Ubuntu 10.04 Alpha 2 vs. Early Fedora 13 Benchmarks

Given that early benchmarks of the Lucid Lynx were less than encouraging, Phoronix decided to take the latest alpha out for a spin and has set it side-by-side with an early look at Fedora 13. "Overall, there are both positive and negative performance changes for Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Alpha 2 in relation to Ubuntu 9.10. Most of the negative regressions are attributed to the EXT4 file-system losing some of its performance charm. With using a pre-alpha snapshot of Fedora 13 and the benchmark results just being provided for reference purposes, we will hold off on looking into greater detail at this next Red Hat Linux update until it matures."

Comments

Beta performance testing

[Anonymous Coward]

beta vs beta! Is anyone expecting valid results.?

Re:Beta performance testing

[daremonai]

Don't worry; it's actually alpha (Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Alpha 2) vs. pre-alpha (2010-01-13 Rawhide nightly build). Much better.

What is the status on Ubuntu reducing features?

[mrmeval]

Catering to niche users at the expense of the majority.
Removing functionality from X. Deleting the ability to restore a feature.
Making it damn near impossible to troubleshoot X crashes.
Ppppppp-p p p ulseaudio

I'm not much enthused by Ubuntu anymore.

Re:What is the status on Ubuntu reducing features?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's all worked perfectly for me on the three computers I've tried it on, PulseAudio included. The ability to move audio from one output device to another is awesome - Windows certainly can't do it!

Re:What is the status on Ubuntu reducing features?

[Anonymous Coward]

Shut up! It is a known fact that pulse audio sucks for EVERYONE.

Re:What is the status on Ubuntu reducing features?

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows certainly can't do it!

Windows 7 or Vista instructions: Right-click on the little speaker icon in the bottom right. Click "Playback devices". Right-click on the device you want to use instead of you current device. Click "Set as Default Device". The audio output will instantly switch to that device.

Re:What is the status on Ubuntu reducing features?

[agrif]

I'm going to agree with the sibling here. I always hear about people bashing pulseaudio, but I've never had any issues with it. I also particularly enjoy the low-latency networked audio features. I can play the audio from my movie on the laptop through the speakers at my computer when it's connected to the TV. Which is great, because the desktop's real close and my TV speakers suck.

Re:What is the status on Ubuntu reducing features?

[Fire_Storm82]

you can do it in xp as well, but you have to restart the application using sound

Re:What is the status on Ubuntu reducing features?

[Anonymous Coward]

When I installed 9.10 the audio worked fine. After using Update Manager to apply the security patches, audio is gone.

I futzed around with it for a long time, tried everything I could find about fixing it, but to no avail. I downgraded back to 9.04.

Ubuntu 9.10 was the first Ubuntu that I had to kick off my hard drive; it's the Windows ME of the Linux world.

I really like Ubuntu, and hope that 10.04 will fix all the problems. My fear is that it will be the Vista of the Linux world.

Time will tell.

Re:What is the status on Ubuntu reducing features?

[Erikderzweite]

Your mileage may vary. I did have slight p-problems with pulseaudio in their earlier versions, now I don't have them anymore, they were fixed for me. Anyway, Pulseaudio is very handy for my bluetooth headset. Rerouting audio streams is also very convenient.

Re:What is the status on Ubuntu reducing features?

[trjonescp]

Windows certainly can't do it!

Windows 7 or Vista instructions: Right-click on the little speaker icon in the bottom right. Click "Playback devices". Right-click on the device you want to use instead of you current device. Click "Set as Default Device". The audio output will instantly switch to that device.

I assumed the GP was referring to the ability to move sound from between output devices on different computers. In the middle of playing. (Both machines running PulseAudio, of course) This is what makes PulseAudio worth the growing pains that it has been.

Re:What is the status on Ubuntu reducing features?

[Fred_A]

Shut up! It is a known fact that pulse audio sucks for EVERYONE.

Speak up, we Ubuntu users can't hear a word you're saying !

Re:What is the status on Ubuntu reducing features?

[Anpheus]

Oh man, you haven't gotten your audio drivers working either? Tell me about it... Preferably through IM, SMS or TTY.

Re:What is the status on Ubuntu reducing features?

[Anpheus]

Ultimately the response to that is the same as the response to people who claim a Linux feature doesn't work.

The Windows driver API is open and you can code against it, why not write your own playback device that outputs over the network?

Re:What is the status on Ubuntu reducing features?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not Mandriva Linux users.... Just works. You can have PulseAudio work on every Linux Distribution when you follow the PulseAudio developers FAQ how to configure it correctly.

Canonical just does not follow the FAQ and that is the reason PulseAudio sucks on Ubuntu, like on many other distributions when their distributors do not follow the FAQ.

Mandriva is still the #1 when it comes easiest and most polished distribution. Bad thing is that it sucks on marketing for Media hype

Re:What is the status on Ubuntu reducing features?

[mrsmiggs]

Pulseaudio should be taken outside and shot. I too thought we'd put the troubles behind us but on upgrading to 9.10 I found everything and gone completely to pot again with no audio at all. ALSA at least plays sound but the start up sounds don't quite chime correctly, now I know at some point I'll want to get the thing working again because Pulseaudio has some useful features. However I do have to wonder if Ubuntu's priorities right at all, I shouldn't have to dive into config files and command-line just to get sound working. Please Canonical just get sound working for everyone, once that's done you can worry about the positioning and colour of the notification dialogue.

Re:What is the status on Ubuntu reducing features?

[blackest_k]

conversely 9.10 is the closest to 100% perfect on my aspire one. Pulseaudio isn't quite there hence /bin/sh -c "PULSE_SERVER=127.0.0.1 skype"

Its a trick which ensures skype uses the alsa drivers without interference from pulse.

I'm not going to claim 9.10 is good for everyone but its not bad for everyone either.

I've been with ubuntu for enough revisions that every release has its problems and a flurry of updates following each release.

Re:What is the status on Ubuntu reducing features?

[node 3]

Ultimately the response to that is the same as the response to people who claim a Linux feature doesn't work.

And ultimately the response to *that* is the *same* as the response Windows users give...

The Windows driver API is open and you can code against it, why not write your own playback device that outputs over the network?

Which is, why go through all that effort when that feature already works on Linux?

Re:What is the status on Ubuntu reducing features?

