Why are some Linux distributions faster than others

[rolltide101x]

DO NOT START ANY KIND OF FLAME WARS!!!! lol

Mageia and Debian are both miles faster than any other distribution (Ive never used Mandriva though) But I have used pretty much every other distribution availiable. Just wondering why are some faster when using the exact same desktop enviorments?

[ruel24]

Different distros use different flags and patches when they compile their kernel. For instance, I'm on PCLinuxOS, right now, and it's running the BFS patch on a PAE kernel. The first part is the patch maintained by Con Kolivas, who previously wrote patches for the kernel to get more performance on the desktop. The patch wins compared to the vanilla kernel in some aspects, while giving up in others. Depends on what you're looking for. The second part, PAE, is the physical address extension, which enables this 32 bit kernel to see 64 bit memory addressing.

[wilcal]

Some Distros, especially during their development
stages, have additional logging applications. That
puts a drag on performance. Mandriva did this
for awhile and that resulted in that the final
release was always "faster" then then Cooker
when the loggers were removed.

[rolltide101x]

Thanks for the info! Mageia and Debian are far faster than any other distro to me. (Ive never used pclinuxos before either though. It has no gnome default desktop =/ ) I never fully understood why, but its pretty much what I expecte that the differences made in preparing the kernel is the answer.

[dubigrasu]

There are some Gnome editions too:
http://linuxgator.org/

[rolltide101x]

Thank you! I have googled alot for that and never could find it.

[ruel24]

PCLinuxOS Gnome: http://linuxgator.org/

[rolltide101x]

Why dont they have a link to this on their website? I have looked all over for that lol

[neograven]

They did at one time, but Tex removed it because the guys maintaining the Gnome version had some issues keeping up with the parent distro, PCLinuxOS. Nothing bad, he just didn't want to give the appearance of endorsing a Gnome version if it wasn't going to keep up with PCLinuxOS. It's a great respin though, I've used it. I must say that I like it better than any other 2.3x Gnome spin out there, bar none. Unfortunately, it is a bit dated and the updates take a while to "get it up to speed".

Just as a side note though, you can install PCLinuxOS from the main site and install the Gnome desktop. The repos are the same

Now, to make the point, Mandriva currently has the best desktop performance of any distro currently out (the previous posts explain why, and they are correct). One of the things I do is run each of the top distros for a few days in a work environment and document how they perform. It's just for informational purposes relating to what my Company does (the company I work for is a global internet gaming company, which uses Linux on all of it's servers world-wide. We are 'stuck' with M$ in our email and VPN environment though, at least for now. We use Mac desktops almost exclusively, but we are evaluating Linux DEs as well -- that's where I come in

PCLinuxOS is almost tied with Mageia in desktop performance (generally speaking), but they have no realistic methodology for PPTP VPN (this is the VPN protocol Micro$oft uses, very popular and if a disto doesn't support it that pretty much kills it as a possibility with the companies that use this, and let's face it. There are many).

Mageia supports it as well though, just as Mandriva does. And, Mageia has about the same performance as Mandriva and considering it is a lot more polished and "tight" than PCLinuxOS, I think it will supercede PCL. Just MHO of course, but it's a well founded opinion

One of the things i've noticed, Mandriva has much better Flash performance than anyone else... Why? How are they doing that?

[doktor5000]

but they have no realistic methodology for PPTP VPN (this is the VPN protocol Micro$oft uses, very popular and if a disto doesn't support it that pretty much kills it as a possibility with the companies that use this, and let's face it. There are many).

Correction: PPTP is one of the (oldest implemented) tunneling protocols in the microsoft world, which can be used for VPNs
and also the most unsecure. L2TP/IPSec is a more popular/secure combination.

One of the things i've noticed, Mandriva has much better Flash performance than anyone else... Why? How are they doing that?

How do you measure Flash performance? As Mandriva only ships upstream Adobe Flash player, there is no difference in performance to, say Mageia.
Depends otherwise on your hardware and video driver, as since a short time flash offers hardware acceleration on linux.

[neograven]

Correction: PPTP is one of the (oldest implemented) tunneling protocols in the microsoft world, which can be used for VPNs
and also the most unsecure. L2TP/IPSec is a more popular/secure combination.

I see no bearing your statement has on what I said. PPTP is still widely used and in the M$ world, assumed. If a distro doesn't use what your company has chosen, the company isn't going to change just because you say it should, unless it's your decision. In the last 4 or 5 companies I've worked with over the last 10 years or so, they unanimously have used PPTP VPN. Any time I see issues in forums regarding VPN, it's almost always PPTP. If it's so rarely used, I doubt we would see so many problems, or so much need, for it.

How do you measure Flash performance? As Mandriva only ships upstream Adobe Flash player, there is no difference in performance to, say Mageia.
Depends otherwise on your hardware and video driver, as since a short time flash offers hardware acceleration on linux.

By performance of the application itself. The same flash applications were benchmarked on the same machine, same hardware drivers, but using different distros. If it will make it easier to understand, I'll explain it like this. Mandriva has faster responsiveness with the flash apps, has no graphics artifacts issues, and less lockup issues. Full screen flash is an issue just as other distros though. Mageia is second to that, however Mageia uses newer Flash binaries than Mandriva (Mandriva uses 10.3.183). So, other than the version of Flash and the distro, everything else is the same. Mageia is the only distro to come close. Admittedly, I don't know why, nor do I intend to find out (I have enough to do lol), but hopefully distro maintainers will figure something out.. sooner than later I hope

Over all, I am leaning towards Mageia, and once version 2 is out (or an updated ISO, updating v1 breaks and causes lock-ups) I think it will gain some serious consideration, as far as I am concerned.