Making Operating Systems Faster

mbrowling writes "In an article over at kernelthread.com Amit Singh discusses 'Ten Things Apple Did To Make Mac OS X Faster'. The theme seems to be that since you won't run into 'earth-shattering algorithmic breakthroughs' in every OS releases, what're you gonna do to bump your performance numbers higher? Although the example used is OS X, the article points out that Windows uses the same approach."

#1 thing Apple should do...

[xenostar]

...to make OS X faster is to stop having it render the GUI through Photoshop filters.

The Only True Solution

[Pike65]

More hamsters!

Re:Faster?

[Smidge204]

Phase 1: Release software that has been deliberately (but discreetly) crippled in performance

Phase 2: Re-release same software under a different name or version, only uncrippled. Claim massive performance improvements.

Phase 3: Profit as everyone upgrades/migrates to your product because of the great performance reviews

Hey, it seems to work for AOL, and I bet it could work for Microsoft!
=Smidge=

Re:One word:

[tomknight]

Hard Drive

That's two words.

Tom.

Making Linux Faster

[turgid]

For you noobs out there, here's how to make Linux faster.

Download yourself the latest cutting-edge gcc from the 3.5.0 branch on CVS and do a make bootstrap. Install this over your original C compiler.

Get the latest 2.6.7-preX kernel from kernel.org and configure it with no modules: everything build it. Modules slow you down.

Enable all the EXPERIMENTAL drivers. They are ususally much faster than the old ones that may have been in the kernel now for 6 or more months.

When you have saved your configuration, hack the top level Makefile to add "-O9 -fomit-instructions" in the CFLAGS macro.

time gmake -j64 bootstrap. Even if you have a single CPU system, building with lots of processes in parallel is faster because it soaks up CPU idle time when waiting on I/O operations.

Enjoy.

Easy!

[Just Some Guy]

CFLAGS="-O99 -march=p4 -fomit-frame-pointer"

At least, that's what I heard on IRC. Oh, and use about a gram of silicone grease on the northbridge - that'll speed up your RAM.

Re:How I would improve the speed of the system...

[nekoniku]

> I'm *really* tempted to roll my own OS and
> applications

MeOS?

Easy, economic solution

[HungWeiLo]

device=himem.sys
device=emm386.exe noems
files=40
buffers=10
smartdrv c+ 10000

Re:Optimize Windows...

[cortez]

Step 1: Buy a G5 Mac.
Step 2: There is no step 2!!!

Re:Easy!

[MobyTurbo]

CFLAGS="-O99 -march=p4 -fomit-frame-pointer"

You forgot

-fomit-code

That really speeds up the compile.