[KaoticEvil]

Actually, LinuxMint uses PulseAudio by default, and I LOVE it. After struggling with sluggish and high-latency audio in the *buntu series, Slackware, and even PCLinuxOS... I installed LinuxMint. I LOVE it. The audio is fast, responsive, and I have had no problems with it at all. Even on my miserable Intel onboard hardware.. YMMV :)

Re:What is the status on Ubuntu reducing features?

[couchslug]

"I'm not much enthused by Ubuntu anymore."

It's virtues are ease of installation and convenience of adding useful software that isn't included in "purist" distros, but Ubuntu is the "AOL"
of the Linux world.AOL was once very useful to masses of users. They don't need it any more...

Given the indifference of Ubuntu management to release quality Ubuntu won't be useful much longer. The beauty of Linux is that there are and will remain many alternatives.

Re:What is the status on Ubuntu reducing features?

[retchdog]

Seriously. On my desktop, the audio for an application would start out fine and then gradually fade to static in 5-10 seconds. What kind of a bug would do that? It's mind-boggling.

Anyway I installed some manager app and fiddled mindlessly with settings for a while, which magically fixed it.

Re:What is the status on Ubuntu reducing features?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ultimately the response to that is the same as the response to people who claim a Linux feature doesn't work.

And ultimately the response to *that* is the *same* as the response Windows users give...

The Windows driver API is open and you can code against it, why not write your own playback device that outputs over the network?

Which is, why go through all that effort when that feature already works on Linux?

marketshare, luis.

(hint: i don't know obscure sitcom that actually had that catchphrase)

Re:What is the status on Ubuntu reducing features?

[Luke has no name]

Strong, transparent development community
Cleaning up the LTS distro by removing several niche programs (the large amount of games, GIMP, among others)
Improving the audio stack by using Pulseaudio

What Ubuntu needs to focus on is making Ubuntu very easy to customize and deploy to enterprises. The current tools to make a 'custom spin' of Ubuntu are hacks and one-man projects at best, and the networked deployment tools are a nightmare.
I still use Ubuntu on all my servers and my laptop/desktop because it's a very easy distro to work with, while still having the flexibility of being Linux. /also Rhythmbox sucks

Re:What is the status on Ubuntu reducing features?

[infinitelink]

Removing functionality from X. Deleting the ability to restore a feature.

What's that?

Making it damn near impossible to troubleshoot X crashes.

How's that?

Ppppppp-p p p ulseaudio

No explanation required.

Yes, I'm sincerely asking: don't know but would like to, and you have info I don't. : ) I'm a long way from being programming anything, or helpful to these things, but try to keep track for when that point comes.

Re:What is the status on Ubuntu reducing features?

[crispytwo]

Even though PA has had it's share of compatibility problems, it is working much better now. Things (sound devices) that never worked before actually work now and switching between them is possible -- on the fly --, when they weren't working at all before. It's so great to be able to use high quality audio for music/games, and a USB headset for phone calls.

Things are looking up on the PA front.

Re:What is the status on Ubuntu reducing features?

[mrmeval]

The X issue is CTRL-ALT-BKSP, it's gone and all I got were snide remarks and derision when I asked how to get it back. It's gone from Fedora as well but they had a method to get it restored. It's tedious and pedantic.

Re:What is the status on Ubuntu reducing features?

[a0schweitzer]

I assumed the GP was referring to the ability to move sound from between output devices on different computers. In the middle of playing. (Both machines running PulseAudio, of course) This is what makes PulseAudio worth the growing pains that it has been.

Also, PA can route audio output per application, while windows (7) can only choose which output to route all audio to.

Re:What is the status on Ubuntu reducing features?

[phreakincool]

I'm curious as to which games you are referring to. Because everything I play tends to lose sound when PA is running. Especially games running under Wine.

Re:What is the status on Ubuntu reducing features?

[Yfrwlf]

PA growing pains should not have been forced upon users of the most popular Linux distro. They should have only switched to it when it was actually ready, and it still doesn't seem to be. "Linux" still suffers from horrible sound lag and crackling issues. To get rid of that stereotype, most distros need to move to what works or get it fixed before a final release.

Re:What is the status on Ubuntu reducing features?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's because it's a sack of shit.

Who would like it apart from shit-eaters.

Re:What is the status on Ubuntu reducing features?

[ultranova]

Given the indifference of Ubuntu management to release quality Ubuntu won't be useful much longer. The beauty of Linux is that there are and will remain many alternatives.

It's been a while since I've last used a distro, rather than used metaphorical duct tape to keep patching my old system. What's the least-grief choice nowadays?

Re:What is the status on Ubuntu reducing features?

[Anonymous Coward]

It isn't gone.

In Ubuntu Karmic (9.10) or probably any GNOME you can restore Ctrl-Alt-Backspace.

Just go to Keyboard preferences, keyboard layout options, and enable the ctrl alt backspace key combo.

Re:What is the status on Ubuntu reducing features?

[mR.bRiGhTsId3]

No one has gone through the effort because, despite what you may believe, the great masses don't care if their sound system can play to another computer since PulseAudio still makes doing so tricky. Its infinitely easier to just turn the speakers up louder so whatever is playing can be heard elsewhere.

Re:What is the status on Ubuntu reducing features?

[Anonymous Coward]

that feature is worth over a year of a pain? Who uses that feature anyway? I have 4 computers in my house and haven't used it once.

Re:What is the status on Ubuntu reducing features?

[apoc.famine]

I concur.
 
The last two upgrades left me without sound until I purged pulseaudio with fire.
 
I understand what it's supposed to do. If it would do that, I'd absolutely love it. I'm psyched about the possibilities. But at the moment, I can't get it to function.
 
I have ALSA, and it works. I need to be able to "sudo apt-get install pulseaudio", reboot, and have that work. I've spent years of my life fucking around with audio under linux. I'm at the point where if it works, I'm not going to spend a half day breaking it to try to get something else working. I have much better things to do.
 
What the fuck is the problem with functional audio by default?

Re:What is the status on Ubuntu reducing features?

[node 3]

No one has gone through the effort because, despite what you may believe, the great masses don't care if their sound system can play to another computer since PulseAudio still makes doing so tricky.

I'm at a loss to find anything in your post that is correct.

