6 ms·

I have no idea why phoronix isn't highlighting the reason for Clear Linux superior performance, it isn't magic: Clear Linux OS sets the CPU governor to perform

by zaat 7y ago

I have no idea why phoronix isn't highlighting the reason for Clear Linux superior performance, it isn't magic: Clear Linux OS sets the CPU governor to performance which calls for the CPU to operate at maximum clock frequency. In other words, P-state P0. While this may sound wasteful at first, it is important to remember that power utilization does not increase significantly simply because of a locked clock frequency without a workload. from: https://docs.01.org/clearlinux/latest/guides/maintenance/cpu-performance.html https://docs.01.org/clearlinux/latest/guides/maintenance/cpu... The only reference in the article for this is in the compiler details box, where you can see that all the distributions run the ondemand governor, and Clear runs with performance.

yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
So, what's the catch? Why doesn't everybody do that?
- themodelplumber 7y ago
  Had to guess: Perhaps Linux users are more comfortable keeping an eye on the CPU meter, and generally knowing what their apps are requiring of the computer. If you can be bothered with that there's no reason to mind the CPU maximums automatically, and maybe CPU capacity is even more important to you than battery life.
- zaat 7y ago
  Most people doesn't care for maxing the performance of their CPU most of the time, and they care more about power consumption. This is why that's the default on Windows too. Also, if everybody would do it it will have impact on global power consumption. Anyone can change the governor if they want, it isn't complicated. Phoronix also could have change the governor and benchmark using the same governor, but for some reason he choose not to. This isn't the first time he does it, the comparison is a repeated theme in a series of articles he made. Unless I miss something, which very well could be, this doesn't reflect well on the site professional credibility.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- AgloeDreams 7y ago
  Super crappy battery life, fans are loud, and heat.
- ebg13 7y ago
  > thermald is a Linux thermal management daemon used to prevent the overheating of platforms. > By default, thermald is disabled in Clear Linux OS. It sounds like the catch is that your computer will happily fry itself.
  - zlynx 7y ago
    thermald is good for ordinary users I guess. I hate those things though. I disabled all of those thermal and laptop mode management daemons on my Fedora laptop. I ran a CPU stress while manually tweaking the Intel RAPL settings until I found the 80C limit and just set that on boot. I also wrote into the boot scripts the powertop settings that I liked. Even without RAPL settings the laptop won't fry itself. You can see the machine check events in dmesg as the CPU hits 90-95C and throttles.
  - Rebelgecko 7y ago
    I thought CPUs and GPUs throttled themselves to keep the thermals safe?
    - paulddraper 7y ago
      You're right. I had a W520 Thinkpad that would shut off if it got too hot and wouldn't enter to BIOS until it cooled. (Probably is true of many laptops; that one seemed to frequently overheat on me during intensive, prolonged compilations.)
      - zozbot234 7y ago
        Open the laptop up and reapply the thermal paste. It dries up over time as it gets exposed to higher temperatures, and then you get constant overheating problems as the heatsink can no longer cool the CPU effectively.
    - murderfs 7y ago
      Safe for the CPU is a pretty low bar: the Tjunction of their latest mobile CPUs is 100°C, and I'm pretty sure most users would not be very happy with using a laptop at that temperature.
michaellarabel 7y ago
There is a lot more that Clear Linux does than just set the CPU frequency governor, as shown here among other articles: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=ubuntu1810-fast-clear&num=1 https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=ubuntu18... There is also various compiler tuning, a number of patches to different components, using PGO + LTO compiler optimizations, and much more.
- zaat 7y ago
  Right, many of those changes make it much less suitable distro for your average Linux poweruser. To me it make sense to highlight those facts in such articles, instead of presenting it as the best distro that knocks out all the rest. The reason that this irritates me is that after stumbling on one of those comparisons I was puzzled how could this be and was thinking maybe I should switch. I went to Clear's websites and read through the whole thing until I understood that thank you, this is nice but not for me. While this was educating, it was also waste of my time. My view is that good tech journalism should save me time, not the opposite.
  - modzu 7y ago
    for example?
    - zaat 7y ago
      Running the CPU at 100 percent and disabling thermald are probably enough for rendering it unsuitable for most people.
      - Covzire 7y ago
        If I disable speedstep on my i7 8700K and lock it at 5.0GHz, CPUZ shows it running at a steady 5.0Ghz. But my temps stay relatively low when little is running. Starting Prime 95 Torture Test though, it quickly heats up as you'd expect and cools back down when I stop the test. But the whole time, the frequency never moves from 5.0Ghz. Do you or anyone know what's going on there?
superasn 7y ago
That's a wonderful insight and I didn't even know you could do that. After some searching found this(1). Definitely trying this on my desktop today. (1) https://askubuntu.com/questions/1021748/set-cpu-governor-to-performance-in-18-04 https://askubuntu.com/questions/1021748/set-cpu-governor-to-... Edit: I tried it. Didn't make any noticable difference to me except fan is making a constant loud noise. FWIW, Webpack still takes the same time to compile (not even difference of 100ms before and after).

