Service Management

[jhoni]

Hi guys,
ever since I started to get to know Linux, I had a chance to try numerous distros and I noticed that most of them (since they're all based on linux kernel) don't have any performance difference other the one you get using a Various D.E. (i.e. gnome, Xfce...).
Yet there are 2 distros that seems to have an extra edge over the others: Sabayon & Ubuntu, while sabayon gives the fastest raw performance, Ubuntu has a uniqe way of dealing with multitasking meaning I can open many tasks in the background yet my PC would barely slow down or lag, but the really interesting part is that in every other OS/distro when your PC starts lagging you have to immediately stop executing more tasks! - in Ubuntu on the other hand even if I keep executing tasks it's eventually catching up the pace (relatively quick).
I read that both use different kinds of "Service Management Facility": OpenRC http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenRC (sabayon), Upstarthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upstart (ubuntu). and I'm curious whether this is the cause of that behaviour or is it something else?

would appreciate any help or guidance on that matter!
tnx in advance

[wolfden]

What is your hardware? What file systems do you generally use? Are you using a Swap partition? Have you check what services are running and killed off any you don't need? Check memory management to see if any sort of memory leak in an app?

I haven't noticed a performance hit and I generally have lots of multitasking going on.

[jhoni]

What is your hardware? What file systems do you generally use? Are you using a Swap partition? Have you check what services are running and killed off any you don't need? Check memory management to see if any sort of memory leak in an app?

I haven't noticed a performance hit and I generally have lots of multitasking going on.

Hi, I'm runnig Intel® Core™ i7-2600K CPU @ 3.40GHz × 8 cpu's (8GB RAM) 1GB swap.
I noticed that my system uses about 10% of the memory available when resting, and when I push it to extreme (that's how I did my tests on other OS/distros) meaning for example: moving files (50GB) from linux partition to windows partition while in the background I'm opening an HD movie and usually if the system still functioning I just keep opening more tasks to see where is the limit of the limit of the distro. while it may not be the best scientific way to measure performance - it had proved itself quite practical for me...
So back to the memory usage- I noticed that even though the CPUs % starts to incline and the movie/s isn't playing smoothly the memory is merely affected, it only gets to 13/14% usage, my guess was this is because it's related to proccessing power, yet I still get differnt visual results (smoother movie,opening tasks quicker, etc...) in Ubuntu than other distros?
In Sabayon on the other hand moving files from one partition to another is quicker, or simply opening an individual task is faster (it's like it focuses on something to do it the best).
This is why I think the way these distros manging services is critical to the performance issue.
moreover what I'm interested in is to know how can I maximize the way my OS utilize the PC potential power (multicore in my case) - these is actually where I'm heading with these questions I guess...

[wolfden]

I would start with the startup manager and remove things not needed from starting up. I don't have an 8 core machine, only a quad here and it runs good for my usage. Molecule, building an iso, is about the only thing that drags my system down. I haven't tried transferring files and HD movie at same time either. I wouldn't run into that situation enough. I have done movies and stuff like that while testing a live version and seems ok, but still not transferring files at same time and that is just on a low budget machine.

So the main thing you're saying is that video performance is effected? I wonder if comparing drivers and xorg settings would help? Maybe some option is enable or disabled?

[jhoni]

I would start with the startup manager and remove things not needed from starting up. I don't have an 8 core machine, only a quad here and it runs good for my usage. Molecule, building an iso, is about the only thing that drags my system down. I haven't tried transferring files and HD movie at same time either. I wouldn't run into that situation enough. I have done movies and stuff like that while testing a live version and seems ok, but still not transferring files at same time and that is just on a low budget machine.

So the main thing you're saying is that video performance is effected? I wonder if comparing drivers and xorg settings would help? Maybe some option is enable or disabled?

Hi tnx for replying,
well it's not just the video performance I forgot to metion that file transfer speed also declining along with quickness & responsivness of opening new tasks (- which I think in general - my PC could do better, I had a dual-core before that gave me pretty much same results). sabayon always uses the latest drivers {BTW tnx for a great rolling release distro} and Ubuntu is basically too, I had a chance in the past to play with xorg.conf file... but as I said it's not just the video performance.

This is not a bug or something (probably), I'm asking this out of curiosity - think of it: if you have an OS that can outperform other ones and extort every bit of potential that lies in your hardware it's the ideal OS! this is part of the fun in linux (at least 4 me:)

P.S. I still think the answer might be lying within the: OpenRC / systemd / Upstart ...