3 ms·

Arch-based CachyOS promises speed but trips over its laces

16 points by LorenDB 2y ago

lproven 2y ago
I wrote this, and I posted it yesterday. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41050333 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41050333 This really _is_ a dupe.
- Fnoord 2y ago
  It is not, as that entry did not gather any discussion or upvotes.
  - lproven 2y ago
    It is the same link. How is that not a duplicate?!
Phelinofist 2y ago
So from a brief look they (mostly?) enable certain kernel and compile options to tailor the installation to the available hardware. What improvements can one, realistically, expect from that?
- viraptor 2y ago
  Really depends on the app type. Usually single digit % https://www.phoronix.com/review/cachyos-linux-perf/2 https://www.phoronix.com/review/cachyos-linux-perf/2 But if you have some math heavy code which doesn't use simd intrinsics, you may get way better results. Lto/pgo are magic in some situations.
jorvi 2y ago
CachyOS is especially interesting because it uses the BORE (well, EEVDF-BORE) scheduler. Here is a nice little graph, done on a Ryzen 5800X: https://imgur.com/a/ByXpvuW https://imgur.com/a/ByXpvuW It is fairly clear to see that the EEVDF scheduler is pretty terrible under load, making it a bad choice for desktop work. Hell, the original BORE scheduler (CFS-BORE) is even better in that regard, sacrificing a tiny bit of extra fairness for much better loaded responsiveness.
- sickofparadox 2y ago
  As someone unfamiliar with most of those axis (or at least what they are measuring), could you explain/link to an explanation of what is meant by fairness and un/saturated responses?
  - jorvi 2y ago
    - Non-saturated response: response time when the CPU queue isn’t fully filled, simply said light CPU load situations - Saturated response: response time when the CPU queue is (nearly) fully filled, simply said heavy CPU load situations - Fairness: does every task get an equal slice of CPU time / processing BORE stands for Burst Oriented Response Enhacements. Basically what it does is tweak the underlying CPU scheduler to give bursty CPU tasks higher priority. This translates to less lag when you say alt-tab out of a game or bring up a game overlay.
rirze 2y ago
This is the author's comment fwiw: ---- [Author here] > it is time you replaced that 13 year old laptop You tell me where I can buy one that's as good, has lots of ports and easily-expanded RAM, disk etc, with above all else an excellent full-sized keyboard that isn't flat, isn't chiclet style, doesn't have half-size Fn keys that default to pointless media controls, and I'll think about it. The reason I use the things is because every more modern device I have seen or tried is inferior. --- Like the author acknowledges in the last few paragraphs, CachyOS is great on modern hardware. But using it to draw out performance from an old laptop is not it. I'm not surprised by the outcome of this article.
- bastawhiz 2y ago
  I think it's not unreasonable to expect that a perf-focused distro would perform poorly on old hardware. But I also think that a double digit percentage of the included window managers shouldn't fail, and the install shouldn't fail, and the system should reliably get through the boot process. In fact, the author of the article really didn't complain at all about the performance, they complained that the distro has rough edges that shouldn't really exist on any hardware. That said, I'm not sure what the author of the article was trying to do by testing this distro on old hardware. Even assuming the rough edges didn't exist, how useful is it to know how well it runs on hardware that's old enough to be in middle school? This is clearly not a distro for people with old hardware, so what reader is the author trying to reach? At best they were hoping it would breathe new life into the device (but it's pretty clear that's not what it was meant to do) and at worst they were looking to publish a "gotcha" article about how the distro didn't live up to the expectations.
- snakeyjake 2y ago
  >The reason I use the things is because every more modern device I have seen or tried is inferior. The Linux advocate's obsession with ThinkPads is baffling. Lenovo, through their phone and consumer device divisions mainly, has been accused of more GPL violations than practically every other company on Earth combined and that's only slight hyperbole. Plus, all of the security and privacy violations which make Microsoft look like a concerned and caring best friend. I suppose seeing sticker-clad ThinkPads at conferences makes it easy to see who is cosplaying as someone who cares, like a speaker at an PETA meeting arriving in a (SECOND HAND, BRAH! I didn't buy this NEW! GAWH!) fur coat.
j0057 2y ago
I think metered internet and a rolling distro is never going to be a great fit. Putting packages on the installation medium only inflates the ISO download, and those packages will be out of date sooner rather than later. It's not like Ubuntu, macOS or Windows updates wouldn't hurt metered connections.
sandreas 2y ago
CachyOS looked so promising... Good performance, ZFS in the Installer, arch based... Unfortunately the setup crashed on my notebook and my proxmox VM, so I could not really test it. What a pitty...

