How is it so lite?

emuranch · 2006-04-28 15:38:27

I've recently switched to Arch from Ubuntu, and being a Linux beginner, the frustration of learning so much at once had me swapping back and forth for a couple weeks. What I noticed during this process was that not only is Arch quite a bit faster (I guess due to the optimization), but it is also MUCH easier on the RAM. Even Gnome runs on just 50 MB in Arch, where the same needs at least 100 megs in Ubuntu. How is this possible? I've tried to change all of my Ubuntu settings to match my Arch settings, and removed everything that I don't have in Arch, and the difference is still there. How did you people pull this off? It rocks!

Bison · 2006-04-28 15:43:34

Well, Arch is optimised for i686 where i think ubuntu is for 386. I don't know if that makes a difference there or not.

Besides that, arch much more lightweight than ubuntu.

user · 2006-04-28 16:06:24

Bison wrote:

Well, Arch is optimised for i686 where i think ubuntu is for 386. I don't know if that makes a difference there or not.

It make difference, because i had overwrite glibc-i686(didn't even set cflag thing.) over my debian-unstable.

It much faster/slim then before it was.

PS:
1 Personally IMHO, no-backward compatibility is harmful for virus.
2 every utility optimization #@#$@#$

Bison · 2006-04-28 19:08:25

I think another thing is that debian based distros are overly complicated, while arch keeps everything easy to keep track of etc.

Gullible Jones · 2006-04-28 19:17:09

One of the big things is the initscripts... Compare the boot times for Debian and Slackware, you'll see what I mean.

Also, there's pthreads vs. NPTL. Arch Linux uses NPTL by default, and that's supposed to really increase the performance of apps that use threads and stuff (although Java stuff seems slow as ever to me).

user wrote:

1 Personally IMHO, no-backward compatibility is harmful for virus.

Eh, I doubt it.

emuranch · 2006-04-28 20:30:07

I still know very little about Linux (and I guess computers in general), but alot of what's been said seems to have more to do with the performance optimizations. I'm sure all of that is very important, and I definatley appreciate it because of how fast my computer is running, but the really huge advantage I see in Arch is the low memory usage. I only have 128 megs of ram, so to say that switching from Ubuntu saved me 50 MB is a pretty huge deal. Is all of that savings just comming from these (seemingly to me) small performance optimizations? Or is there some drastic change that has made a big chunk of that difference?

Sorry if this is a dumb question, I'm just trying to understand what's going on with my memory usage. I can't tell any difference in the features available to me in my Arch setup vs my Ubuntu setup, so it seems crazy that if so much memory can be saved that other distros don't do things more like Arch.

starseed42 · 2006-04-28 20:39:39

What I had noticed during my brief affair with ubuntu is it loads a lot of services in the background. Arch on the other hand seems to load just what it needs to and lets you customize from there.

Gullible Jones · 2006-04-28 20:50:55

Frankly I've never found CPU optimization to have all that much effect... Compare P4-optimized Gentoo and i686-optimized Gentoo on a P4 machine and you'll see no difference, other than longer compile times for P4 optimization. I doubt that Arch would perform any worse if it were optimized for i586 rather than i686.

Dusty · 2006-04-28 21:41:36

Thank you for your frankness Gullible. The good news is you're wrong, the difference between i586 and i686 has been very noticable for many people. The difference between i686 and P4, on the otherhand, is not as great, IIRC its only a matter of a few instructions, but don't quote me on that.

Dusty

cactus · 2006-04-28 22:29:12

The only thing i have ever noticed making much of a difference with compile optimizations (586 vs 686) is the kernel (and you can get a 686 kernel in debian/ubuntu as well).

I could see it making an improvement in Xorg rendering, but I don't know...

Bison · 2006-05-01 14:03:02

Dusty wrote:

Thank you for your frankness Gullible. The good news is you're wrong, the difference between i586 and i686 has been very noticable for many people. The difference between i686 and P4, on the otherhand, is not as great, IIRC its only a matter of a few instructions, but don't quote me on that.
Dusty

Yes, and I believe the difference between i686 and Pentium4/AthlonXP optimization is just multimedia instructions.

filoktetes · 2006-05-01 22:05:18

I don't use Ubuntu much, so this is just a guess. It could be that Ubuntu automatically loads large chunks of different programs into memory, so that they'll start quicker. That can make machines with much RAM seem a lot more "snappy", but I guess it's not so good if you only have 128Mb.
I don't know if that's the reason though. Memory usage is also quite difficult to mesure accuratly in a way that makes sense. If a library that every program uses takes 20Mb, that's a lot more useful than some service you never use taking up the same amount.

JGC · 2006-05-01 22:17:59

Bison wrote:

Dusty wrote:
Thank you for your frankness Gullible. The good news is you're wrong, the difference between i586 and i686 has been very noticable for many people. The difference between i686 and P4, on the otherhand, is not as great, IIRC its only a matter of a few instructions, but don't quote me on that.
Dusty
Yes, and I believe the difference between i686 and Pentium4/AthlonXP optimization is just multimedia instructions.

