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SubjectRe: Article in Phoronix about loss of performance in 2.6.35 release candidates
Robert Hancock wrote:
> On 05/31/2010 05:19 PM, Alex Buell wrote:
>> http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=14976
>>
>> Question: Why?
>
> Good question.. I guess it would too much to ask of them to try to
> figure out what area the problem lies in (even to the point of figuring
> out if it's a CPU or IO-bound problem), or try to bisect, or at least
> report it to LKML before going to the trouble of creating 5 pages of
> graphs.. Given the 20x slowdown in some of the benchmarks you'd think it
> wouldn't be too hard to narrow down.

That's true, but 20x should be too hard for people to detect when they do QA
after creating a patch, before sending it to LKML in the first place, either. If
such a regression made it to an -rc1 then it really is kind of a big deal. Of
course Phoronics running the tests on netbook processors is probably a good
thing, I doubt many developers and testers are compiling kernels on a rig like
that, or doing much of anything else demanding.

I guess I would expect people to react with dismay to the fact that such a
problem made it undetected to rc stage, but perhaps I have too much respect for
developers. This looks more like "how dare they not keep it quiet and just tell
us" indignation. In the end I doubt it makes a lot of difference, if someone
posted to LKML and Slashdot picked it up, be sure it would have hit the media
anyway.

Should any media keep a defect quiet when they make their living informing the
readers? I see a lot of glee among Linux users every few days when a new Windows
bug becomes public. Phoronics tested and reported, why is that less honorable
than Tom's Hardware telling us a new CPU sucks?


--
Bill Davidsen <davidsen@tmr.com>
"We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from
the machinations of the wicked." - from Slashdot


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