Re: Debian/Ubuntu/Redhat which is better for heavy duty computations?

[Thomas Steffen <steffen.list.account@gmail.com>]

On 7/1/05, Alexandru Cabuz <alexcabuz@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I was wondering if anybody knows if there exist benchmarks done to
> compare the performance for floating point computations (for example
> lapack) on opteron with the Debian, Ubuntu and Redhat AMD 64 ports.

I think the kernel does not usually matter for number crunching, but
the compiler may make a world of a difference. Usually, Redhat has the
most recent compiler plus some "special" patches. They do this in the
hope to produce the fastest code. They don't always succeed, but they
often have "an edge".

Debian on the other hand focuses on stability, and the compiler is
usually a version behind. That could mean that you lose out on the
latest performance improvements.

For a comparision it should be sufficient to compile a test program on
each distribution, and copy the executable and the libraries onto a
test system. Then you can compare them easily against each other.

Thomas