Amusing. You didn't anonymize the OS version numbers; even so, I
could tell the old version of FreeBSD being used because of:
Unix A:
> Pipe-based Context Switching Test 1318.5 22788.7 17.3
Unix B:
> Pipe-based Context Switching Test 1318.5 6304.2 4.8
It is obvious that you are running very old pipe code.
Because pipes are use for IPC in the tests, this pretty much invalidates
your results.
Running a single sample for all cases is also statistically invalid...
what happen, cache effeects make "Unix A" look bad? 8-).
The integer artimatic is also a dead-giveaway for the old code.
The exec and process creation tests are seriously impacted by other
factors which are, in my opinion, inapropriately weighted in the
benchmark and thus inherently favor "Unix A". Even so, the numbers
indicate old code; even though what is being tested is not in
fact a "figure of merit", "Unix B" should be able to easily
beat "Unix A" on both using current releases of both OS's.
The File "I/O" numbers are obviously wieghted on the basis of
metadata -- as the "File Copy", which involves simultaneous read
and write, clearly shows. This must have been a large number of
small files so as to favor playing "fast and loose" with metadata
(a well known attribute of "Unix A", and a well known implementation
issue in "Unix B", if you use the default FS type in both systems
and do not configure their FS mount settings comparably).
You should reconfigure one or the other systems away from their
default settings: increase the FS robustness defaults for "Unix A"
or decrease the FS robustness defaults for "Unix B".
The compiler test is similarly affected by pipe overhead (if -pipe
is use) or FS settings (if /tmp files are used). In either case,
the comparison is invalid, since the compiler code is otherwise
identical.
Did you use the same shell (ash vs. bash), linked the same way (shared
libs vs. static) for the shell tests? This is a case of increasing
benchmark performance at the cost of standards compliance.
What are the compiler versions and compilation defaults for inlining
trancendental functions for the sqrt() test?
The recusrion test ws probably unfair to "Unix A", assuming all
other comparisons were fair (which they weren't).
> Even if this benchmark is a little questionnable, I invite people who say or
> write that Unix B is FASTER than Unix A to stop, or to say or write
> the OPPOSITE.
Or the third option: declaring your procedures scientifically suspect
and therefore the results lacking in information content?
Terry Lambert
terry@lambert.org
--- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers.