KernelTrap posted an interview with William Lee Irwin III, aka ‘wli’, and a step-by-step guide to installing his performance improving -wli patchset.
How to Upgrade to the -wli Kernel
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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very interesting, will try this tomorrow! thanx eugenia and jeremy from kerneltrap
Ah, and I thought there was nothing more to play with. Boy, do I feel like borking my system now. I’ll test it out tomorrow.
I’ve tried it over test11 and it rocks over my Athlon 2400+!
I wonder how fast 2.6 final would be.
Every time I think optimizations within the kernel can’t be taken further there’s some patch or new test kernel which proves that I was wrong!
Suddenly, Linux is remembering me my FreeBSD days in terms of performance (I switched from FreeBSD years ago because of some hardware and stick to Linux because there wasn’t Java on it, not because I thought linux was better).
I must see how it behaves in my old 500Mhz Pentium laptop!
using linux_emu though. Been there, done it (running Freenet for example). For the record, i ran Sun’s Linux version. Plus there’s other implementations now like Kaffe.
I have a 2Ghz Pentium 4, 256MB RD-RAM. So its a pretty “slow” system. I didn’t see too much improvement. I used to see loads of improvement in the -mm patchset.
One thing that does feel faster is scrolling in mozilla. Its a lost smoother. Also, the system doesn’t get really really slow after 15+ hours of uptime, like the stock kernel did (preemptivity problem I believe).
One problem is that when watching DVDs, they skip a little. It used to be very smooth when using the stock kernel.
I have a 60 days + uptime and I do not know what do you mean by system get really slow after 15+ hour of uptime. My system is only a 1.3 Ghz AMD.
Anyway i think you feel that your system is slow is because you have only 256mb of memory and after 15+ hours probably your loaded apps are swapped but i think you have something wrong with you swap or kernel setting if your system becomes “really really slow” .
Why do you enjoy breaking your computer? Do you not do real work on your computer? Is it just a toy to tear apart and rebuild? Is this why you use Linux?
Why do you enjoy breaking your computer? Do you not do real work on your computer? Is it just a toy to tear apart and rebuild? Is this why you use Linux?
I enjoy tinkering. I am a disturbingly curious human being. I use Linux for several philosophical and technical reasons that I do not wish to expanciate upon here. Writing computer programs is fast becoming a hobby I’m enjoying.
I believe Linux happens to be best platform to learn good programming habbits and acquire inherent Unix philosophies as I mature and become an experienced casual programmer, and hopefully FOSS coder.
Thus, Linux is both a productive and scholarly pursuit. And is the best platform those purposes. Except, of course, the *BSDs, which at this point I’m not interested in. Breaking and fixing is an expensive part of learning. But the experience one gains is priceless.
uhm 2.6 gig athlon? you need a performance kernel?
i need a performance improved actually low latency kernel that works for my 1gig athlon. i tried kolivas patches and they sucked. do these suck too on “low end” (damn i hate calling a gigahertz cpu low end) system. what do i actually need 2> gig for?