Arch Linux

lazyboy

Member

Registered: 2017-01-24

Posts: 9

Intel Clear Linux kernel optimizations

Hi everybody. I've just the impressing benchmark at Phoronix, that Clear Linux is around 20% faster in phpbench (than Ubuntu).

So I'm curious in using the kernel of Clear Linux in ArchLinux. Does anyone know the exact Kconfig options? Isn't Intel forced to disclose it's sources?

Ok, it's here: https://github.com/clearlinux-pkgs/linux

May you please create a PKGBUILD?

Last edited by lazyboy (2017-02-06 10:47:21)

ooo

Member

Registered: 2013-04-10

Posts: 1,638

Re: Intel Clear Linux kernel optimizations

AFAIK, the performance impovements in clear linux has nothing to do with the kernel. Most of the benefits you can see in e.g. phoronix benchmarks are result of AutoFDO and other compiler optimizations.

If clear linux has a kernel patch you think would be of benefit for you, you can easily patch the kernel yourself, e.g. https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Patching_in_ABS
The clear linux kernel .config is also available from the same link you provided.

x33a

Forum Fellow

Registered: 2009-08-15

Posts: 4,587

Re: Intel Clear Linux kernel optimizations

Moving thread to PKGBUILD requests.

lazyboy

Member

Registered: 2017-01-24

Posts: 9

Re: Intel Clear Linux kernel optimizations

I've used the kernel .config with Archs PKGBUILD, but the build process failed.

a821

Member

Registered: 2012-10-31

Posts: 381

Re: Intel Clear Linux kernel optimizations

I've used the kernel .config with Archs PKGBUILD, but the build process failed.

that's not helpful... logs?

b0b2

Member

Registered: 2011-10-31

Posts: 51

Re: Intel Clear Linux kernel optimizations

Hi,
I'd really like to get those optimizations as well.

AFAIK, the performance impovements in clear linux has nothing to do with the kernel. Most of the benefits you can see in e.g. phoronix benchmarks are result of AutoFDO and other compiler optimizations.

If clear linux has a kernel patch you think would be of benefit for you, you can easily patch the kernel yourself, e.g. https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Patching_in_ABS
The clear linux kernel .config is also available from the same link you provided.

There's also kernel pgo. Idk how much it contributes.

Here are some more benchmarks:
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page= … beta&num=1
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page= … lear&num=1
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page= … ctre&num=2
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page= … 0way&num=5

R00KIE

Forum Fellow

From: Between a computer and a chair

Registered: 2008-09-14

Posts: 4,734

Re: Intel Clear Linux kernel optimizations

I also believe that the speed advantage of clear linux is not only due to the kernel, they do patch and optimize many areas of the system, I'm not saying that tweaking some kernel configuration options will not provide some speed improvement, but you are not going to get the same speed improvement if you don't touch anything else.

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R00KIE
Tm90aGluZyB0byBzZWUgaGVyZSwgbW92ZSBhbG9uZy4K

b0b2

Member

Registered: 2011-10-31

Posts: 51

Re: Intel Clear Linux kernel optimizations

I also believe that the speed advantage of clear linux is not only due to the kernel, they do patch and optimize many areas of the system, I'm not saying that tweaking some kernel configuration options will not provide some speed improvement, but you are not going to get the same speed improvement if you don't touch anything else.

You're most probably correct here:

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page= … eaks&num=2

eschwartz

Fellow

Registered: 2014-08-08

Posts: 4,097

Re: Intel Clear Linux kernel optimizations

IIUC these optimizations basically achieve the same goal as rebuilding everything with -march=native.

Except that you can build once and distribute it to all distro users.

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Managing AUR repos The Right Way -- aurpublish (now a standalone tool)

b0b2

Member

Registered: 2011-10-31

Posts: 51

Re: Intel Clear Linux kernel optimizations

IIUC these optimizations basically achieve the same goal as rebuilding everything with -march=native.

Except that you can build once and distribute it to all distro users.

That would mean that pretty much every gentoo installation should perform about as well as clearlinux did, which I can't believe.

eglumegad

Member

Registered: 2016-11-11

Posts: 1

Re: Intel Clear Linux kernel optimizations

I'm glad I found this thread, I read the Phoronix article about performance on Ryzen and Threadripper, and Clear Linux performed very impressively, even though it's not running on an Intel chip. Of course it has a lot of optimizations that just target x86_64, not just Intel specific stuff.

I've been wanting to play around with using some of their optimizations in my Arch install since I'm running Ryzen. I was playing around with CPU mining Monero just for the hell of it, and noticed that my hashrate was an entire half of that on Windows. It's possible this is because I compiled xmr-stak with some questionable flags and am on mostly default everything otherwise, but nonetheless I'm curious what sort of performance gains I can get from copying Clear Linux. I'll probably just play around with it some time this week if I can get some free time away from coursework.

IIUC these optimizations basically achieve the same goal as rebuilding everything with -march=native.

Except that you can build once and distribute it to all distro users.

That would mean that pretty much every gentoo installation should perform about as well as clearlinux did, which I can't believe.

Yeah, I agree. I'm pretty sure Clear Linux is more tuned than Gentoo. That would be interesting to try to implement some of Clear's ideas into a Gentoo install, though.