BL2-alpha is ready for release. I'll play with it for
a few hours more (just to make sure I have caught all
the obvious flaws) and upload it tomorrow.
Now that BL2 is ready, I'm very interested to see how
it compares to BL1. So, I've just done a quick comparision
between BL1 and BL2 (using exactly the same hardware:
486dx66 mem=8M). The results are encouraging:
BL1 BL2
----------------------------------------------------
BOOT TIME 14 sec 17 sec
----------------------------------------------------
This is a reasonable result for BL2. It's a bit slower
than BL1, but not too bad. Afterall, the BL2 kernel is
larger so uncompressing and installing it is going to
take more time. Also, when it is finished booting, the
BL2 kernel takes time to reassesses its memory allocation
and frees up unneeded memory. This leads to the following
surprising result:
----------------------------------------------------
MEM FREE 260kb 272kb
----------------------------------------------------
BL2 actually has a slightly smaller memory footprint.
This was measured immediately after logging in, so
nothing much is happening. Once the user actually tries
to do something (using the larger binaries in BL2) any
memory advantage is likely to disappear. So call this
one even.
----------------------------------------------------
GZIP 4MB FILE ON C: 2:38 min 2:53 min
----------------------------------------------------
As you can see, gzipping on a 4mb ramdisk is hard work.
With little temp workspace available, gzip has to process
very small chunks of data. This is a considerable burden.
On a normal size filesystem, gzip would only take a fraction
of that time. Anyway, it's a useful comparision: a small
win for BL1.
-----------------------------------------------------
GUNZIP THAT FILE 23 sec 16 sec
-----------------------------------------------------
A clear win for BL2. Something interesting happened here.
A more efficient kernel routine, perhaps? Or maybe some
speed advantage in glibc2?
The overall conclusion is that users will notice little speed
difference between BL1 and BL2. A few seconds longer on some
things, a few seconds less on others.
Cheers,
Steven
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