nothing like an "objective" os comparison to liven up a relatively young list :> lmbench is a suite of microbenchmarks designed to measure various os functions. it's pretty well-accepted as a good way to profile an operating system. ( more info: http://www.bitmover.com/lmbench ) i see from the archives that lmbench numbers were last posted in may. hope i'm not revisiting the topic too soon. These numbers came from a g4 400 powerbook, with netbsd, linux, and os x installed. For kicks, you can see how results vary with several recent OS X updates. netbsd-powerpc is basically the GENERIC kernel, recompiled to not have lots of drivers for hardware not present on the laptop. linux is from the "benh" tree: it's got better support for the hardware, but as far as core os features should be similar to a kernel.org kernel. I've got 2 or three runs for each kernel, just in case there's an outlying freak result for one. An empty slot for a test means that for some reason the test was not run. (in the case of netbsd, i disabled the rpc tests because they just hung and never completed. the other no-results are mysteries to me) i would classify the load going on while these tests were running as "normal idle workstation" ( e.g. mozilla was loaded, but i wasn't actively browsing the web ) Darwin, or more likely the mach sublayer, has significantly higher overhead for several classes of operating system functions ( most notably, context switch, file latency, and VM latency ). would the darwin kernel hackers mind elaborating on some of the reasons why? Thanks ==rob -- Rob Latham Allentown, PA USA EAE8 DE90 85BB 526F 3181 1FCF 51C4 B6CB 08CC 0897 -- Rob Latham Allentown, PA USA EAE8 DE90 85BB 526F 3181 1FCF 51C4 B6CB 08CC 0897 Subject: lmbench numbers lmbench is a suite of microbenchmarks designed to measure various os functions. it's pretty well-accepted as a good way to profile an operating system. ( more info: http://www.bitmover.com/lmbench ) i see from the archives that lmbench numbers were last posted in may. hope i'm not revisiting the topic too soon. These numbers came from a g4 400 powerbook, with netbsd, linux, and os x installed. For kicks, you can see how results vary with several recent OS X updates. netbsd-powerpc is basically the GENERIC kernel, recompiled to not have lots of drivers for hardware not present on the laptop. linux is from the "benh" tree: it's got better support for the hardware, but as far as core os features should be similar to a kernel.org kernel. I've got 2 or three runs for each kernel, just in case there's an outlying freak result for one. An empty slot for a test means that for some reason the test was not run. (in the case of netbsd, i disabled the rpc tests because they just hung and never completed. the other no-results are mysteries to me) i would classify the load going on while these tests were running as "normal idle workstation" ( e.g. mozilla was loaded, but i wasn't actively browsing the web ) Darwin, or more likely the mach sublayer, has significantly higher overhead for several classes of operating system functions ( most notably, context switch, file latency, and VM latency ). would the darwin kernel hackers mind elaborating on some of the reasons why? Thanks ==rob -- Rob Latham Allentown, PA USA EAE8 DE90 85BB 526F 3181 1FCF 51C4 B6CB 08CC 0897