Linux kernel speeds up on the desktop
LINUX HACKERS working on the next version of the Linux kernel claim that some new improvements will speed up the OS on the desktop.
While many Linux geeks were looking forward to USB 3.0 support and new Firewire drivers, kernel developers have also been working on improvements to desktop interactivity, particularly when the OS is under memory pressure.
Currently desktop software slows down when its path jumps to a part of the code that is not cached in memory and needs to be paged-in from disk. That can be caused by poor memory management that doesn't scale all that well in the desktop environment.
In Linux kernel version 2.6.31, developers have added some heuristics to make it much harder for 'mapped executable pages' to get moved out of the list of active pages.
Benchmarks on memory-constrained desktops show clock time and major page-faults reduced by 50 per cent, and memory reads from disk are reduced by about two-thirds.
According to Techworld, this means that X desktop responsiveness is doubled under high memory pressure. According to memory flushing benchmarks the number of major page-faults dropped from 50 to 3 during 10 per cent cache hot reads.
This coupled with kernel mode-setting support for ATI Radeon graphics cards will make the Linux 2.6.31 kernel a significant jump on the desktop. µ
Share this:
ShareBusiness Intelligence Software
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Enterprise Accounting Software
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
Enterprise Systems Management
Interesting how Windows NT has had this since Windows NT 3.51.
What is it that NT has had since 3.51 and why is it interesting ?
Windows NT 3.1 had USB 3.0 support? I hope you understand that USB 3.0 is very new, and even Windows 7 doesn't have built in drivers for it yet.
@ BB
Are you referring to the Optimize resources for Background Services or applications setting?? That is nothing at all like what is being done in the Linux Kernel.
Windows can optimize for specific applications or for Background Services but it doesn't try and differentiate code memory or data memory. If application 123 gets paged to disk the memory and data are both as likely to be moved out of ram.
The new work in the Linux Kernel aims to differentiate code from data so only the data gets paged out of RAM.
Buy more memory. Low memory problem solved..
Better graphics drivers on Linux are good, though.
Buying more memory may not be possible, if you run an embedded handheld device for instance. Some of these devices have only limited RAM available, and putting in more would only suck your battery up faster.
@Roger
The article is about DESKTOP performance and memory use, not portables. It doesn't even hint at the improvement being for hand helds, so obviously the fact they may have limited battery and memory space is irrelevant, otherwise they would be touting those advantages over the existing kernel versions in portable devices.
Do you people even read the articles? The whole article is about mapped executable paging, not USB 3.0 or Firewire. No, this is not about background/application services, that's something completely different. The kernel mod keeps the core in memory rather than allowing the system to page out parts to disk. It's useful when there's lots of memory available.
You can enable it in Windows with:
HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management
Set DisablePagingExecutive - 1
...which causes frequent BSODs and slow downs in several circumstances (I for one can't enable it without a instant BSOD in the next reboot).
It's disabled by default for a reason, right?
Why do people ever compare it to Windows? Are you trying to justify the money you spent on monopoly while you could have the same functionality for free? You can't justify that.
A FREE product just got BETTER, why the hell some people is offended by that?!?!?! Most will never come close to understand 1% of what was stated! Kernel is not german food FYI!
Is there anything more stupid than "duhhh Windouws has that working for ages now LOL"
SHEEESH!!!
Obviously you're reading what you want from the statement. Next time assume it's wrong.
Oh and maybe get a better machine if you're seeing BSODs from changing that setting, or better yet, go use Linux to use it.