Here are some highlights of where you've got things wrong:

- Someone *has* gone through the effort. One such example is called Airfoil.
- You clearly don't have a handle on what I "may believe".
- No one said anything about the "great masses".
- They *do* want something like this, hence the AirPort Express.
- But even if they didn't, that doesn't preclude someone from creating such a system (AirFoil, Roku, PS3 and Xbox360 streaming).

Philosophically, your main errors are that just because something isn't built-into Windows, that doesn't mean people don't want to do it, and just because something's "tricky" on Linux, that doesn't mean it has to be tricky elsewhere.

Re:What is the status on Ubuntu reducing features?

[mR.bRiGhTsId3]

Airport express does other things besides stream music. The assumption behind pulse audio is that a great many people have multiple devices (which all have pulse audio running) and would want to play music to and from them while still remembering which one is which. The key sticking point is that multiple computers are required. That is an expensive investment. All of the other options that you mentioned are much cheaper that a full blown second computer and are special purpose devices. The use case for swapping audio streams between multiple general purpose devices still seems tenuous at best to me. Also, congratulations on the Windows straw man.

Re:What is the status on Ubuntu reducing features?

[mrmeval]

I have not found one. After Ubuntu shat pablum residue on my system I tried in order.

Kubuntu, wow KDE is shit when it used to blow gnome awway.
Madrivel It just didn't work and is alien enough to be unconfigurable.
SUSE It had serious X issues.

Fedora 10, it sort of worked and I could deal with it. Upgraded to 11 and have so far managed to keep sound working for the few hours I need it a day. Via one of the alternative yum repositories efforts 3D works for ATI. I even managed to get Doom3 to talk to pppulseaudio, I should be given a medal. VLC still stutters, so does mplayer, totem, and some others Xine works but has a shitty interface and loves to die if you click the wrong thing but the audio and video are good if you don't touch anything.

I'm to the point of switching to windows to get shit done and play the games I want.

Re:What is the status on Ubuntu reducing features?

[Psilax]

I'm having the exact same problems with PulseAudio, some of them are related to SDL not being 100% compatible with pulseaudio, but not all of them use SDL.

linux is for cock smoking queers.

[Anonymous Coward]

buy a mac homos! or are you too poor to afford a real computer?

Re:linux is for cock smoking queers.

[Anonymous Coward]

I though the mac image was of a fastidiously groomed guy in a beret and black leather vest hanging out all day in a coffee shop and complaining about others lack of style?
While the linux image is of a pasty pale overweight slob in his parents basement crooning over hentai?
One of us has our stereotypes wrong.

Re:linux is for cock smoking queers.

[mugurel]

my linux runs on a mac, you insensitive clod!

Re:linux is for cock smoking queers.

[keeboo]

buy a mac homos! or are you too poor to afford a real computer?

To put it bluntly, your beloved Mac is an expensive x86 PC with a fancy case design.
I wouldn't be surprised if the very same chinese Mac factories also produce cheapo generic boards.

Re:linux is for cock smoking queers.

[Hadlock]

They probably do. But the parts for the mac boards are sourced from different suppliers, which is what makes all the difference.

Re:linux is for cock smoking queers.

[sakdoctor]

Yes, the inductors and transformers for Macs are hand-rolled on the thighs of virgins.

Re:linux is for cock smoking queers.

[Hadlock]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague
 
Dell and a few other companies have been bitten by the bug. Depending on who you source your parts from depends on the quality (and longevity) of your computers (and reputation). I have no doubt that the parts going into a $120 Intel brand motherboard cost a few cents more each than a similar AsRock or ECS Elitegroup board that costs half as much. You get what you pay for. Intel stuff generally doesn't break in the same decade you buy it. You're lucky to make it to the end of the warranty period with noname crap from newegg or Frys.

Re:linux is for cock smoking queers.

[Bender Unit 22]

and it's software(incl. backup system) and different gadets that works together well without you have to waste time maintaining it or figure out how to get it to work.

Re:linux is for cock smoking queers.

[LtGordon]

That's pretty much the experience I've had. My dad bought a Gateway desktop in 2006 (S-939 Athlon 64) and just outside of the [short] warranty period the motherboard started dying. The on-board video started going, so I got him a cheap video card to circumvent the problem. That worked for almost a year until the south-bridge died too. All in all I think the box lasted about 3 years. In comparison, I built my own system with similar specs in 2005, but with decent brand-name parts, and I've had very very few problems with it.

Re:linux is for cock smoking queers.

[leereyno]

30 year old MALE virgins whose sexual innocence is the result of poor hygiene and high functioning autism.

Re:linux is for cock smoking queers.

[Anonymous Coward]

Like Apple's early days!!! I suspect Woz's thighs are bigger now though...

Re:linux is for cock smoking queers.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, is that what all these Slashdot posters are doing for work? And how do *you* keep the resin from getting stuck to your undies?

Re:linux is for cock smoking queers.

[ultranova]

You're lucky to make it to the end of the warranty period with noname crap from newegg or Frys.

If it breaks before the warranty period expires, you get a new one. If you make it to the end of the warranty period before it breaks, you have to buy a new one. So you may wish to rethink that statement ;).

Re:linux is for cock smoking queers.

[Anonymous Coward]

Fat ugly ones, with facial hair!

Re:linux is for cock smoking queers.

[masmullin]

my clod runs on insensitive you linux running mac!

Re:linux is for cock smoking queers.

[Hadlock]

You still have to mail it back to the manufacturer, wait for them to confirm it's broke, and then mail you a new one from china. Plus crack open the computer, and deal with all the MS "you've installed new hardware" BS. For a $40 piece of equipment. Getting a new warranty replacement piece of equipment from a bargain bin manufacturer might take longer than the warranty is good for (three months). Gigabyte and ASUS are better about their parts, but you have to ask yourself "how much BS am I willing to put up with" and "how long am I willing to not have a functional computer while it's replaced for "free"?" before you pick the noname brand.

Re:linux is for cock smoking queers.

[Anonymous Coward]

Intel stuff generally doesn't break in the same decade you buy it. You're lucky to make it to the end of the warranty period with noname crap from newegg or Frys.

Number of motherboards I've bought over the years: 12.
Cheap motherboards (as in cheapest I could find that had features I wanted) I've bought: 9 out of 12.
Number of motherboards that have ever failed on me: 1
Brand of failed motherboard: Intel. 440 GX chipset, failed within a year of building that Pentium III computer.

