On 8/15/05, Michael Honeyfield wrote:

Thats the whole point. Providing proof of concepts and doing the leg work for SUSE/Novell.

I can bounce up and down and off the walls about some wiz-bang foo application, but it takes a great deal of time to a) package b) build c) test d) test e) test some more.

The idea is we build and package the wiz-bang application and or patch sets, prove stability and that it does infact provide performace enhancements.

Thus makingthe path of acceptence into the SUSE/Novell develoment tree an easier one.

Mike

I really think this is a great idea. One of the things that I do not like about SUSE is the speed. FC is faster, but not as well rounded. I would love to help with getting SUSE up to speed. -- Ken Swain ken@kenswain.com http://kenswain.com "Spoof them all, let god sort them out."

Carlos wrote:

Who's organizing the Super SuSE effort?

--- Ken Swain wrote:

If you check through this thread, Andreas of Novell NZ is kick starting it. Mike

No, it was only announced yesterday. Email me (or Andreas) off list and I will add your name if you are interested. Cheers Mike Carlos wrote:

Thanks Mike. Have we broken down whats needed to get the project rolling? I think we need to take inventory of people 'in' on the project and related skills.

--- Michael Honeyfield wrote:

...

Carlos wrote:

...

Who's organizing the Super SuSE effort?

--- Ken Swain wrote:

If you check through this thread, Andreas of Novell NZ is kick starting it.

Mike

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--- Andreas Girardet wrote:

...

But I have a basic question:

If you are able to do these optimizations, then why not integrate them into the main software itself? Why make it a separate downloadable package? Let SUSE *by default* run at high performance. What's the downside to that?

Because it is better to do things gradually and optimise things agressively outside the normal distro and then have those features that prove itself suggested to be put into the distro. I would think that a per CPU optimisation/Prelinking/Kernel patches/rework of the installer is maybe something that is too radical for the mainstream distro right now. On the other side I would be all for it to be part of the normal distro. But I can understand that a more conservative approach is probably better in a distro that must retain the largest amount of compatibility out there..

Would it not be great to have a DVD-ROM with i586 packages for compatibility, but the installer recognize that you run a P4 and install 50-100 specially compiled pentium4 optimised rpm's, just like it currently does for i686? I think this would rock. Then have prelinking turned on by default and use a special desktop kernel in case the user runs the system as a desktop, again optimised for Pentium4. And additionally to that integrate any other technology early. This would be how I imagine a distro to be. Since openSUSE allows me now to create something like this, I want to at least give it a go. You would basically gain the positive effects of LFS or Gentoo or Yoper, but you still retain compatibility with a distro that has thousands of packages available within the community? Well since I think this would be great I am willing to give it a go :) and of course I would love this at some point to be part of the mainstream distro.

It is my understanding that the whole reason of openSUSE is to allow new ideas to be integrated easily and in case they are proven to be good ideas possibly integrated into the mainstream SUSE Linux. I love this model and it is exactly such a model which will make openSUSE fly very very long and high .....

Andreas

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The special desktop kernel idea came to my mind as well ... would be a great thing . Desktop users do not need 100% efficiency so all the magic low-latency patches & kernel tweaks could be included creating a super smooth experience "Would it not be great to have a DVD-ROM with i586

packages for compatibility, but the installer recognize that you run a P4 and install 50-100 specially compiled pentium4 optimised rpm's, just like it currently does for i686? I think this would rock."

