F8/9 6-16x slower than XP to boot

[Eric Mesa]

I think it's a bit of a false comparison - give that they're running in
VMs.  After all, F8 on the real hardware is only about 4 times slower.  To
throw in my own experience, I have a self-built, pretty nice P4 running Win
XP and a cheap, $300, few years old Emachine running Fedora 8.  If I start
them up at the same time, even counting the time it takes me to type in my
username/password on Linux (in Windows it just boots straight to the
desktop), I can use the Linux/Gnome computer up to a minute or more sooner
than I can Windows.  Why?  Because Norton Internet Security takes forever
and a day to start up and until it does, I can't do ANYTHING on my
computer.  Even clicking the start button is a 20+ second wait.  Norton is
essential to keep my computer running, so it would be unfair to compare it
to Windows without Norton.  (BTW - I'm running Norton 2008 which runs a
heckuva lot faster than 2007)

And my Ubuntu machine (using upstart?) which is an under-powered laptop
starts up even faster than Fedora.  So yeah, Fedora needs to work on startup
time, but I can be browing the internet/doing w/e I want a LOT faster in
Fedora than in Windows.

On Fri, Mar 28, 2008 at 9:49 AM, Dimi Paun <dimi at lattica.com> wrote:

>
> On Fri, 2008-03-28 at 13:48 +0100, Lubomir Kundrak wrote:
> >
> > Not to devaluate your tests -- please bear in mind that we offer more
> > features and are much more secure than XP. I am wondering what the
> > results would be if you kickstarted fedora just with icewm and firefox
> > and compared that one.
>
> They will be better, but I don't think by much -- it takes almost 1.5min
> just to get to the point were we start GNOME, IceWM can't go back in
> time. :)
>
> And what features can we offer that we are willing to pay by an order
> of magnitude in performance? (Firefox after boot in XP starts in 2-3s,
> whereas in Fedora it takes 25-28s!).
>
> The danger here is that we make ourselves feel better and ignore the
> problem by saying we offer more features. 600% slower to start! I
> remember the days back in 99 or around there, when Windows came on top
> in performance. For months we tried to blame it on biased tests, etc.
> Then the kernel folks got their act together and fixed the problem.
>
> The same must happen here, and the first step is to acknowledge it.
> This is a much more difficult problem I think then the other one,
> and I'm afraid that RedHat is the only one capable to solve it (because
> they employ enough key people in all the right places:
> kernel/glibc/toolchain/GNOME). This is similar in the way to good thread
> support that required tricky changes in kernel/glibc/toolchain.
>
> Hey, come to think of it, we need Ingo to look at it! :)
>
> I'm not even sure where the problem lies. Is PE inherently faster than
> ELF? Is it the on-demand paging of apps that is done in the kernel under
> Windows responsible for that much faster startup times? Do they have
> that much better compilers/linkers? Or maybe better preloading from
> disk?
>
> I personally think a key piece in the puzzle is why is Firefox so
> darn slow to load under Linux when compared to Windows?
>
> --
> Dimi Paun <dimi at lattica.com>
> Lattica, Inc.
>
> --
> fedora-devel-list mailing list
> fedora-devel-list at redhat.com
> https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
>



-- 
Eric Mesa
http://www.ericsbinaryworld.com
http://server.ericsbinaryworld.com
"Do not worry about those things that are outside of your circle of
influence. For since they are outside of your power to control them it is
simply a waste of time and energy to dwell on them. Instead, turn your
attention to those things that you can control and grow your influence in
those areas and you will see the effects begin to trickle out to those items
that were previously out of your power to influence." – Eric Mesa inspired
by Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
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