Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!mcvax!botter!ast
From: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: an interesting glitch  + minix benchmarks (long)
Message-ID: <1771@botter.cs.vu.nl>
Date: 3 Dec 87 09:18:01 GMT
References: <760@louie.udel.EDU>
Reply-To: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
Organization: VU Informatica, Amsterdam
Lines: 33

In article <760@louie.udel.EDU> Leisner.Henr@xerox.com (Marty) writes:
>I wrote the following benchmarks quickly to have a measure of system
>performance:
[benchmarks follow]

Just for the fun of it, I ran the benchmarks too, on a Zenith Z-248 AT clone
with 1 MB RAM disk and on a VAX 11-/750 running 4.1BSD.  Here are my results
and Marty's:

Test that forked 1,000,000 times (with 1K stack):

	Marty	Z-248	11/750
real	25.0	19.0	40.0
user	 1.6	 0.8	 1.6
sys	18.4	15.2	36.0


Test that pushed 1 MB through a pipe:

	Marty	Z-248	11/750
real	17.0	 9.0	 7.0
user	 1.0	 0.0	 0.5
sys	14.0	 1.9	 5.6

This measure suggests that Marty's machine is pushing 59 kbytes/sec though the
pipe (although he claims 80, so I may have misunderstood something).  The
Z-248 is getting 111 kbytes/sec, the 11/750 with 4.1BSD is getting 143 
kbytes/sec, and Marty claims an 11/780 running 4.3BSD gets 120 kbytes/sec.
Taken together, these measurements suggest that the raw compute power of
a fast AT running MINIX, even using its much maligned C compiler, is at
least in the same general league as a small VAX.

Andy Tanenbaum (ast@cs.vu.nl)