The bad capacitor stuff you're talking about did happen. It plagued several manufacturers including, from your own fucking wikipedia article, "Apple motherboards and power supplies in Apple G5s." In addition, that was a manufacturing defect in several Taiwanese plants, which has since been corrected, and the problem has pretty much completely disappeared.

I wish they'd stop

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish they'd stop focusing on increasing performance by a few milliseconds here and there and work out why my upgrades never work, or flash objects turn grey and i have to restart firefox or why my audio is choppy, and why the nvidia drivers make Xorg fail randomly or why I have to press the power button on my PC to take it off after everthing is unloaded.

Re:I wish they'd stop

[clarkn0va]

Or why when you post to a discussion on Ubuntu bugs in 2007 the post doesn't show up on /. until 2010.

Why test alphas...

[Jugalator]

Alphas aren't even feature complete... Wait at least for beta...? I mean, the roles could be reversed in the beta, or next alpha.

Re:Why test alphas...

[Quantumstate]

It is worth testing to pick up regressions so that you can fix them. Something like the extreme Postgre slowdown they showed. It is better to catch that at the alpha stage.

Re:Why test alphas...

[Korin43]

What confuses me is why they're doing performance tests on alpha releases. Obviously the answer is to get page views, but how long will it take people to realize that performance isn't what they're trying for in the alpha..

Re:Why test alphas...

[nurb432]

Slow news day apparently.

Re:Why test alphas...

[nametaken]

Or worse, comparing an alpha of one distro to a prealpha of another distro, as if the numbers are at all useful. It tells us nothing about their individual speeds by the time we'll be using them, and tell us nothing useful about the speed of either distro. WTF?

Re:Why test alphas...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but you should be testing for regressions against a previous version, not against another distro.

Flash Player is proprietary

[tepples]

or flash objects turn grey and i have to restart firefox

You'll have to ask Adobe about that one. Ubuntu developers cannot trace into software for which they do not have the source code. Or is this happening to you in Gnash?

Re:Flash Player is proprietary

[DMUTPeregrine]

It also doesn't (always) require a firefox restart. Open a task-viewer (top, htop, system monitor, etc.) Find npviewer.bin (the flash plugin process), then kill it. Do a full reload (Ctrl+F5) of the page. Firefox will restart the flash plugin and it should work, so long as it doesn't crash again. Note that it may be better to restart firefox, given how poorly written the flash plugin is I'd not trust it to die cleanly.

Re:Flash Player is proprietary

[cecom]

I am guessing it used to work before the OS upgrade, so that is a completely valid question. The attitude "we don't care if software which is not distributed by us breaks on OS upgrade" is not going to fly for long if the OS is to get some real mass usage.

Re:Flash Player is proprietary

[tepples]

The attitude "we don't care if software which is not distributed by us breaks on OS upgrade" is not going to fly for long

That wouldn't be a problem if third-party software developers would share their source code with Canonical. Someone could debug into it and easily discover the problem. But apparently, source access would break some third-party software developers' business models.

Re:Flash Player is proprietary

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL! Flash works just fine without all of this nonsense in Firefox on Windows 7. Never crashes. Just works.

And I didn't pay a dime for my copy of Windows 7. It was just like downloading a Linux distro that works perfectly.

WTF are you guys torturing yourself with this stuff? Go download a copy of Windows 7 and enjoy. Install Virtual PC (free) or VMWare (free) and muck with your toy OS there when you feel bored.

But my GOD! Stop torturing yourself with this crashing Flash Player nonsense!

Re:Flash Player is proprietary

[keeboo]

LOL! Flash works just fine without all of this nonsense in Firefox on Windows 7. Never crashes. Just works.

And I didn't pay a dime for my copy of Windows 7. It was just like downloading a Linux distro that works perfectly.

WTF are you guys torturing yourself with this stuff? Go download a copy of Windows 7 and enjoy. Install Virtual PC (free) or VMWare (free) and muck with your toy OS there when you feel bored.

But my GOD! Stop torturing yourself with this crashing Flash Player nonsense!

Funny, the 64-bit Flash Player 10 works just fine in my Debian Linux machine.
I'm probably doing something wrong, perhaps I should mess around and try to break things (I've simply installed the plug-in and it worked - silly me).

Well, perhaps it's the damned 64-bit Google Chrome for Linux I'm running...
Ohmygosh, I've just realised... ALL my OS and its applications are 64-bit! And it's all working, and fast! :(
Bad, bad Linux!

Oh, and you are also inciting copyright infrigement, that's so cute.

Re:Flash Player is proprietary

[AniVisual]

the 64-bit Flash Player 10 works almost fine in iceweasel in my (sid) Debian Linux machine --- it does not play sound (sometimes crashes) when some other application is using the audio server, and when it plays (with audio), other attempts to play audio fail. Do you have know what might have caused this?

Re:Flash Player is proprietary

[keeboo]

Debian Sid (unstable)?
I'm using Lenny (yeah, I'm quite conservative with the software I use).

I've noticed there are some (I found only one, actually) audio boards (or their drivers) which are unable to simultaneous playback. Not my case though, and I'm using a SB Live 5.1.

Another possibility is that the other software is using OSS (instead of ALSA) for sound output, while Adobe's Flash uses ALSA (OSS is deprecated, as you may know) and that is causing conflicts. AFAIR Adobe's Flash used to use OSS before Flash 9. If is that the case, ou should either switch your software to ALSA (the best solution), or use the OSS compatibility library Adobe provides (I've heard such thing exists for Flash 9, but I don't know about Flash 10).
Another possibility is buggy sound driver. Or even bad quality hardware. Years ago had bad experiences in general with a Live 24bit (awful sound board, also drains too much CPU while playing).

I had no Flash problems with Iceweasel, but sometimes (rarely) it crashes under Chrome (no big deal in that browser, you simply reload the page and it works again).

what is the state of ext4?

[RelliK]

I remember reading that ext4 loses data. Has this been addressed?

Re:what is the state of ext4?

[Nerdfest]

Seeing as Google is switching to it, I certainly hope so.

Re:what is the state of ext4?

[XanC]

You could lose data on it, if your software is poorly-written. Ext4 now caters to this poorly-written software, which is why it's lost some of its performance.

Re:what is the state of ext4?