by zaat 7y ago

yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago

So, what's the catch? Why doesn't everybody do that?

themodelplumber 7y ago
Had to guess: Perhaps Linux users are more comfortable keeping an eye on the CPU meter, and generally knowing what their apps are requiring of the computer. If you can be bothered with that there's no reason to mind the CPU maximums automatically, and maybe CPU capacity is even more important to you than battery life.
zaat 7y ago
Most people doesn't care for maxing the performance of their CPU most of the time, and they care more about power consumption. This is why that's the default on Windows too. Also, if everybody would do it it will have impact on global power consumption. Anyone can change the governor if they want, it isn't complicated. Phoronix also could have change the governor and benchmark using the same governor, but for some reason he choose not to. This isn't the first time he does it, the comparison is a repeated theme in a series of articles he made. Unless I miss something, which very well could be, this doesn't reflect well on the site professional credibility.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
AgloeDreams 7y ago
Super crappy battery life, fans are loud, and heat.
ebg13 7y ago
> thermald is a Linux thermal management daemon used to prevent the overheating of platforms. > By default, thermald is disabled in Clear Linux OS. It sounds like the catch is that your computer will happily fry itself.
- zlynx 7y ago
  thermald is good for ordinary users I guess. I hate those things though. I disabled all of those thermal and laptop mode management daemons on my Fedora laptop. I ran a CPU stress while manually tweaking the Intel RAPL settings until I found the 80C limit and just set that on boot. I also wrote into the boot scripts the powertop settings that I liked. Even without RAPL settings the laptop won't fry itself. You can see the machine check events in dmesg as the CPU hits 90-95C and throttles.
- Rebelgecko 7y ago
  I thought CPUs and GPUs throttled themselves to keep the thermals safe?
  - paulddraper 7y ago
    You're right. I had a W520 Thinkpad that would shut off if it got too hot and wouldn't enter to BIOS until it cooled. (Probably is true of many laptops; that one seemed to frequently overheat on me during intensive, prolonged compilations.)
    - zozbot234 7y ago
      Open the laptop up and reapply the thermal paste. It dries up over time as it gets exposed to higher temperatures, and then you get constant overheating problems as the heatsink can no longer cool the CPU effectively.
  - murderfs 7y ago
    Safe for the CPU is a pretty low bar: the Tjunction of their latest mobile CPUs is 100°C, and I'm pretty sure most users would not be very happy with using a laptop at that temperature.

michaellarabel 7y ago

There is a lot more that Clear Linux does than just set the CPU frequency governor, as shown here among other articles: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=ubuntu1810-fast-clear&num=1 https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=ubuntu18... There is also various compiler tuning, a number of patches to different components, using PGO + LTO compiler optimizations, and much more.

zaat 7y ago
Right, many of those changes make it much less suitable distro for your average Linux poweruser. To me it make sense to highlight those facts in such articles, instead of presenting it as the best distro that knocks out all the rest. The reason that this irritates me is that after stumbling on one of those comparisons I was puzzled how could this be and was thinking maybe I should switch. I went to Clear's websites and read through the whole thing until I understood that thank you, this is nice but not for me. While this was educating, it was also waste of my time. My view is that good tech journalism should save me time, not the opposite.
- modzu 7y ago
  for example?
  - zaat 7y ago
    Running the CPU at 100 percent and disabling thermald are probably enough for rendering it unsuitable for most people.
    - Covzire 7y ago
      If I disable speedstep on my i7 8700K and lock it at 5.0GHz, CPUZ shows it running at a steady 5.0Ghz. But my temps stay relatively low when little is running. Starting Prime 95 Torture Test though, it quickly heats up as you'd expect and cools back down when I stop the test. But the whole time, the frequency never moves from 5.0Ghz. Do you or anyone know what's going on there?

superasn 7y ago

That's a wonderful insight and I didn't even know you could do that. After some searching found this(1). Definitely trying this on my desktop today. (1) https://askubuntu.com/questions/1021748/set-cpu-governor-to-performance-in-18-04 https://askubuntu.com/questions/1021748/set-cpu-governor-to-... Edit: I tried it. Didn't make any noticable difference to me except fan is making a constant loud noise. FWIW, Webpack still takes the same time to compile (not even difference of 100ms before and after).