From: Niall O Broin (niall at domain linux.ie)
Date: Sat 16 Jun 2001 - 21:26:41 IST
On Sat, Jun 16, 2001 at 04:55:11PM +0100, Jeremy Smyth wrote:
> This was discussed on Slashdot as well. Good article, not very general
I didn't see the Slashdot discussions but the assertion that
> it relies on hacked versions of the kernel
is completely wrong. The article says
] The operating systems were the latest version available from a commercial
] distribution and were not recompiled (i.e., everything was tested right out
] of the box).
although it does go on to say that
] On the UNIX-style operating systems, it was necessary to tweak the kernel
] slightly to allow the use of so many connections in one process.
This "kernel tweaking" consisted of
On Linux: echo 65536 > /proc/sys/fs/file-max changes the number of
system-wide file descriptors.
On FreeBSD: Append to /etc/sysctl (or you can use sysctl -w to add these):
kern.maxfiles=65536
kern.maxfilesperproc=32768
On Solaris: Add the following to /etc/system and reboot:
set rlim_fd_max=0x8000
set rlim_fd_cur=0x8000
I'd hardly consider that advanced wizardry - it's simply tuning of kernel
variables to suit the environment in which the kernels were running.
> W2K is not very hackable...
If the ability to do above "kernel tweaking" counts as "very hackable" then
W2K is indeed very hackable - haven't you heard of the registry ? In the
infamous Mindcraft benchmarks, Mindcraft had Microsoft registry experts on
hand to wring the last ounce of performance out of Windows (was that NT or
2K - I don't remember, nor do I much care)
> The comments go on to condemn other optimisations as biassed or ignorant.
I presume you're talking about Slashdot comments. Again, I didn't see them.
But as a general rule, I'd say all's fair in OS optimisation for the
purposes of benchmarks, provided that those optimisations are available to
all and are documented.
> Still, interesting to see a benchmark that Microsoft have not paid for :-)
Indeed. It'd be even more interesting to see a rehash of the Mindcraft
benchmarks with Linux using the 2.4 kernel, the Tux web server, and the
latest Samba.
Niall
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