[MojoMagic]

As I understand it, the issue is that the default time between cache dumps to disk is 4 seconds. This is much longer than ext2/3. So, if you yank the power cable during this time, on the next reboot ext4 will have no record of the event ever having occured and will use the previously journaled data instead. If this is actually the case, then I don't really consider this a bug. It's just a larger cacheing window. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

Re:what is the state of ext4?

[Anpheus]

If it breaks user's expectations or destroys user's data, no matter how much anyone tries to convince me otherwise, it is a bug.

Re:what is the state of ext4?

[MojoMagic]

I'm neither agreeing nor disagreeing with you. But it's important to realise that this issue occurs with all other filesystems too, including ext2/3.

If the machine has suddenly lost power, then clearly something 'catastrophic' has occured. This is clearly outside the influence of the developers. Yes, they can insert measures to minimize losses and ext4 already does this -> The journaling will give you an intact older revision of the data.
What else would you suggest be done? I'm not trying to start a flame war. I'm genuinely curious. It's one thing to say that the user is expecting X but if a product is used outside of recommended guidelines, then X can not be guaranteed.

Here's a half-arsed analogy: If I crash my motorcycle because I fell asleep, is that the fault of the manufacturer? Realistically, no.

The answer here is, if your data is soooo important that you can't risk anything going wrong, do the following:
1) Turn caching off. ie: Write directly to the disk. This will kill performance. But at least you can be as sure as possible that the data is written. Alternatively you can manually narrow the cache dump window to something closer to ext3's defaults.
2) Buy a UPS. If the interuption of power is killing your data, just buy an Uninteruptable Power Supply. These things are cheap and, if your data is really that important, you have no excuse not to have one.

Re:what is the state of ext4?

[Quantumstate]

They resolved an issue which lead to file being overwritten being left empty on a crash. The problem was that they were optimising the write order to make performance better. This lead to metadata being updated too early in some cases so you would get a corrupted file. Now the issue has been resolved which lowered the performance although I think there may be an option you could turn on. So if an application is updating the file you will get the old version or the new version (assuming they have written the program in a half decent way) of the file which is good enough. If you want anything better than that you should be running a UPS which should be correctly configured to safely shut the system down (unlike one system I experienced that had a UPS but then everything crashed when the UPS ran out of battery because the sysadmins were appalling).

Re:what is the state of ext4?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a user, and I expect the system to lose data I'm in the progress of saving to disk if I loose power during the saving.

Check - no bug ;)

Re:what is the state of ext4?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seeing as Google is switching to it, I certainly hope ext4 still tends to lose data.

Re:what is the state of ext4?

[Anonymous Coward]

Attention all English speakers. The past tense of the verb "to lead" is "led". There's no "a" in it. I know the past tense of "read" is also spelled "read", but pronounced differently. However, it is an exception, not the rule.

Re:what is the state of ext4?

[Anpheus]

That's not the point, the expectation developers and users had changed from Ext3 and the people in charge of Ext4 adamantly and arrogantly claimed the same things you are.

But most people don't have UPSes and expect the filesystem to Do The Right Thing(tm) and that is, try to keep their data intact. Users should not be expected to have to tweak arcane settings, and user programs should not even have the right to alter those settings.

Re:what is the state of ext4?

[Anpheus]

The issue was that there were certain operations that behaved differently before and after the "upgrade" to EXT4, and I specifically said:

If it breaks user's expectations... it is a bug.

In this case, Ext4 changes some expectations that users (and programmers, who are ultimately users too.) Now supposedly some of these issues have been resolved. That's good, but I recall some significant discussion on Slashdot in the past and the same naysayers came along saying "Why try to anticipate a power outage?"

Well, why write to the disk ever if you have enough spare memory?

Re:what is the state of ext4?

[JohnFluxx]

Consider when a typical application exits. It does something like:

* Write new config file to a temporary file
* Rename the temporary file over the top of the old config file

This way if the computer crashes, applications expect the config file to always be valid. i.e. they expect the data to have been written to disk, completely, before the rename happens.

This worked in ext3 and other filesystems, but originally not in ext4. The result was that the config file could end up being empty.

Re:what is the state of ext4?

[BOFHelsinki]

That's not the point, the expectation developers and users had changed from Ext3 and the people in charge of Ext4 adamantly and arrogantly claimed the same things you are.

Check again what things he "claimed". In that view your complaint makes no sense. There's nothing arrogant about those.

(The second part of your post is too vague to comment on really. Hard to disagree with, certainly, but it'd help if you were more specific about your beef.)

Re:what is the state of ext4?

[megrims]

Hell, if that's the case, I certainly hope so.

Re:what is the state of ext4?

[multi io]

* Write new config file to a temporary file * Rename the temporary file over the top of the old config file This way if the computer crashes, applications expect the config file to always be valid. i.e. they expect the data to have been written to disk, completely, before the rename happens.

I would say they expect the data to be written to the VFS layer with intact happens-before relations, so the later rename renames the complete new file contents. Whether or not anything is physically written to the disk in the process is of no concern -- if the whole writing and renaming happens in the cache only, that should be just fine.

Re:what is the state of ext4?

[Anpheus]

My beef is that the Ext4 Gods decided that performance was more important than user's data, changed some settings and caused a shitstorm when people en masse disagreed with them. Their perspective was essentially, to the programmers, change your code, or, to the users, use a UPS or turn off write caching.

This was beyond arrogant. Apparently the problem is solved because the developers backed down because of the controversy.

Why Ubuntu?

[jez9999]

Why compare Ubuntu with anything? In my experience it's Debian, with a horrible colour scheme and a screwed up GUI. It's gone downhill so fast it's been like a toboggan ride.

Re:Why Ubuntu?

[wizardforce]

Why compare Ubuntu with anything?

Because right now it is the msot popular flavor of Linux with Fedora not far behind.

In my experience it's Debian, with a horrible colour scheme and a screwed up GUI.

Use another OS if it bothers you that much.

It's gone downhill so fast it's been like a toboggan ride.

In what ways?

Re:Why Ubuntu?

[Anonymous Coward]

The parent is a troll. Probably some fat 45 year old guy that lives in his mom's basement and works at Radio Shack. Dude, glasses are cheap, go get some new frames, the tape is so 1990, and probably has DNA from the first time you whacked off, stuck in the adhesive.

