FreeBSD 7.1 BETA 2 vs Opensolaris vs Ubuntu performance

[Joel Dahl]

Ivan Voras skrev:
> O. Hartmann wrote:
>> Ivan Voras wrote:
>> ...
>>
>>> OTOH if the goal is to measure "operating system" performance, this
>>> must also include the compiler, libraries and all. (for example, what
>>> does Solaris default to nowadays? I think it ships with gcc but not as
>>> default). The hold on gcc 4.3 in FreeBSD is, after all, political
>>> (licencing).
>> This is very bad to read :-(
> 
> I agree. GPL 3 is a bit hard on the non-GPL systems (i.e. harder than
> GPL 2).
> 
>> Many of my colleaugues are involved in HPC, very little of them
>> (including myself) utilizing FreeBSD even due to the lack of fast
>> compilers. Yes, we all can use the port, that is right, but for those
>> not so familiar and deep inside the underlying OS, with newer, better
>> hardware (CPUs with some interesting hardware features like SSE3/4) a
>> on-track-following compiler like GCC 4.3 could make use of special
>> features introduced in newer hardware and even due to better
>> optimizations compile a faster OS. And the result, even in 3% or 5%
>> performance gain is appreciated if model-runs taking days or weeks!
> 
> AFAIK, gcc 4.3+ will always be available in the ports so users that need
> it will always have it available (it's available there now!). It's just
> that the base compiler will either stay 4.2, switch to something else
<SNIP>

Some of us are still hoping that PCC will be a viable option in the 
future, especially now that development has picked up again.  It has a 
BSD-style license:

http://pcc.ludd.ltu.se/

There's also an ongoing fundraiser for PCC development (in order to 
bring it to 1.0 release status):

http://www.bsdfund.org/projects/pcc/

--
Joel