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There are a lot of superfluous details in this article. After doing a few initial benchmarks it should have been obvious that the largest performance decline oc
by delano 18y ago
There are a lot of superfluous details in this article. After doing a few initial benchmarks it should have been obvious that the largest performance decline occurs between the 7.04 and 7.10 releases. The article should have answered that question first before throwing 8.x into the mix.
Also, don't use a laptop for benchmarking operating systems!
- palish 18y agodon't use a laptop for benchmarking operating systems! Why not? Laptops are poised to overtake desktop PCs. It seems valid (even necessary) to test your product on popular consumer configurations.
- JoelSutherland 18y agoAgreed. In my experience I have found that XP boots and runs faster than Ubuntu 8.10 on my laptop. This was not the case on the same machine back in the 7.04 days.
- delano 18y agoThat's a different type of test. You're talking about testing the performance of your laptop with various configurations. This article is comparing the performance of several versions of Ubuntu and the reason you don't want to use a laptop for that is because laptops have significantly slower hard drives than desktop models (even at the same RPM). Also the laptop they're using has a 5400 RPM drive which doesn't help.
- JoelSutherland 18y agoWhy is it bad to use a slower hard drive for a benchmark comparing software? You haven't explained this yet.
- delano 18y agoI answered that question in my reply to palish.
- notdarkyet 18y agoThis can simply be answered by looking at the number of start-up scripts that are being executed. If that number has increased relative to 7.04, then of course your boot time is going to be slower. There are not too many things inherently different between the past few releases in terms of booting.
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- delano 18y agoYou're right. It's valid and necessary when you want to compare the performance of different machines. When you're comparing software to software, hardware should not be a limiting factor unless you're testing for specific cases.
- briansmith 18y ago"Also, don't use a laptop for benchmarking operating systems!" That is exactly the kind of thinking that results in Linux's poor performance on laptops.
- delano 18y agoDoes Linux perform poorly on laptops? I've never looked into it. I'm not suggesting that performance tests should not be run on laptops. As I said in my reply to palish, When you're comparing software to software, hardware should not be a limiting factor unless you're testing for specific cases.
- lacker 18y agoI still don't understand. Hardware will always be a limiting factor in the sense that if you had better hardware, the software would run faster. So what's wrong with running tests on laptops, one of the main platforms operating systems are needed for.
- delano 18y agoTo clarify, a specific piece of hardware should not knowingly be a limiting factor unless you're testing for a specific case (for example, specifically testing for performance with a slow hard drive). I'm advocating a balance across all pieces of hardware.