Re:Why Ubuntu?

[nostriluu]

You forgot unnecessary default bloatware (mono) and a propensity to cover up useful text screens with useless graphical screens. But still, I'd take Ubuntu over Fedora anyday, at least there's some kind of real attitude about support compared to Fedora's ambivalence.

Re:Why Ubuntu?

[ChienAndalu]

Let me air my grievances too: I have recently set up a vps with ubuntu and was just horrified by the package management. There is aptitude, apt-*, and dpkg-*, all of them are verbose and none of them seem to do what I tell to do.

I wanted to remove apache: "aptitude remove apache" didn't do anything useful and "aptitude remove apache2.2-common" wanted to install something else. Finally I just put ArchLinux in a chroot and was done with it.

mod me -1 drunk if you must

Re:Why Ubuntu?

[bcrowell]

It's gone downhill so fast it's been like a toboggan ride.

That may be an exaggeration, but I kind of agree. I've been using ubuntu since Edgy, steadily upgrading, and am now using Karmic. Starting with Jaunty, and now continuing with Karmic, I've been having multiple serious problems with sound. Karmic is also causing me several problems where they changed something and made sure it worked with Gnome, but it doesn't work properly with other WMs: 1, 2.

Re:Why Ubuntu?

[BOFHelsinki]

Use another OS if it bothers you that much.

Sorry but this is the attitude to make sure Linux never gets anywhere.

Re:Why Ubuntu?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry but this is the attitude to make sure Linux never gets anywhere.

That's interesting. I thought Linux was installed and being used on millions and millions of computers, servers, cellphones, and embedded devices already. Hell, within 20 feet of me, I have a Linux desktop, 2 Linux laptops a Linux based WRT54-GL router, a Tivo, and two Android Linux phones. Oh, you thought "getting somewhere" started and ended with that beige box you have sitting in front of you.

And furthermore, it's that attitude that makes Linux great!

What often really matters are the upstream apps.

[Zombie Ryushu]

What often really matters are the upstream apps. Often, other than reporting an upstream bug in an application to the developer, there is not much one can really do about bugs in upstream applications like KDE. I am seeing that now with KDE and X.org. Currently, there is a bug in evdev and dga in X that prevents X from working right with a Wiimote. It can't really be fixed by the distributor. Only X.org can fix it.

So far I have:

Broken Sound effects on Stratagus. (Mandriva 2010.0)
Broken GLX Support on QuakeForge. (Mandriva 2010.0) But DarkPlaces Quake still works.
Broken Wiimote Support in the evdev driver.

These are just a few examples of applications that don't work becaues of a problem upstream.

Trolls are fun

[Sarten-X]

By pulling a computer from a dumpster, outfitting it with a $100 hard disk, and installing Linux, I get a giant file server, saving me $200 on an easy backup solution (vs. Apple's Time Capsule). That makes me $200 richer than I would be otherwise, meaning I can use that money elsewhere. With the money I've saved over the years thanks to Linux and other open-source packages, I will soon be taking a Caribbean cruise. Has your "real" Mac ever paid for your vacation?

Re:Trolls are fun

[Anonymous Coward]

You still won't get laid on that cruise.

Re:Trolls are fun

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate to tell you but cruising is no longer the pinnacle of financial excess. Hasn't been for about 20 years. Cruise lines today are more like Taco Bell then Tavern on the Green.

Re:Trolls are fun

[keithpreston]

By pulling a computer from a dumpster, outfitting it with a $100 hard disk, and installing Linux, I get a giant file server, saving me $200 on an easy backup solution (vs. Apple's Time Capsule). That makes me $200 richer than I would be otherwise, meaning I can use that money elsewhere. With the money I've saved over the years thanks to Linux and other open-source packages, I will soon be taking a Caribbean cruise. Has your "real" Mac ever paid for your vacation?

Little do you realize that your "dumpster" computer pulls quite a bit more power then the power miser time capsule (30w maximum). Considering the cost of electricity a 100w device costs around ~100 a year to run (24/7). So over two years, you are at a negative with your dumpster computer, not to mention the extra time spent setting it up.

Re:Trolls are fun

[Sarten-X]

Money does not concern me. I'm far more concerned with getting the most quality for the price. In cruises, quality really depends on what line you go with. Sure, you can go with the bottom-dollar line, offering little more comfort than steerage on a freighter, but a better line is still quite luxurious. My preferred line is pretty nice. It's not the most expensive line, but offers quite enough amenities to suit me.

Re:Trolls are fun

[Sarten-X]

Last I measured, it averaged 35 watts.

Re:Trolls are fun

[keithpreston]

Well all the data (google) I can find on the timecapsule is that it takes approximately 12-13 watts. So payoff period is more like 8-10 years instead of 2

While Linux is nice (I develop on it for a living), I find that to many people blindly say its better. Even just considering power management, I find windows or even mac can save you a little money with better made drivers. You need to make sure you have the right device to do the job, and the upfront cost of linux doesn't always justify it's use.

Re:Trolls are fun

[Anonymous Coward]

That implies that Time Capsule will do that instead.
Does it provide a configurable "vibration mode"?

Re:Trolls are fun

[Erikderzweite]

Congrats on your cruise...
What backup software did you use? I use backintime for my father who works from his home as a translator and really hates re-doing his work. Albeit, I don't use NAS, just a 500Gb external USB disk drive and a cheap UPS -- power outages were somewhat common in the area. It will still take him about 10 years to fill the disk with hourly incremental backups.

Re:Trolls are fun

[jo_ham]

I put a £50 hard disk into an old Mac (I didn't pull it out of a dumpster but I did get it for free) that now serves as my Time Machine backup disk.

Apart from paying pounds for my hard disk, since I live in the UK, how is that different?

It was clear the AC troll initially doesn't represent any sort of starting point for discussion of Apple vs totally open source solutions, and it should also be clear to you that the Time Capsule isn't the only way to use Time Machine and is generally unsuitable for most Mac users as a backup solution in fact, since most of them already have an AP or just don't need one in the first place. An external (or extra internal) HD is all that is really needed. Doesn't even need to be a fancy Mac-branded/Mac-themed one.

Plus, the GUI for Time Machine looks way cooler than SSHing into your backup volume. How many girls have said "wow, that's so cool!" when you recovered a file that you deleted a few months ago that you suddenly needed? (a DVD rip of a disc I own, so she could watch it on her laptop on her way home, yes yes, sue me, piracy yadda yadda).

