Performance (Score 3, Informative)

Ok, before you read any further remember that this is NOT accurate, tested or anyhow valid information. Some of this is purely psychological and has got NOTHING to do with real benchmarks.

I've been running 2.4 series with CK [1] patches. I'm unfortunately using somewhat low-end hardware (P200MHz) and hence I really appreciate performance. I switched to linux-2.6.0-test8 only a week ago, so again this isn't really the best source of information.

Anyhow, I'm so far REALLY happy with performance of 2.6.0-test8. Before the switch, I was using 2.4.22-ck1 which was a lot worse performance-wise than my previous kernel, .20-ck6. Didn't switch back just yet because I had compiled in some stuff I needed and it takes a while to compile a new kernel with this hardware.

Linux-2.6.0-test8 has done A LOT better than .22-ck1, and it has seemed even more responsive in normal use (IRC, web surfing, MP3s etc) than .20-ck6 which I was already happy with. Responsiveness shows in switching desktops when browser is doing things, starting things and playing MP3s at the same time.

And yes, as I said in the beginning, most of this is purely psychological and inaccurate. Slower hardware of course benefits more even from smallest performance gains. Then again, I don't believe that 2.6 will be The Thing for serious production enviroments for a while, it's not mature enough yet. But for me -- for desktop use -- great!

[1] http://members.optusnet.com.au/ckolivas/kernel/ (Con Kolivas' kernel patches that aim to a more responsive system)