16 points by LorenDB 2y ago

I wrote this, and I posted it yesterday. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41050333 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41050333 This really _is_ a dupe.

Fnoord 2y ago
It is not, as that entry did not gather any discussion or upvotes.
- lproven 2y ago
  It is the same link. How is that not a duplicate?!

Phelinofist 2y ago

So from a brief look they (mostly?) enable certain kernel and compile options to tailor the installation to the available hardware. What improvements can one, realistically, expect from that?

viraptor 2y ago
Really depends on the app type. Usually single digit % https://www.phoronix.com/review/cachyos-linux-perf/2 https://www.phoronix.com/review/cachyos-linux-perf/2 But if you have some math heavy code which doesn't use simd intrinsics, you may get way better results. Lto/pgo are magic in some situations.

jorvi 2y ago

CachyOS is especially interesting because it uses the BORE (well, EEVDF-BORE) scheduler. Here is a nice little graph, done on a Ryzen 5800X: https://imgur.com/a/ByXpvuW https://imgur.com/a/ByXpvuW It is fairly clear to see that the EEVDF scheduler is pretty terrible under load, making it a bad choice for desktop work. Hell, the original BORE scheduler (CFS-BORE) is even better in that regard, sacrificing a tiny bit of extra fairness for much better loaded responsiveness.

sickofparadox 2y ago
As someone unfamiliar with most of those axis (or at least what they are measuring), could you explain/link to an explanation of what is meant by fairness and un/saturated responses?
- jorvi 2y ago
  - Non-saturated response: response time when the CPU queue isn’t fully filled, simply said light CPU load situations - Saturated response: response time when the CPU queue is (nearly) fully filled, simply said heavy CPU load situations - Fairness: does every task get an equal slice of CPU time / processing BORE stands for Burst Oriented Response Enhacements. Basically what it does is tweak the underlying CPU scheduler to give bursty CPU tasks higher priority. This translates to less lag when you say alt-tab out of a game or bring up a game overlay.

rirze 2y ago

This is the author's comment fwiw: ---- [Author here] > it is time you replaced that 13 year old laptop You tell me where I can buy one that's as good, has lots of ports and easily-expanded RAM, disk etc, with above all else an excellent full-sized keyboard that isn't flat, isn't chiclet style, doesn't have half-size Fn keys that default to pointless media controls, and I'll think about it. The reason I use the things is because every more modern device I have seen or tried is inferior. --- Like the author acknowledges in the last few paragraphs, CachyOS is great on modern hardware. But using it to draw out performance from an old laptop is not it. I'm not surprised by the outcome of this article.

bastawhiz 2y ago
I think it's not unreasonable to expect that a perf-focused distro would perform poorly on old hardware. But I also think that a double digit percentage of the included window managers shouldn't fail, and the install shouldn't fail, and the system should reliably get through the boot process. In fact, the author of the article really didn't complain at all about the performance, they complained that the distro has rough edges that shouldn't really exist on any hardware. That said, I'm not sure what the author of the article was trying to do by testing this distro on old hardware. Even assuming the rough edges didn't exist, how useful is it to know how well it runs on hardware that's old enough to be in middle school? This is clearly not a distro for people with old hardware, so what reader is the author trying to reach? At best they were hoping it would breathe new life into the device (but it's pretty clear that's not what it was meant to do) and at worst they were looking to publish a "gotcha" article about how the distro didn't live up to the expectations.
snakeyjake 2y ago
>The reason I use the things is because every more modern device I have seen or tried is inferior. The Linux advocate's obsession with ThinkPads is baffling. Lenovo, through their phone and consumer device divisions mainly, has been accused of more GPL violations than practically every other company on Earth combined and that's only slight hyperbole. Plus, all of the security and privacy violations which make Microsoft look like a concerned and caring best friend. I suppose seeing sticker-clad ThinkPads at conferences makes it easy to see who is cosplaying as someone who cares, like a speaker at an PETA meeting arriving in a (SECOND HAND, BRAH! I didn't buy this NEW! GAWH!) fur coat.

j0057 2y ago

I think metered internet and a rolling distro is never going to be a great fit. Putting packages on the installation medium only inflates the ISO download, and those packages will be out of date sooner rather than later. It's not like Ubuntu, macOS or Windows updates wouldn't hurt metered connections.

sandreas 2y ago

CachyOS looked so promising... Good performance, ZFS in the Installer, arch based... Unfortunately the setup crashed on my notebook and my proxmox VM, so I could not really test it. What a pitty...