Re:Trolls are fun

[Sarten-X]

In many years, about the time it breaks even, it'll be up for replacement anyway. By that time, I've earned a couple dollars for free in interest on that initially-saved $200.

I'm not blindly stating anything. Rather, I'm countering a blind statement against it. There are also too many people who accept the marketing spin about corporate products being better on some arbitrary level.

If you're going to claim that running Windows will save me money in the long run, I want proof. Are there any reputable tests showing Windows making that big a difference to justify its initial cost? Bear in mind, we're talking a machine that is only on when needed, has no monitor, and all its hardware is old and well-documented.

In the end, all transactions are about value versus cost. Windows and Mac have a far higher initial cost, so unless you're doing something where the cost rises dramatically under Linux, they lose. If you want to run the latest greatest games, Windows will cost less than the extra hardware to accommodate Wine. If you want a stable prepackaged system, Apple's premium price is the cheapest. For a system like this, where there is no corporate conspiracy (referring to "secret" hardware) and a simple job to do, Linux wins.

Re:Trolls are fun

[Sarten-X]

sshfs and cp. I've recently also started using Subversion for some projects where previous revisions are still necessary. Yes, it's ugly, but it works enough for my needs.

Fact is, I really don't need to back up much. If I lose my collection of "hey this could be fun" programs, I don't care. How many times does one REALLY need to calculate pi, anyway?

I also like to keep my backups organized differently from my actual system, so most image and image-like backups are not feasible.

Re:Trolls are fun

[Sarten-X]

Not being much of a Mac person myself, I only initially compared my setup to the Time Capsule because of the AC's apparent love for Macs.

My fiancée has the only Mac in our house (triple-booting), and at one point I set up my server to act as a Time Capsule for her. It still got the fancy interface.

Really, it's just a matter of preference. I prefer the feel of a keyboard to a mouse, and would rather type out a few commands than drag and drop icons. My initial comment was more against the AC's financial comment rather than his fanaticism.

Re:Trolls are fun

[masmullin]

EVERYDAY on my mac is like a cruise.

Re:Trolls are fun

[mR.bRiGhTsId3]

To chime in, I particularly like how the easy backup solution involves setting up a file server. My easy backup solution involves getting a TB disk from NewEgg and clicking twice on the Time Machine prompt when I first plug it in.

Re:Trolls are fun

[Anonymous Coward]

Even just considering power management, I find windows or even mac can save you a little money with better made drivers.

Bullshit. There is no way that the interest I earn on the money I save by not purchasing a Windows license or a Mac will not earn me more than the pennies you save by better power management assuming the same hardware. That's if you even have better drivers. Some hardware conserves more power with Linux because the drivers for Linux happen to be better. Don't be a tool. Even worse, don't be an ignorant tool.

rubbish

[mrphoton]

This 'review' is complete rubbish alpha and beta builds are allays much slower than the production versions. They have all types of debug options turned on. I don' see how you can compare them. If one os has more debug options turned on than the other it would be slower. Surely....

Re:rubbish

[Sfing_ter]

unless of course it is a windows alpha or beta, then it is blazing fast and feature rich. Sigh....

Re:rubbish

[Anonymous Coward]

And, of course, must faster than the final release.

Re:rubbish

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, Ubuntu doesn't use loads of debugging options (any?) in their pre-production versions. But the results show even Fedora with their options doesn't cause a huge impact.

I LIKE the toboggan ride

[Myrcutio]

Wanna know why Ubuntu is the linux flavor to beat? It's fun to use. No messy compiling of the kernel, no conf files to edit to get it up and running, it just works. Especially with the latest revamp of the alsa interface, not to mention the snazzy layout of the repo browser. Track record last few releases has been good.

Re:I LIKE the toboggan ride

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, because like every Linux distro requires you to compile the kernel these days. What bridge are you living under? Sounds kush.

Re:I LIKE the toboggan ride

[MrHanky]

There's no 'compiling of the kernel, no conf files to edit' in Debian or any other mainstream distro either. Hell, even Arch Linux does well without custom kernel compilations, and most editing of config files as well, IIRC (depends on usage of course; not that I'd recommend it to any newbie anyway).

The 'it just works' factor isn't something unique for Ubuntu: almost all the others have it as well (LFS an exception). The only thing Ubuntu gives you is a package that will mostly fit the average desktop user in the default install. Pretty much like Mandriva and others. Kernel compilation is not and has not been necessary for more than ten years for any of the mainstream distros.

Re:I LIKE the toboggan ride

[godrik]

Shut up! Don't you know Ubuntu is the ONLY linux distribution that does not require to write kernel modules in assembly by yourself ?

Re:I LIKE the toboggan ride

[Fred_A]

Shut up! Don't you know Ubuntu is the ONLY linux distribution that does not require to write kernel modules in assembly by yourself ?

I'm glad they finally switched to assembly, I've misplaced my paper card puncher and I've been afraid to reboot ever since !

Re:I LIKE the toboggan ride

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell, even Arch Linux does well without custom kernel compilations, and most editing of config files as well

I'd even say that, in the long run, Arch requires less configuration than Ubuntu. It takes a bit more work to set up the first time around, but once you have it working right you rarely have to change anything. Meanwhile, in my experience, Ubuntu dist-upgrades always seem to break something.

Grub2 and FakeRAID

[Lead Butthead]

Wake me when Grub2 supports FakeRAID...

Re:Grub2 and FakeRAID

[Anonymous Coward]

My Ubuntu 9.10 system is on a FakeRAID, which installed Grub2 by default I believe.

Re:Grub2 and FakeRAID

[mikechant]

You know you don't have to use Grub2? I'm sticking with legacy Grub until Grub2 is more mature.

Come again?

[JohnnyBGod]

What the hell is a bad performance improvement?

Re:Come again?

[Sponge Bath]

What the hell is a bad performance improvement?

You're so analytical! Sometimes you just have to let /. summaries... flow... over you.

Re:Come again?

[DarkSkiez]

What the hell is a bad performance improvement?

Must be similar to a positive regression.

Re:Come again?

[Anonymous Coward]

"What the hell is a bad performance improvement?"

Making Windows run faster

Re:Come again?