Where most programs compile in instructions for SSE/3DNow/MMX and use them when they find those available on the system. An example of this is mplayer, compiled with i686, but uses runtime detection to make sure it runs best on your system anyways.

iBertus · 2006-05-01 22:44:28

The difference between i686 optimized and P4/AMD optimized binaries can not really be measured in human time. IMHO, most apps benefit only slightly, multimedia apps slightly more, but all differences are usually measured in low milliseconds. That said, I personally optimize my kernels (AMD64 here) but I don't change the CFLAGS or CCFLAGS from Arch's default settings for any other packge.

The memory difference you see is likely due to the minimalist nature of most Arch packages. It's built for the most common features but not for everything like in the bigger distos. Also, when you install Arch it only has a few daemons starting by default, you must add anything you want to use. It's a build what you want approach as opposed to the tear out the parts you don't need approach.

brain0 · 2006-05-02 07:22:31

iBertus wrote:

The difference between i686 optimized and P4/AMD optimized binaries can not really be measured in human time. IMHO, most apps benefit only slightly, multimedia apps slightly more, but all differences are usually measured in low milliseconds.

Compilers can't just add random optimizations on their own - and can only optimize some code for better CPUs. The apps that really benefint are those that have passages written in P4 or AMD optimized ASM code - mplayer has those and the kernel has them too. And with mplayer or the kernel, there really IS a difference. As for other apps, optimizing above i686 doesn't seem to be really beneficial, as the compiler's capabilities are limited.

user · 2006-05-02 07:52:22

Gullible Jones wrote:

Frankly I've never found CPU optimization to have all that much effect... Compare P4-optimized Gentoo and i686-optimized Gentoo on a P4 machine and you'll see no difference, other than longer compile times for P4 optimization. I doubt that Arch would perform any worse if it were optimized for i586 rather than i686.

ubuntu is glibc-i386-based just like debian (unless if you are using amd64 or ppc).
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=ubuntu

tor · 2006-05-03 08:37:53

emuranch wrote:

What I noticed during this process was that not only is Arch quite a bit faster (I guess due to the optimization), but it is also MUCH easier on the RAM. Even Gnome runs on just 50 MB in Arch, where the same needs at least 100 megs in Ubuntu.

If you weren't running ubuntu Dapper Drake, 6.06, but say Badger, 5.10 you where running Gnome 2.12 on ubuntu while Arch has Gnome 2.14. Quite some optimizations where introduced in Gnome between these version including memory footprint. Which could account for some of your experience.

emuranch · 2006-05-07 23:12:05

I was using Dapper.

I went on a distro world tour here recently. School's out for summer, so I don't need my computer for anything serious, so I just picked up a 25 pack of CDs and started installing stuff. The only thing I've found as fast as Arch is FreeBSD (didn't try Gentoo though, I"m not that patient). I'm still running it now because I thought it deserved more playing with, since I don't know anything at all about Unix. I'm having a hard time deciding whether or not I like it more than Arch. It definately does alot right, and despite my initial resistance, I really like their partitioning scheme. But in the end, I think pacman will bring me back to Linux. The insane difference in install speed is a pretty big deal since there isn't much of a speed difference at all.

Anyhow, point is nothing's faster than Arch and I don't even care why anymore. It just is, and that's good enough for me.

Gullible Jones · 2006-05-08 01:31:36

emuranch wrote:

(didn't try Gentoo though, I"m not that patient)

Don't bother, it's not as fast as Arch.

Arch Linux

#1 2006-04-28 15:38:27

How is it so lite?

#2 2006-04-28 15:43:34

Re: How is it so lite?

#3 2006-04-28 16:06:24

Re: How is it so lite?

#4 2006-04-28 19:08:25

Re: How is it so lite?

#5 2006-04-28 19:17:09

Re: How is it so lite?

#6 2006-04-28 20:30:07

Re: How is it so lite?

#7 2006-04-28 20:39:39

Re: How is it so lite?

#8 2006-04-28 20:50:55

Re: How is it so lite?

#9 2006-04-28 21:41:36

Re: How is it so lite?

#10 2006-04-28 22:29:12

Re: How is it so lite?

#11 2006-05-01 14:03:02

Re: How is it so lite?

#12 2006-05-01 22:05:18

Re: How is it so lite?

#13 2006-05-01 22:17:59

Re: How is it so lite?

#14 2006-05-01 22:44:28

Re: How is it so lite?

#15 2006-05-02 07:22:31

Re: How is it so lite?

#16 2006-05-02 07:52:22

Re: How is it so lite?

#17 2006-05-03 08:37:53

Re: How is it so lite?

#18 2006-05-07 23:12:05

Re: How is it so lite?

#19 2006-05-08 01:31:36

Re: How is it so lite?

Board footer