The Linux desktop is about to get a LOT faster
Summary: The patch, created by Linux kernel developer Mike Galbraith, is 233 lines long and tweaks the kernel scheduler and cutting down latency by a whopping factor of ten.
Linux is already fast, but it's about to get a whole lot faster thanks to a new patch that's been developed.
The patch, created by Linux kernel developer Mike Galbraith, is 233 lines long and tweaks the kernel scheduler and cutting down latency by a whopping factor of ten.
Phoronix has some demo videos showing the improvements the patch offers. Here is the before video:
And here is the after video:
Even Linus Torvalds, who is arguably the father of Linux, is impressed:
Yeah. And I have to say that I'm (very happily) surprised by just how small that patch really ends up being, and how it's not intrusive or ugly either.
I'm also very happy with just what it does to interactive performance. Admittedly, my "testcase" is really trivial (reading email in a web-browser, scrolling around a bit, while doing a "make -j64" on the kernel at the same time), but it's a test-case that is very relevant for me. And it is a _huge_ improvement.
It's an improvement for things like smooth scrolling around, but what I found more interesting was how it seems to really make web pages load a lot faster. Maybe it shouldn't have been surprising, but I always associated that with network performance. But there's clearly enough of a CPU load when loading a new web page that if you have a load average of 50+ at the same time, you _will_ be starved for CPU in the loading process, and probably won't get all the http requests out quickly enough.
So I think this is firmly one of those "real improvement" patches. Good job. Group scheduling goes from "useful for some specific server loads" to "that's a killer feature".
When Linus calls this a "real improvement," and a "killer feature" then it's probably time for the rest of us to shut up and pay attention to this patch.
Kick off your day with ZDNet's daily email newsletter. It's the freshest tech news and opinion, served hot. Get it.
Talkback
Nah - it may just be catching up to Windows
Linux merely solved a long standing problem. It has been common knowledge that your multimedia playback could be affected by non-nice processes.
Windows still goes furher than both Linux and OS X in this respect: Windows is still the only OS with memory prioritization and multimedia network bandwidth reservation.
You can still cause a Linux or OS X to stutter during playback by copying large files acorss the network interface. No so on Windows.
RE: The Linux desktop is about to get a LOT faster
It's a step forward, and that's a good thing. I eagerly await the patch.
Allow me to head off the linux crazies...
YOU DON'T KNOWS! Filthy tricksy WINBLOW$! PROVES IT! We wants a LINK!
AAAARRGH!
...my preciousss... *strokes stuffed penguin*
RE: The Linux desktop is about to get a LOT faster
RE: The Linux desktop is about to get a LOT faster
YOU DON'T KNOWS! Filthy tricksy WINBLOW$! PROVES IT! We wants a LINK!
AAAARRGH!
...my preciousss... *strokes stuffed penguin*
Oh Smeagal, go back to your cave! :)
RE: The Linux desktop is about to get a LOT faster
RE: The Linux desktop is about to get a LOT faster
Oh well - I should have cleaned this display a long time ago anyways...
Thanks!
RE: The Linux desktop is about to get a LOT faster
RE: The Linux desktop is about to get a LOT faster
So what your saying is that linux will always have the issue of only being able to play one sound at a time? Its been 15 years and they still haven't solved the stuttering problem, LOL!!! That is just embarrassing for the linux community.
Embarrassing
It is more embarrassing that you do not know the difference between "your" and "you're", consistently so I might add.
http://www.wikihow.com/Use-You%27re-and-Your
RE: The Linux desktop is about to get a LOT faster
Playing back and/or routing multiple sources at once is a separate problem. I do believe that some Linux audio stacks actually can do this.
No, this is about achieving a better balance between multiple processes running on a machine. Linux is still a server OS at heart, and nowhere is that more evident than in the scheduler. Glitches and stuttering is the norm if you run other CPU intensive processes on your Linux box while playing back audio or video. This news celebrates that *some* of this problem has been addressed. It is still not on par with Windows, though. You can take a Windows box and stress the c*** out of the CPU. If you are playing back audio/video it will still hold its own. As I said, Windows takes it a step further and reserved network bandwidth so that other taxing processes cannot starve the playback process.
Another common issue when running many intensive processes/threads is how memory is managed. Memory intensive processes will cause other processes memory to be swapped out. This will in turn cause a page fault and a delay when the original process needs the memory. In audio/video even a small delay is noticeable. Windows has a unique memory prioritization model where background processes cannot starve foreground processes for memory. This is also missing from Linux and OS X.
RE: The Linux desktop is about to get a LOT faster
ALSA/OSS mixers, PulseAudio, no? So hello to you too troll.
RE: The Linux desktop is about to get a LOT faster
I see. Good to know linux is still full of bugs. I'll go for other options instead of linux.
RE: The Linux desktop is about to get a LOT faster
Hello. They don't solve those issues. *waving*
RE: The Linux desktop is about to get a LOT faster
RE: The Linux desktop is about to get a LOT faster
Idiot as usual I see.... I often wish it would only play one audio/video stream at once. It drives me nutz when I am watching a video stream while surfing and an ad loads on the other page and I am hearing both clearly and race to get the ad shut off.
So in short....it can.....
So why is it...
RE: The Linux desktop is about to get a LOT faster
Do you mean on a Windows netbook? I can watch a dvd while I surf and chat on my 4 year old desktop running Windows 7 without bothering to close office applications, Zune, or anything else I may happen to be running. AND the chat client and system audio alerts work just fine without interrupting the video's audio.
RE: The Linux desktop is about to get a LOT faster
I'm currently remote desktopping session, on firefox commenting here, listening to songs streamed via last.fm and watching a youtube video all at the same time with no stuttering on ubuntu 10.10.
Nope, not a netbook...