Ubuntu 8.10 significantly slower than previous versions

[Sam Tygier]

Markus Hitter wrote:
> Am 06.11.2008 um 20:21 schrieb Dan Colish:
> 
>> They're using very different gcc versions between the os's.
> 
> Well, newer gcc's are meant to produce faster code, aren't they?
> 

Quite a few GCC optimisations are for specific CPUs. 32bit ubuntu uses very conservative options so that it works on everything back to i586 (original pentium). The core duo used in the test could potentially do better if it took advantage of things like SSE instructions.

I remember the ubuntu devs saying the past that they were unconvinced of the advantage of building packages optimised for newer CPUs, but if someone could show good benchmarks they might consider it. If GCC is now better at things like automatic vectorisation it might be a good time to make some new bench marks.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/GenBunToo is probably a good resource to start at if you want to take on this task.

Sam Tygier