Linux 2.6.20-rc6 Kernel Performance

Michael writes "The Linux 2.6.20 kernel will feature KVM support, Playstation 3 support, and a variety of other improvements. With the Linux 2.6.20-rc6 kernel out the door, Phoronix has written a performance comparison of the Linux 2.6.20-rc6 kernel against the 2.6.19 and 2.6.19.2 kernels in a variety of benchmarks."

Comments

PS-3

[kevin_conaway]

Why is playstation support being included in the kernel? Is that really necessary?

Furthermore, the article didn't exactly make it clear what the support is. Can anyone clarify?

Re:PS-3

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is anything in the kernel tree? Jeesh -- why don't you complain about the whole gamut of processors included. Just because it's supported doesn't mean you have to build for that arch. To each his own -- pick the proc(s) you need.

Re:PS-3

[qwertphobia]

Why is playstation support being included in the kernel? Is that really necessary?

Yeah, don't forget why most folks start tinkering with Linux in the first place.

• We love to tinker
• We want closer access to the hardware
• Somebody told us we can't, so that just makes us want to all the more

All three apply to the PS3, as far as I'm concerned!

Re:PS-3

[Ultra64]

Why is playstation support being included in the kernel?

Why is there x86 support in the kernel? why is there PowerPC support in the kernel?

To make linux run on these systems. Duh.

Re:PS-3

[Gulthek]

rude != flamebait

Re:PS-3

[Mongoose]

I take you never worked on PS2 RTE or PS3 Hypervisor? It's not crippled at all, and in fact you can write all the Cell code you want from PS3 Linux. IBM and others provide SDKs and introductory articles on writing and managing SPE code bases. If you want to learn how to do the future of development then you should jump at the chance. We're never going back to single threaded models ever again.

The only current restriction is there isn't accelerated OpenGL from the RSX. You can write an OpenGL ES implementation for Cell and get pretty good performance. I ran OpenGL on top of just the VUs on PS2 RTE and got good enough performance to get my TombRaider reimplementation running at a good framerate for a console. I even had enough memory to fit the PC game paks into memory at the time. My point is so what if you don't have OpenGL provided by RSX. You can still do a software implementation optimized for Cell. You can do a lot more than you think with what is provided so far.

When I see fanboys like you marked 'Insightful' I fear for young teens learning anything. I wonder what you consider 'real development'. This is one of the few ways you can learn streaming / distributed / realtime development techniques on an embedded system at an affordable price. Have you even read any job requirements lately? People already drool over these skills. If you're not a developer then please don't speak about issues you don't even understand. You should be rated 'Funny'.

So wait..

[Anonymous Coward]

All it takes to get a /. front page link to my ad-word laden website is to create a few bar graphs showing that nothing has changed in the last few kernel revisions and add 2 paragraphs of filler text?

What a waste of time

[Duncan3]

Since the article doesn't have any content, I assume this was a badly disguised slashvertisement? None of those are even kernel benchmarks.

Stop the bullshit ads or just shut /. down already. You're not even trying to compete with sites like Digg are you.

not newsworthy

[sloth jr]

With a great article title like "Linux 2.6.20-rc6 Kernel Performance", I figured there must be something really notable about this release - and yet, there isn't. Summary: some things a neglible amount faster, some a negligible amount slower. If the "firehose" feature I've seen is anything like a preview of how submitted articles are reviewed for publication, I'd say an important part of this process would be at least a review of the linked content to determine whether or not it satisfies any reasonable criteria of newsworthiness.

Re:Looks like it got worse!?

[FuzzyDaddy]

I'd disagree. I'd say the benchmark results show the performance differences in the kernel are so trivial as to be essentially zero. Which isn't a huge surprise, was there any kernel change which was suppose to improve the performance of any of these tasks?

This isn't to say that there isn't a lot of good stuff in the kernel, but mostly what these benchmarks show is that nothing affecting these particular tasks got broken.

Re:Isn't it just Microsoft-style "bloat"?

[blank]

It's a bit misleading to say that it gives the kernel PS3 support. What it does give is Cell support and other PS3 hardware support. The Cell is made for a gaming machine but the design itself is for a more general use. They even have blade servers with them. This is serious Internet Business we're talking about with support from IBM.

Right now you only get frame buffer support so even playing serious Internet games is not really enjoyable. No GPU support yet.

What sane person is going to think that Linux is a gaming platform off the bat? And what is even wrong with that? Is someone going to take IBM less seriously now that they are supporting CPUs that are specialized for crunching numbers and give you stunning real time visuals?

yay, ps3 support!

[Lord Ender]

I can run it on a PS3, but I still can't run it on an Asus A8V motherboard, because there are no working drivers for the onboard SATA controller. Boo.

KVM support?

[Vellmont]

Can the creators of this technology choose a better word for it? KVM is already widely known as a KVM switch, Keyboard, Video, Mouse. It lets you connect multiple computers to the same monitor,keyboard and mouse and switch between them.

Choosing the same acronym for this new technology is only bound to cause confusion.

Re:are those effective anyways?

[kwark]

Installing NoScript and creating a whitelist might be easier.