wraggster
March 16th, 2011, 00:13
The new Linux 2.6.38 kernel is now out (http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3928236/Linux+2638+Boosts+Performance.htm), and it's got a long list of performance improvements that should make Linux a whole lot faster. The kernel includes support for Transparent Huge Pages, Transmit Packet Steering (XPS), automatic process grouping, and a new RCU (Read/Copy/Update)-based path name lookup. '"This patch series was both controversial and experimental when it went in, but we're very hopeful of seeing speedups," James Bottomley, distinguished engineer at Novell said. "Just to set expectations correctly, the dcache/path lookup improvements really only impact workloads with large metadata modifications, so the big iron workloads (like databases) will likely see no change. However, stuff that critically involves metadata, like running a mail server (the postmark benchmark) should improve quite a bit."'http://linux.slashdot.org/story/11/03/15/2225219/Linux-2638-Released