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Ubuntu squeezes more performance than Windows 11 on new AMD Zen 4 Threadripper

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Re: Ubuntu squeezes more performance than Windows 11 on new AMD Zen 4 Threadripper

#361
post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NTFS has had several updates over the years, and supports trim just fine. Of course, that doesn't make it comparable to ext4 or zfs or whatever, but I wouldn't expect it to be the worst bottleneck in the system.

Some updates, but it's still old. There is only so much you can do while still maintaining Microsoft's legendary backwards compatibility. For example I'm running Windows 11 Pro on this machine with a brand new NVME. "fsutil.exe fsinfo ntfsinfo c:" tells me [0] I'm running NTFS v3.1 which was released 22 years ago [1]. [0] https://i.imgur.com/VcXNO4P.png [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS

> There is only so much you can do while still maintaining Microsoft's legendary backwards compatibility.

...like adding support for more filesystems.

I'm curious about what (and when) other parts of the IO stack have been updated. Something has to have changed to add trim support: I'm guessing the scheduler.

Re: Ubuntu squeezes more performance than Windows 11 on new AMD Zen 4 Threadripper

#362
post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Arch is terrible due to their bare testing package release policy. It is NOT. This is biggest mystery I have about people's perception about Arch Linux. Arch provides latest upstream stable packages unlike point releases. NOT developer branches of packages BUT STABLE versions of package as soon as it is available. Point releases like ubuntu gives you old versions of software. And backport security patches against t…

> It is NOT. It is. Arch has an explicit policy that if there are breaking issues with a package, they will push it regardless and it is your task to read about these yourself in the package update/release messages. No sane person is going to do that for the many many packages that their system is comprised of. SUSE holds fresh packages for a little bit and puts them through a more rigorous testing process, before pu…

Hi,

This is an interesting point you make. I agree that this is a policy and I am not a fan as well. The solution is keeping an eye on the forums and news. But yeah, it can sound problematic. But like I mentioned just above in my comments, zero issues with just sudo pacman -Syu for the last 5 years. I have only done manual intervention twice, both times as per https://archlinux.org/news/. One was something I can't recall and recently JRE, JDK. It didn't break.

Tumbleweed updates are big batches because of the way they update. Which I am not a fant of as well. Not to mention, I am a big fan of Arch community. More over, albeit only hearing good things about OpenSUSE (AUR is based on OpenSUSE tech IIRC), I would like to use only community led/oriented distros. They are always better for the end users. Especially Arch, whatever technical problems exists, they are always improving things. Look at the archinstall. Now I can have a new arch install in like <5 mins.

Re: Ubuntu squeezes more performance than Windows 11 on new AMD Zen 4 Threadripper

#363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are never having to faff about with registry, then you are either lucky or using a different OS. I include installing a fresh copy of Windows to resolve the inevitable corrosion that Windows has over time.

> I include installing a fresh copy of Windows to resolve the inevitable corrosion that Windows has over time. Remember that one from the past and countless times I had to do this for others because Windows would become a mess. Nowadays I just upgrade old Linux distros running for 5+ years because of security concerns or out of boredom. Magically still running same as fresh install

One of my favorite things about NixOS is that this problem is permanently solved.

Re: Ubuntu squeezes more performance than Windows 11 on new AMD Zen 4 Threadripper

#364
post #326

In the context of Linux adoption on the desktop it is not big news, unfortunately. To my mind, overall end-user experience is already better in Linux compared to Windows where similar tasks are more complicated, even before the raw performance starts to matter . Better performance would be a prerequisite indeed - no one wants to move a slower OS - but then there must be other convincing reasons to drive the desktop u…

The end user experience is way better on Windows than Linux. And I say that as someone who uses Linux (Ubuntu Gnome) daily. You really have to appreciate the freedom of choice that FOSS brings you to appreciate Linux. If you don't care, as most people do, you're probably better off with Windows. Ofcourse you can counter my reasoning by listing a lot of problems with Windows. And I can assure you that most people don'…

> The end user experience is way better on Windows than Linux.

Window management in Windows 10 is so terrible that it makes TWM look modern.

Cluterred title bars so you need to aim for some free space to be able to move the window on other monitor, 1px window borders - good luck resizing windows on HD and UHD monitors. Gray on gray. Terrible scrollbars.

And the best one: Programs keeping files open after you close them.

Re: Ubuntu squeezes more performance than Windows 11 on new AMD Zen 4 Threadripper

#365
post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider that your display can only do 0-100 brightness (not really but for sake of argument) In SDR, you map the full SDR range (also 0-100) to that 0-100. When you add HDR, you’re now adding levels above 100 (let’s say 0-200). If your display can only do upto 100, you now need to put all the 0-100 stuff in 0-50. Or you get a display that can also display 0-200. Very few computer displays can do over a standard SDR…

But why isn't SDR then scaled from 0-200, then? That is, why isn't "fully bright SDR" mapped to "fully bright HDR"?

What context are you talking about?

In single mode where it’s just SDR, it’s mapped to take the full range of the display up to whatever is deemed a comfortable cap.

In a mixed HDR/SDR mode, the H is range above the S , so it doesn’t make sense to scale it up. I prefer Apple’s terminology of Extended Dynamic Range because it’s clearer that its range above the SDR range.