[Anonymous Coward]

The word "bad" has more than one meaning, as exemplified in this short summary.

Re:Come again?

[Anonymous Coward]

And those negative regressions, they really irk me.

Re:What often really matters are the upstream apps

[Threni]

is there an mp3 convertor for Ubuntu yet that works? Ie that encodes higher than 128kbps? I love it when stuff like that is broken and just stays broken for years.

Re:What often really matters are the upstream apps

[ke4qqq]

If your distribution closely follows upstream, and has a good policy on dealing with upstream it can help to report bugs. The keys to this are 1. Patching the distributions instance of a package as little as possible, so it's as much like upstream as possible 2. Having packagers work closely with upstream to ensure that bugs filed against the distribution are filed against the upstream project. 3. If a fix is made in the distribution- to get that patch offered upstream.

What's with the whining?

[ZarathustraDK]

It's like "Boohoo Ubuntu tries to make a distro for the average user, thereby stripping me of my nerd-cred as Joe Smoe will no longer cower in my presence as I whip up a serving of my CLI-fu...".

Re:What's with the whining?

[retchdog]

If only I didn't have to write a script for ubuntu to reload my wireless modules periodically. At least its brightness actually controls my backlight, so I didn't have to script a hack like I did for 7.04. There's more bullshit, I just don't remember it now. I only wish that I didn't have to use the cli in ubuntu.

ubuntu has gotten easy enough to work for the technically-capable person who doesn't want to bother too much with details. it's still not something I'd recommend to an average user, unfortunately.

Re:What's with the whining?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like you have hardware issues. You can safely recommend Ubuntu like Apple-fans recommend Macs; you choose the hardware for them, and everything works perfectly without any issues at all. With Ubuntu, you have much more freedom in selecting hardware though and even if Ubuntu doesn't work perfectly out of the box with the hardware you choose, you'll usually be able to fix it. But why would you want to buy hardware from a manufacturer that doesn't support Linux?

Re:What's with the whining?

[retchdog]

The backlight thing was not specific to my hardware.

The wireless thing... well, maybe it is. But since Intel as apparently cooperating to get decent linux drivers developed, it's hard to believe that I could do much better except by getting lucky. (http://intellinuxwireless.org/)

If there is no systematic approach by which I can get good, up-to-date hardware that's linux-compatible, then claiming "hardware incompatibility" is kind of a weak excuse.

If Canonical got into hardware and developed an ultraportable, that'd be sweet. I wouldn't even mind a proprietary-type linux that I had to pay for, although I doubt that'll ever happen, for better or worse.

Anyway, my point was just that I can get it fixed/worked around (that is, most of the time and barely), but I don't like doing it and certainly the "average user" couldn't.

Totally useless

[linuxgurugamer]

First off, let me say that I use Ubuntu 9.10 on my system at work. I am also running CentOS on servers, various Ubuntu on servers and a couple of Fedora systems. As you can see, I have experience with all of them.

So why is this review useless? Because they are testing development systems, which are not optimized, have loads of debugging flags set, and essentially are not ready for prime time. Of course it may be running slower!

IMHO, you should ignore benchmarks until the release candidates, at least. I generally ignore benchmarks on unreleased systems. I do, however, like to read and learn about new features which may be present in early releases.

Re:What often really matters are the upstream apps

[Anonymous Coward]

What you mean with KDE?

You have not heard that KDE means the community and KDE Software Compilation means all the official software like Plasma-Desktop, Plasma-Netbook, KDE Platform and KDE Applications (Some are part of KDE SC but most are 3rd party apps like Amarok, digiKam, KOffice etc)

Is there any advantage for EXT 4?

[Anonymous Coward]

The performance regression for EXT 4 is just terrible.

Other than the "safety" thing, is there any other advantage EXT 4 offers?

Re:Is there any advantage for EXT 4?

[retchdog]

I'm just a naive ubuntu 9.10 user, but if nothing else: it recovers journal and, especially, fscks fast. Haven't noticed any speed difference in standard use, but I haven't really cared to measure.

Re:Is there any advantage for EXT 4?

[MichaelSmith]

fscks fast.

I wonder if it is fast enough for my wife to give up her Mac and return to Ubuntu?

Re:Is there any advantage for EXT 4?

[reset_button]

The problem isn't ext4 - it's an ext4 flag that gives you better data reliability in case of a power failure. If you're willing to risk it (or have a good UPS), you can change the flag and get all that performance back.

I also have to say that for a site that does so much benchmarking, phoronix is incredibly unprofessional. How about error bars on those bar graphs? Are caches cleared before each benchmark? Etc.

Re:Is there any advantage for EXT 4?

[masmullin]

Depends on if your wife is easy or fast.

Re:Is there any advantage for EXT 4?

[Anonymous Coward]

and how much she wants to fsck

Waste of time

[davidc]

Well that was a waste of time, wasn't it? Durrrr.

Re:Waste of time

[Anonymous Coward]

Then why did you post on it?

Misguided

[mukund]

The PostMark disk performance between Ubuntu 9.10 and 10.04 Alpha 2 was close while Fedora 13 was behind, but again given the debugging options used during the development cycle and its pre-alpha state we aren't worrying too much.

What's the point of your 'benchmark' then?

Re:Misguided

[a0schweitzer]

Slow news day, I'd guess.

Re:What is a bad performance improvement?

[sourICE]

One that removes important previously relied on and adapted to functions in order to create said performance improvement.

Re: backups

[nullchar]

Instead of sshfs+cp, if you want to perform incremental backups without wasting space (duplicating storage), you might try rsync with hardlinks. It appears back-in-time can do this also.

This article is great:

http://www.sanitarium.net/golug/rsync_backups_2010.html

Wrong spelling

[Anonymous Coward]

s/pulse/false/

fixed that for you!

Re:What often really matters are the upstream apps

[Ant P.]

Broken Wiimote Support in the evdev driver.

I must've missed something... when did Nintendo switch over to using standard HID protocols instead of their proprietary wiimote one which has never worked on any OS's standard input driver?

Pulse Audio Works for me

[lsatenstein]

I cant understand all the criticism. I guess that is because PA works for me. Flawlessly too, I admit. Webcam, audio, video and web and if I want, all concurrently.

It does not work from the login screen.

[mrmeval]

It's a hack. Fedora did it right.