-> I'm not completly sure & MIGHT be wrong .. but optimised & fasts distros like Vectorlinux manage to get their speed mostly (??????????) from having slim packages (with rubbish removed .. not sure what exactly that means) & not from special enhancements for Pentium etc. Slackware is supposedly good speedwise but still (????) 486 -compatible. My 26.71 cents of comment . ___________________________________________________________ To help you stay safe and secure online, we've developed the all new Yahoo! Security Centre. http://uk.security.yahoo.com

On Tuesday 16 August 2005 01:05, Andreas Girardet wrote:

Would it not be great to have a DVD-ROM with i586 packages for compatibility, but the installer recognize that you run a P4 and install 50-100 specially compiled pentium4 optimised rpm's, just like it currently does for i686? I think this would rock. Then have prelinking turned on by default and use a special desktop kernel in case the user runs the system as a desktop, again optimised for Pentium4. And additionally to that integrate any other technology early. This would be how I imagine a distro to be. Since openSUSE allows me now to create something like this, I want to at least give it a go. You would basically gain the positive effects of LFS or Gentoo or Yoper, but you still retain compatibility with a distro that has thousands of packages available within the community? Well since I think this would be great I am willing to give it a go :) and of course I would love this at some point to be part of the mainstream distro.

It sounds interesting, and I'd love to see the numbers, but my gut feeling is that just like with LFS and gentoo, the end result will be less impressive. While I expect there will be gains, I seriously doubt they will be large enough to warrant the effort involved. I suspect the big improvements will come with some serious infrastructure work. X currently isn't doing a very good job, but I know there are several very interesting projects that seem to promise greatly improved performance in the not too distant future. KDE/qt aren't very well optimised, although I hear good things about qt4. gcc isn't the best at optimisations Look for example at the kernel efforts. The major leaps in performance came with projects like the Ordo 1 scheduler and others that completely changed the algorithms used. Recompiling the kernel to use i686 instructions instead of i386 is insignificant in comparison. It's the 80/20 rule in action But like I said, I'd LOVE to be proved wrong, and if I can help out in any way I will, time and work permitting Does anyone have good profiling tools for analysing just where the major bottle necks are? Perhaps studies have been made already? URLs?

On Tuesday 16 August 2005 01:31, Michael Honeyfield wrote:

Its not *just* compiler optimisations. There can be large gains in kernel performance based on certain patch sets, -ck is a good example.

Certain libs/apps do gain from being optimised, FC do this already to a number of core libs.

Compile time optimisation is only one facet of performance.

I thought that was what I said So, where do I sign up? And does anyone have any good profiling info to start out with?

Forgive my ignorance: When we say create a SUPER SuSE are we talking about only optimizing the kernel and not the gui apps? Is the point to make a lightning quick server, or a speedy desktop environment? If the answer is both wont we need some help from the likes of KDE, X.org, GNome etc.. ____________________________________________________ Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs

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On Wed, Aug 17, 2005 at 4:06 pm, in message <20050817040610.57782.qmail@web32510.mail.mud.yahoo.com>, dubbsix@yahoo.com wrote: Forgive my ignorance:

When we say create a SUPER SuSE are we talking about only optimizing the kernel and not the gui apps? Is the point to make a lightning quick server, or a speedy desktop environment? If the answer is both wont we need some help from the likes of KDE, X.org, GNome etc..

Yes and Yes. The more people we will be (especially the programming types) the more we can actively approach those projects and get help there. Andreas

But like I said, I'd LOVE to be proved wrong, and if I can help out in any way I will, time and work permitting

hehehe .. I would love to be proven wrong. But I would also love to be proven right :D That's what is exciting about any intellectual challenge. Like playing chess. Sometimes you win, sometimes you are bound to be defeated. Using the KDrive server might also be ways to get things faster. I would love to try it out and see how good the vesa support is and how fast it compares to your normal X. Have it included and tested and if good available for those who like such bleeding edge in a maintained manner. Another area is early beta releases of kde4 and an initng rpm that converts your existing SUSE install. But booting is honestly already very fast in the SUSE 10 beta1 I am happily running on my laptop, but if we can get it down another 50% I would love to. All those things should be implemented out of the box in experimental releases for those who like that sort of stuff. But in the end this effort will be shaped by anyone who would like to get the maximum out of their installation and be part of it. Overall the first steps of the effort will be to just get our distro into another gear with simple out of the box mods that I suggested before and that are now online on http://www.opensuse.org/index.php/SUPER We will add all the participants in the next days and start organising an irc session. Andreas