Now you could say that you intend for that SDR to be treated as HDR, but without extra information you don’t know what the scaling should be. Doing a naive linear scale will always look wrong.

Re: Ubuntu squeezes more performance than Windows 11 on new AMD Zen 4 Threadripper

#366

Not surprised though, with AMD being able to patch the Linux kernel and scheduler to its liking in order to squeeze out the maximum performance for it's architecture, versus depending on Microsoft to have the good will to figure it out on their own dime. I'd be curious if the businesses buying these $20k+, 96-core, HEDT workstations actually do run Windows on them in order for this to be that big of a problem for Mic…

> "...depending on Microsoft to have the good will to figure it out on their own dime."

They don't have to figure it out on their own; everybody maintains close contact. For example, Intel has a field office literally one block away from Microsoft's main campus. One would assume AMD also has a field office similarly near by. (EDIT: they do, a couple of blocks further.)

Re: Ubuntu squeezes more performance than Windows 11 on new AMD Zen 4 Threadripper

#367
post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My latest PC was a pretty randomly chosen Chinese PC from Amazon that advertised Ubuntu compatibility. In other words, except that advantage to slowly slip away from Microsoft too. It's been years since I really put any effort into checking before buying - it had gotten to the point I could assume that issues would be minor and/or resolved soon after purchase.

Those PC's look like great value and availability and are clearly very popular - have squeezed out other options like Intel NUC. Very tempting. But I've heard that you pretty much never get a BIOS update and the quality of any such update is going to be dubious. Nothing sinister about this - it is simply a bargain basement option. So, you are really throwing security out the window.

I've never in my life applied a bios update. It's really not on any list of things I'd care about.

Re: Ubuntu squeezes more performance than Windows 11 on new AMD Zen 4 Threadripper

#368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those PC's look like great value and availability and are clearly very popular - have squeezed out other options like Intel NUC. Very tempting. But I've heard that you pretty much never get a BIOS update and the quality of any such update is going to be dubious. Nothing sinister about this - it is simply a bargain basement option. So, you are really throwing security out the window.

Security shouldn't be much of an issue with most modern CPUs. The microcode can be updated at boot time by the kernel, even if the one loaded by the BIOS is out of date. So microcode level patches are taken care of. That leaves attacks on secure boot, which could be feasible with a bad implementation, but I doubt most home users would have to worry about an evil maid attack.

Yeah, it's just not a factor. If it was a laptop that I randomly left unattended a lot or used on unsecured networks, maybe I'd care.

Re: Ubuntu squeezes more performance than Windows 11 on new AMD Zen 4 Threadripper

#369
post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some updates, but it's still old. There is only so much you can do while still maintaining Microsoft's legendary backwards compatibility. For example I'm running Windows 11 Pro on this machine with a brand new NVME. "fsutil.exe fsinfo ntfsinfo c:" tells me [0] I'm running NTFS v3.1 which was released 22 years ago [1]. [0] https://i.imgur.com/VcXNO4P.png [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS

> There is only so much you can do while still maintaining Microsoft's legendary backwards compatibility. ...like adding support for more filesystems. I'm curious about what (and when) other parts of the IO stack have been updated. Something has to have changed to add trim support: I'm guessing the scheduler.

Indeed. It's impressive how they managed to extend it.

Wikipedia provides some hints:

> Although subsequent versions of Windows added new file system-related features, they did not change NTFS itself. For example, Windows Vista implemented NTFS symbolic links, Transactional NTFS, partition shrinking, and self-healing.[21] NTFS symbolic links are a new feature in the file system; all the others are new operating system features that make use of NTFS features already in place.

If I had to guess, most of these new functionalities leverage NTFS metadata: https://ntfs.com/ntfs-system-files.htm

Re: Ubuntu squeezes more performance than Windows 11 on new AMD Zen 4 Threadripper

#370
post #326

In the context of Linux adoption on the desktop it is not big news, unfortunately. To my mind, overall end-user experience is already better in Linux compared to Windows where similar tasks are more complicated, even before the raw performance starts to matter . Better performance would be a prerequisite indeed - no one wants to move a slower OS - but then there must be other convincing reasons to drive the desktop u…

The end user experience is way better on Windows than Linux. And I say that as someone who uses Linux (Ubuntu Gnome) daily. You really have to appreciate the freedom of choice that FOSS brings you to appreciate Linux. If you don't care, as most people do, you're probably better off with Windows. Ofcourse you can counter my reasoning by listing a lot of problems with Windows. And I can assure you that most people don'…

I'm not sure I agree that "most people don't care about the stuff you (as a Linux user) would care about". Some people put up with Windows problems because they don't know it could be different, to them that's just how computers work. Take automatic updates for example. More than once have I heard from a friend how they lost unsaved work or an overnight render because their PC rebooted for updates. While on Linux months long uptimes are the norm, and you can trust it won't reboot on you out of blue. Same with ads and other Windows annoyances.

Other people are bound to Windows by their software needs. You're right that many important programs are just not available on Linux (to your Office example I'd also add the Adobe suite). But the end user experience of Windows itself has been downright abysmal for a long time now, and for casual users who don't need much besides Chrome and a couple other Electron apps, modern Linux desktop might genuinely be the better choice.

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