)
The Phoronix benchmarking is intended to provide you the answers as to why. It is to highlight the stuff that has happened.
If performance management is going on within the kernel community, then this shouldn't come up as a shock. The whole purpose of independent testing is that you see something that looks out of place, investigate and resolve. A perfect example is http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=intel_atom_four&num=1 [phoronix.com] phoronix article, that showed that SuSE was trailing. This causes this http://lizards.opensuse.org/2008/12/16/comments-on-phoronix-benchmarking-opensuse-111/ [opensuse.org] discussion.
The question and answer don't need to be provided by the same voice. It is when you have someone questioning, and then someone answering, then you have a discussion, then finally you have progress.
To make it worse, there is virtually no reason that any number of the organizations supporting the leading developers can't invest a small amount of infrastructure and run the tests themselves. Phoronix Test Suite is absolutely trivial to use. The amount of "software development in autopilot" is frightening, this applies equally to Open Source as it does to Proprietary.