ASUS Eee PC 901 / Intel Atom: Linux Distribution Comparison (Phoronix) [LWN.net]

Phoronix test drives four distributions for the ASUS Eee PC 901. "The Linux distributions we used included the ASUS-optimized Xandros operating system that ships with the Eee PC 901, Fedora 10 Alpha, Ubuntu 8.10 Alpha 4 with daily updates as of August 26, and Mandriva 2009 Beta 2. The Xandros OS ships with the Linux 2.6.21 kernel, X Server 1.4.0.90, and uses GCC 4.1.2. Fedora 10 Alpha uses the Linux 2.6.27-rc0 kernel, X Server 1.4.99.905, and GCC 4.3.1. Ubuntu 8.10 Alpha 4 with the daily updates still uses the Linux 2.6.26 kernel, X Server 1.4.99.905, and GCC 4.3.1. Finally, Mandriva 2009 Beta 2 is using the Linux 2.6.26 kernel, X Server 1.4.2, and GCC 4.3.1."

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ASUS Eee PC 901 / Intel Atom: Linux Distribution Comparison (Phoronix)

Posted Sep 25, 2008 13:06 UTC (Thu) by alfille (subscriber, #1631) [Link]

What a strange review. They tested a number of performance benchmarks, like ray tracing, database access,... I kept thinking their tools were better suited to comparing different hardware rather than operating system distributions.

At the end, they make a comment that really gets to the heart of the eee experience:

"Aside from the performance, there are a number of other factors that play into which Linux distribution is best for the Atom hardware and netbooks/nettops. Among these are the optimized user-interfaces, such as Ubuntu's Netbook Remix or Ubuntu MID Edition 8.04, and which distributions supply the best support for the onboard components."

ASUS Eee PC 901 / Intel Atom: Linux Distribution Comparison (Phoronix)

Posted Sep 25, 2008 18:53 UTC (Thu) by jmnovak (subscriber, #48627) [Link]

"I kept thinking their tools were better suited to comparing different hardware rather than operating system distributions."

And yet, several times they display a factor of two difference in performance with various tests, which was surprising to me; I wouldn't have expected that much difference between the distros.

I do wish they had compared bootup times, and out-of-the-box driver support. That's the main issue that has me hesitating on replacing the distro on my Acer Aspire One; I'm not too keen on some of the configuration of the Linpus distro, but my alternative is to spend a bunch of time tweaking the defaults (and risk having them wiped by an update), or to blow it all away with a new distro that possibly won't boot as quickly or support all the hardware. [The Plumbers Conference work on fast booting is encouraging in this regard, if the main distros adopt those findings...]

--John N.

ssd performance

Posted Sep 26, 2008 5:52 UTC (Fri) by deleteme (guest, #49633) [Link]

Especially disk transfers at 6MB/s on Mandriva and Fedora, compared to 16MB/s using Xandros.

ssd performance

Posted Sep 29, 2008 13:02 UTC (Mon) by holstein (subscriber, #6122) [Link]

16 vs 6 : looks like a typo to me.

ssd performance

Posted Oct 6, 2008 11:39 UTC (Mon) by endecotp (guest, #36428) [Link]

The '901 has two SSDs, one larger and slower than the other. So if the distributions use them differently they may get different results of this order.