[PLUG] Red Hat 8.0 Performance Comparison

[Cooper Stevenson]

Dick,

Yeah. I have a couple: 

1.) There's a real-time kernel patch by Robert Love that I have found
improves foreground processes significantly. The new kernels have the
option for the patch built into the compiler options, labeled,
``Preemptible Kernel'' under the ``Processor Type and Features''
section.

2.) Make sure that you are using DMA access by default. This is also
compiled as an option in the kernel. With newer kernels, this option is
checked by default.

3.) Make sure support for your motherboard's IDE chipset is compiled in.
You can find a list of supported chipsets (select the one you need)
under the ``ATA/IDE/MFM/RLL support/IDE,ATA and ATAPI Block Devices''
section.

4.) See this great article from IBM for manipulating your PCI bus.
Basically, you allow each device full rights to the data bus for a
longer period before it has to relinquish control to another device. In
your case, pay special attention to your video card and Ethernet
controller settings:

http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/library/l-hw2.html?dwzone=opensource
  
5.) make sure your computer is using swap. Given your memory upgrade I
doubt this is the case but it never hurts to check.

6.) If your video card uses an Nvidia chipset then be sure to download
and install the kernel modules (drivers) for it and configure X11 to
take advantage of them. I can offer you an X11 configuration file that
will work with this hardware, just copy and run!


-Cooper

On Wed, 2002-12-04 at 16:55, Richard Steffens wrote:
> I spoke too soon the other day when I thought that the new kernel I
> compiled for my desktop machine combined with some additional memory
> solved that machine's performance problem. Alas, it still feels too slow
> to me.
> 
> I won't call this a benchmark, since that implies more accuracy in the
> measurements than I tried to make, but here are the results of a simple
> test I did with two machines, my laptop, and my desktop. The purpose of
> this post is to see if anyone can point me towards the information I
> need to learn how to improve the performance of the machines under Red
> Hat 8.0, especially the desktop machine.
> 
> The test involved starting a terminal, starting Mozilla, and connecting
> to http://jigzone.com. On right side of their home page, there are
> several images which, when clicked, take you to a page with a java app
> that turns that image into a jig saw puzzle. For the "benchmark" part of
> the experiment, I typed "date" in the terminal, clicked on the 48 state
> US map puzzle, waited for it to finish loading, and typed "date" on the
> terminal again. Then I computed the difference in time between the
> output of the two "date" commands.
> 
> I repeated the test on each machine running Windows 98SE and using the
> time command in a DOS window. In each case, the installation of Win98 is
> the one provided by the manufacturer of the machine. In the case of the
> Red Hat installations, the one on the laptop is the default installation
> from the Red Hat CD's, while the one on the desktop is the kernel I
> compiled the other day specifying that I have an AMD K6-2 processor, and
> leaving all the other options in their default condition.
> 
> The laptop is a Thinkpad 390X, with a 400 Mhz Celeron and 96 Mb of RAM.
> The desktop is a special from Bi-Mart a couple of years ago called an
> Avatar VBOX, and has a 550 Mhz K6-2 with 192 Mb of RAM. The numbers in
> the table are the elapsed seconds between running the date, or time
> commands.
> 
> 		thinkpad	avatar
> Red Hat 8.0	23		35
> 
> Win 98SE	13		11
> 
> I would expect the avatar, with the 550 Mhz K6-2, to run a little bit
> faster than the thinkpad, with the 400 Mhz Celeron, and under Win 98SE
> that is the case. I'm curious about why the results are 1) slower under
> Red Hat 8.0, and 2) why the avatar is so much slower than the thinkpad
> under Red Hat 8.0. Hopefully, I'll learn what options to tweak when I
> next compile the kernel so I can get better performance out of the
> avatar.
> 
> Any ideas?
> 
> -- 
> Regards,
> 
> Dick Steffens
> http://rsteff.home.attbi.com/
> 
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