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Firefox 3.5RC2 Performance In Windows Vs. Linux
pizzutz writes "Andy Lawrence has posted a Javascript speed comparison for the recently released Firefox 3.5RC2 between Linux (Ubuntu 9.04) and Windows(XP SP3) using the SunSpider benchmark test. Firefox 3.5 will include the new Tracemonkey Javascript engine. The Windows build edges out Linux by just under 15%, though the Linux build is still twice as fast as the current 3.0.11 version which ships with Jaunty."
Firefox isn't slower because of ubuntu, it's slower because the microsoft's C compiler is better than gcc.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
This is nothing new. Running Windows FF in WINE is faster than using Linux native FF.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
This proves that, um, Windows,er, Linux is....um...what the fuck does this prove again?
And why the fuck should I care if there's a 15% difference in performance of Firefox between those two OSes? I use my particular OS for reason that have nothing to do with how well Firefox runs on it.
That 15% could very well be measured in hours when the Slashtard coders get through with their Web 2.0 abominization of Slashdot.
The Windows version is compiled with PGO (profile guided optimization) while Linux versions aren't.
It has nothing to do with Ubuntu. Here are benchmarks from Firefox on Fedora: The issue is just as bad on Fedora: http://www.tuxradar.com/content/browser-benchmarks-2-even-wine-beats-linux-firefox. That's only from a few months
The problem is that GCC is pretty much the only compiler on Linux used these days and while the code is very nice C++ compilers on Windows produce a bit better code still.
But when I mention Watcom C++ or other aspiring open source compiler here, a compiler that could possibly interest Linux community and spawn some competition for GCC then I get modded down often by people citing GCC is good enough for everybody and everything.
But on Linux, it is inherently ugly. The beast looks ancient and the fonts and dialogs make matters worse.
Widgets and dialogs, ok, that's your aesthetic preference. But fonts? After a couple of years using Ubuntu I hate how Windows fonts look pixelated even with Cleartype on. Freetype is much better at its job than Cleartype. If only because of that, I prefer the looks of Firefox on linux than on Windows.
The state you are in while your HEAD is detached... - wait, what?
It's because it's an interesting post, while your previous one was flamebait.
Putting the blame all on Firefox when there's no doubt a certain amount of performance penalty that comes with a Linux's less good compiler is just lame. How about telling the linux tool makers to build tools that output faster and smaller code instead of demanding that app developers solve those problems? Finally, what "linux" build was this? Did it use profile guided optimization and other performance features of Mozilla's official Windows build system? If not, you're comparing apples to oranges.
also worth mentioning is llvm. gcc-llvm has an llvm backend doing code generation (which sometimes beats standard gcc, sometimes doesn't). There's also a non-gcc c/objective c/c++ compiler, clang, in development, though it may be a couple years before c++ support is complete.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
A very large chunk of Firefox's developers have Linux as their primary platform. Linux Firefox absolutely doesn't get crap treatment from Firefox developers. You're obviously not familiar with the comparative qualities of the compilers on different platforms or you would asking "why do the Linux compilers get beat so badly by the Windows compilers."
Firefox on Windows looks great/awesome/beautiful....name it. But on Linux, it is inherently ugly. The beast looks ancient and the fonts and dialogs make matters worse.
Folks, I am not trolling so have a look for yourselves and compare....
I'm running Windows XP and Ubuntu 9/04 side by side on similar laptops. Just to test, I looked at the main pages for Slashdot, Wikipedia (English), and Amazon, side-by-side.
My eyeball result of looking for differences between pages rendered with Firefox on Ubuntu 9.04 vs Windows XP:
Other than the issue for Amazon, the pages rendered look identical to me. The fonts for the menus look identical. I still disagree with the choice the mozilla team made to have the preferences/options menus with different titles in different locations for Linux versus Windows, but other than that, the UI seems consistent to me. The default GNOME theme for Firefox isn't as pretty as the new Firefox theme on Windows, but that's a minor aesthetic thing, and it's not ugly, it just isn't pretty.
Firefox on Windows looks great/awesome/beautiful....name it. But on Linux, it is inherently ugly. The beast looks ancient and the fonts and dialogs make matters worse.
In Ubuntu 9.04 here, and I personally think the stock DejaVu fonts on Linux look quite nice. Actually prefer the traditional toolbar on Linux with Tango icons (tango.freedesktop.org) rather than the "enlarged back button" version found on Windows and OSX.
The only problem I see is the topic of this thread, i.e., performance. It's slow enough to feel slow, and the fact that most Linux distros run so well on old hardware makes the problem worse.
The bigger problem for the "Linux browsing experience" still seems to be Flash. Visiting a Flash-heavy site (like the horrible items produced by any given automaker) is a painful experience...it's bad enough that I'll typically crack open the MacBook. I find Flash sites consume an order of magnitude more CPU running natively in a Linux browser than they do running in a Windows XP VirtualBox instance hosted by the same Linux OS.
AdBlockPlus and FlashBlock are the only things that enable me to continue to use this computer for web browsing. It's somewhat of a sad state of affairs, given that it's more than quick enough to run multiple VirtualBox instances, Eclipse instances, and a GIMP instance with dozens of files open at the same time. But give it one web page with a few Flash advertisements, and you'll think you're on a Pentium 60.
Why can't they just use Intel's compiler?
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
I am SHOCKED and AMAZED that a compiler specifically implemented for x86 (with assistance from Intel) produces more efficient x86 machine code than a compiler that is based on a general purpose architecture with just a back-end code generator for x86. Next you'll be telling me that a Swiss army knife isn't as good for skinning animals as a Bowie knife and that an amphibious vehicle is neither as fast on land as a Ferrari nor as fast in the water as a cigarette boat!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Visual C is not "compiler specifically implemented for x86". It supports (and supported in the past) lots of architectures -- x86, x64, Itanium, Alpha, MIPS (and MIPS16), PowerPC, ARM (and Thumb), Hitachi SuperH, Infineon TriCore, several other embedded CPUs as well.
Of course x86/x64 are main targets, but my guess it is so for GCC as well :-)
The problem is that GCC is pretty much the only compiler on Linux used these days and while the code is very nice C++ compilers on Windows produce a bit better code still.
In my experience, MS's VC++ produces not just a bit better code than gcc, but whole hocking meeses better code. VC++ is a damned good compiler, no matter what one might think about the company that generated it, while gcc is a merely decent one, no matter how much one might want to promote FOSS.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
That stopped being true back in 2007 when they released version 10.0.
They also have an easier job. MSVC doesn't need to address as many architectures as GCC does. IIRC, there is no MSVC for s/390
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
It is not a myth. ICC kicks the crap out of GCC. I didn't believe it until I had access to a computing cluster (Intel processors) with ICC installed. My ANSI C code runs about twice as fast using ICC than with GCC. Would you really expect anything different?
As always, YMMV, but I suggest that anyone who doubts this to download Intel's compiler (it's free as in beer) and try it out.
It's not open source, which does suck. But it does consistently produce faster code.
Just because you can justify Linux's inferiority in this one area doesn't mean that we don't need to improve it.
It will depend on what compiler settings were used to build the glibc library, what architecture it was tuned for, whether or not the glibc library is targeted to the specific version of the kernel you are using. It also depends on what options were used to build the companion libraries, as well.
Also, the last time this was discussed on slashdot, I seem to remember that it was Profile Guided Optimisation (PGO) that helped FF on Windows. This would allow the compiler to better structure the machine code to keep as much of the program running in the CPU cache as possible (by pre-loading branches in conditional statements that are executed more frequently).