Minus La Change

I'm setting up Kyon as a template so that I can copy it to create Yuki and Mikuru. Having installed the operating system (CentOS 4.4), I'm now installing all the bits and pieces that Minx relies on. Such as Python 2.5RC2.

I downloaded and configured it, and then ran make:

real 0m54.730s
user 0m39.567s
sys 0m13.762s

I wondered how that would compare with the new munu servers:

real 1m48.209s
user 1m41.037s
sys 0m6.834s

What the fnord?! That's one heck of a difference, particularly when you realise that Kyon is running under VMware. Same version of GCC, by the way.

Old server:

real 2m12.971s
user 2m2.240s
sys 0m5.932s

About what I'd expect - the new servers are a little faster than the old ones.

But Kyon just zooms along - if what you want to do is compile Python. It's kind of a slug for desktop use. How does it go for other server-type stuff?

Let's see. I have a little Python benchmark. Nothing complicated, but it gives the interpreter a little test. Old server, Python 2.4.2:

real 0m3.373s
user 0m3.284s
sys 0m0.028s

New server, Python 2.4.3:

real 0m3.028s
user 0m3.008s
sys 0m0.004s

Okay, slightly faster, as expected.

Kyon, Python 2.3.4 (which is what CentOS 4.4 comes with, the slackers):

real 0m0.919s
user 0m0.909s
sys 0m0.009s

Um. That's a pretty significant improvement.

Just one small problem:

It's lying.

The timer is off... Apparently by a factor of two, though it varies a bit. I increased the loop count by a factor of ten and hand-timed it. Computer says 9 seconds, I say 18.

That's gonna really suck for my development work.

Python under Cygwin gives 1.5 seconds for my benchmark, and I confirmed that (roughly) with hand-timing, so the Core 2 really is a lot faster for Python code. Just not quite as fast as Kyon wants me to believe.

Update: A bit of digging came up with this, which doesn't help much, because I've set Kyon up as a dual-processor machine. But it at least explains what's going on.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 01:58 AM | No Comments | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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