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Ask HN: Is there any tool for benchmarking responsiveness for Linux?

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Re: Ask HN: Is there any tool for benchmarking responsiveness for Linux?

#21

Post by timetraveller26 »

sgc wrote: post #15
assemblylang wrote: post #12

IIRC the Zen Linux kernel[0] is designed to be more responsive for desktop usage than the mainline Linux kernel. I wonder what metrics these tools would provide on the same exact system except with the 2 different kernels. (also see Liquorix patch set for additional patches on top of Zen[1]) [0] https://github.com/zen-kernel/zen-kernel [1] https://liquorix.net/

Anybody out there using this? Thinking of trying it on my older thinkpad.

I use it on my w530. It feels fast and responsive, but I haven't done a proper test or anything.

One of the good things it's that includes patches that allow Anbox to run so I can use Android apps.

Re: Ask HN: Is there any tool for benchmarking responsiveness for Linux?

#23

Post by throwaway8582 »

I've used `cyclictest` for this before, it's a simple command line application that measures how long it takes to wake up and run a user space process in response to an interrupt. I've used it in the context of minimizing latency for network and audio applications. I'm not sure how much this relates to desktop application responsiveness as there are additional layers involved.

Re: Ask HN: Is there any tool for benchmarking responsiveness for Linux?

#24

Post by AtlasBarfed »

That would be some tough things to measure.

How much can you slow down a cpu anyway? Can you slow it to 1/10th its clock speed? I would think the best way to measure things like this is to slow down the overall system speed as much as possible.

Re: Ask HN: Is there any tool for benchmarking responsiveness for Linux?

#25

Post by gfd »

Underphil wrote: post #5
jrockway wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me the question is how do you use that method to measure keyboard responsiveness? On the camera, you can't quite tell when the key was "supposed" to trigger. I've done these measurements by having a keypress toggle an LED on the keyboard (in firmware), but that glosses over the matrix scan (and potentially debouncing if you implement that wrong). All in all, I've never been fully satisfied there. Maybe you need a…

Or use the caps lock key and have that reflected on screen.

Is the caps lock LED even implemented in hardware? I feel like I remember them not responding if my computer freezes but I could be wrong.

Re: Ask HN: Is there any tool for benchmarking responsiveness for Linux?

#26

Post by stefan_ »

The linux-rt project has a variety of test programs for this:

https://wiki.linuxfoundation.org/realtime/documentation/howt...

But beware, "scheduling latency" has very little to do with responsiveness as it would appear to a user of some desktop environment.

Re: Ask HN: Is there any tool for benchmarking responsiveness for Linux?

#27

Post by marcodiego »

If the computer is slow enough under load, you can use wall clock to count many seconds it takes to start a program that needs to load many libs and data (LibreOffice, Firefox, Blender, GIMP).

You can also watch FPS of supertuxkart when the system is under load: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5bAOJkX_uc https://github.com/hakavlad/le9-patch

But yes, we need a popular well behaved benchmark to measure desktop responsiveness.

Re: Ask HN: Is there any tool for benchmarking responsiveness for Linux?

#28

Post by assemblylang »

1_player wrote: post #14
assemblylang wrote: post #12

IIRC the Zen Linux kernel[0] is designed to be more responsive for desktop usage than the mainline Linux kernel. I wonder what metrics these tools would provide on the same exact system except with the 2 different kernels. (also see Liquorix patch set for additional patches on top of Zen[1]) [0] https://github.com/zen-kernel/zen-kernel [1] https://liquorix.net/

Liquorix isn't the Zen kernel, but it's a set of patches on top of Linux, including Zen among others. https://github.com/zen-kernel/zen-kernel

Thanks for the correction, updated the post

Re: Ask HN: Is there any tool for benchmarking responsiveness for Linux?

#29

Post by unwind »

I wonder if Ben Heck's "Controller Monitor" [1] would help. It's a dedicated low-level (microcontroller-driven) high-speed input sampling/logging platform, with support for reading a light sensor which I believe is used to sense on-screen changes.

It has the advantage of using game console joypads as inputs, and hacking them to read the buttons etc directly, i.e. without relying on USB. I imagine a specialized version that just sampled a mouse button would be more useful in the context of a computer running desktop apps.

Apologies if I completely misunderstood the intent of this post.

[1] https://www.benheck.com/xbox1monitor/

Re: Ask HN: Is there any tool for benchmarking responsiveness for Linux?

#30

Post by halz »

Weird, the measurement scale they use does not jive with the scale of the knobs being tweaked. For example, `sched_cfs_bandwidth_slice_us` is adjusted by the project's `bandwidth_size` knob. The default is 5000 us, or 5 ms. But the knob they mention it being '5 us'. Same goes for scheduling latency-- its not `us`, its `ms`.

And afaik, the 'sauce' used in Liquorix is MuQSS, by Con Kolivas. But the project has been put on ice somewhat recently[0].

[0]https://ck-hack.blogspot.com/2021/08/514-and-future-of-muqss...

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