AMD and Linux: Reaching for the 64-bit Trophy
by Kristopher Kubicki on July 12, 2004 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Linux
Conclusions
Although we primarily focused on comparing SuSE, Fedora and Windows in this article, we did not include dozens of other 64-bit distributions available today. Given just the three operating systems analyzed before, SuSE comes out ahead of Fedora consistently - but more importantly, both Linux distributions also lay waste to the 64-bit and 32-bit editions of Windows XP. In fact, the only real benchmarks where Windows ever came against either Linux distribution were the game tests. Fortunately, the point of this analysis was to see if Linux takes advantage of the 64-bit gap; and with reasonable assurance, we can conclude it does. Encoding, database and rendering tests all show a distinct advantage with a 64-bit operating system over a 32-bit one, and even more distinct advantage with Linux over Windows.Eventually, we anticipate adding more operating systems to our mini-breakdown, perhaps including BSD distributions and Mandrake, Gentoo and maybe even an AT-optimized mini-distro. Everyone agrees that in order for Linux to become a viable, stable competitor to Microsoft today, the backing of manufacturers becomes absolutely necessary. In many ways, what better time for Linux to show its true colors than now? Microsoft does not have a competing 64-bit platform while AMD and Intel both have 64-bit processors.
NVIDIA has done an excellent job so far, but more can be done to drive an already booming community. Right now, the Linux community lacks a particular presence from several leading manufacturers; particularly, a large Canadian graphics card company. The gauntlet is set for hardware manufacturers, software designers and users to use Linux's position as the only commercially available 64-bit OS in order to gain marketshare on Windows. Will we look back five years from now to see the year that Linux capitalized on its extremely fortunate luck, or will we see just another stumbling block along its way to market acceptance? If today's benchmarks are any indication, the future looks bright, but still difficult for the aspiring little operating system.
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KristopherKubicki - Monday, July 12, 2004 - link
tsadowski: Its actually pretty clean. I wouldnt compare it to Gentoo at all. Thats probably also why it has an RPM repository - so you CAN work with it out of the box.Kristopher
tsadowski - Monday, July 12, 2004 - link
I find it interesting that you test Fedora Core 2 and expect it all to just work perfectly. Is Fedora not the bleeding edge code, hack it yourself, hobbyist version of RedHat? Not unlike Gentoo? To expect it to just work "out of the box" without some hacking is foolish at least, and at worst perhaps an intentional attempt to slander Fedora/Redhat? I have played around with Fedora Core 1 and while I wouldn't say that it is the best distro I have ever used. I wouldn't bad mouth it without acknowleging it's hackerish, homebrewish nature either!jspaleta - Monday, July 12, 2004 - link
#15along with the flags, the specific versions that you compiled would be good to know. Actually since its compiled I would be interested to know if you had to install/compile any additional build requirements beyond what is available in Fedora Core as well.
I would also be interesting if you could rerun the
lame encoding benchmark against the lame build currently available in the stable x86_64 fc2 rpm.livna.org repo, as a comparison.
-jef
KristopherKubicki - Monday, July 12, 2004 - link
#8, 14: lame and mplayer are compiled. I will get the exact flags and details posted soon.#8 again: SuSE gives you two options for installing the drivers - manually, as we did or via YAST. I just chmod 0 /usr/X11R6/bin/X, ctrl-alt-backspace and then run the driver. You can also hit F2 during startup and tell it to go into "failsafe" mode.
#10: Thanks Matt, id like to work closer with MS to get that. I have a feeling Intel's compiler will show up for x86_64 soon, being as nocona is available now.
Kristopher
jspaleta - Monday, July 12, 2004 - link
I would like to know from where the reviewersgot fedora binaries for memcoder, mplayer and lame for fedora core. These untilies do NOT come as part of Fedora Core, are not built by the Fedora Core buildsytem, and can be obtained from a number of different repositories. I would personally like to know if different builds of mplayer/mencoder/lame from different locations experience different results.
-jef
lopri - Tuesday, April 28, 2009 - link
asdfTerm - Monday, July 12, 2004 - link
Out-of-the-box the video-drivers for Linux from NVidia have Fast Writes disabled, but you have enabled it right?damn good article btw
// Term
Possessed Freak - Monday, July 12, 2004 - link
Errors on graphs:Why are the key color orders reversed. Shouldn't red/64bit be on top in the key?
Why does the order of the OS's change seemingly randomly in the graphs? I thought it might deal with performance, but I could not see a relation.
Regardless, good article.
LostInSpace927 - Monday, July 12, 2004 - link
I am thinking someone needs to a little research before typing an article."Unfortunately, you can't even try the Personal version of SuSE 9.1 without forking the $90 because the Personal edition does not ship with a x86-64 kernel."
I downloaded SuSE 9.1 free od charge from www.linuxISO.com.
All the longer it took me to find this was a few seconds googling.
Matthew Daws - Monday, July 12, 2004 - link
To say that there is no 64-bit compiler for Win64 is slightly untrue: a CPUID.com article uses a beta VC++ 8.0 from the "Microsoft DDK for Windows Server 2003" CD. Sadly, it produces awful code from C++ and cannot optimise less common FPU functions. So, in that sense, there isn't a compiler capable of compiling a whole application: simple benchmarks are possible though (and show 5-35% speed increase, due to more registers mainly).Thanks for a good article! --Matt