On Thu, 2003-10-09 at 10:41, Mark Mielke wrote:
On Thu, Oct 09, 2003 at 10:08:30AM -0400, Owen Taylor wrote:
> What is somewhat amusing about the test is that the one major
> advantage of the Gentoo approach is that you *could* create two
> otherwise identical systems except for compiler flags quite easily,
> something that would be fairly hard with more conventional
> systems.
> But the tester hasn't (as far as I can see) done this, and just
> jumps to the conclusion that compiler flags are responsible for the
> major speed differences.
This perspective is a little cynical. The tester was quite clear that
the results *can* be disputed. It goes further to point out that Mandrake
may be running more services (i.e. the free RAM is not equivalent), and
it also points to the kernel patch set (i.e. not just the compiler flags).
There are a number of things about many Linux distributions, including
RedHat, that are not fully optimal. These sorts of reports shouldn't be
accepted as proof that RedHat/Fedora needs to revolutionize how it works,
but these sorts of reports should not be ignored, or written off, either.
I will echo the sentiments of the original poster: Please take these sorts
of reports into account. Read between the lines, or whatever is useful, but
don't write them off.
I think you completely missed the point of my email; what my mail
was saying was:
- It's interesting that such large speed differences exist
in the testing.
- I'm a little skeptical that the compiler had much to do with it.
- Gentoo would be a great platform for verifying that one way or
the other, so it would be great if those tests were extended
to do an apples-versus-apples comparison with only compiler
flags changed.
Regards,
Owen