From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1753038Ab0FAFiU (ORCPT ); Tue, 1 Jun 2010 01:38:20 -0400 Received: from mail.gmx.net ([213.165.64.20]:58085 "HELO mail.gmx.net" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with SMTP id S1752194Ab0FAFiS (ORCPT ); Tue, 1 Jun 2010 01:38:18 -0400 X-Authenticated: #14349625 X-Provags-ID: V01U2FsdGVkX1+U+l9qkiSU1vFplS8nUxYH4URk1kriEXl9k7CTuM K/K/7NqM1qXu0Y Subject: Re: Article in Phoronix about loss of performance in 2.6.35 release candidates From: Mike Galbraith To: Robert Hancock Cc: Bill Davidsen , alex.buell@munted.org.uk, Mailing Lists - Kernel Developers , Dave Airlie In-Reply-To: References: <1275347969.29006.5.camel@lithium.local.net> <4C0448B5.7090904@gmail.com> <4C047B38.9050506@tmr.com> Content-Type: text/plain Date: Tue, 01 Jun 2010 07:38:14 +0200 Message-Id: <1275370694.9751.58.camel@marge.simson.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Evolution 2.24.1.1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Y-GMX-Trusted: 0 Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Mon, 2010-05-31 at 21:22 -0600, Robert Hancock wrote: > On Mon, May 31, 2010 at 9:15 PM, Bill Davidsen wrote: > > Robert Hancock wrote: > >> > >> On 05/31/2010 05:19 PM, Alex Buell wrote: > >>> > >>> http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=14976 > >>> > >>> Question: Why? > >> > >> Good question.. I guess it would too much to ask of them to try to figure > >> out what area the problem lies in (even to the point of figuring out if it's > >> a CPU or IO-bound problem), or try to bisect, or at least report it to LKML > >> before going to the trouble of creating 5 pages of graphs.. Given the 20x > >> slowdown in some of the benchmarks you'd think it wouldn't be too hard to > >> narrow down. > > > > That's true, but 20x should be too hard for people to detect when they do QA > > after creating a patch, before sending it to LKML in the first place, > > either. If such a regression made it to an -rc1 then it really is kind of a > > big deal. Of course Phoronics running the tests on netbook processors is > > probably a good thing, I doubt many developers and testers are compiling > > kernels on a rig like that, or doing much of anything else demanding. > > > > I guess I would expect people to react with dismay to the fact that such a > > problem made it undetected to rc stage, but perhaps I have too much respect > > for developers. This looks more like "how dare they not keep it quiet and > > just tell us" indignation. In the end I doubt it makes a lot of difference, > > if someone posted to LKML and Slashdot picked it up, be sure it would have > > hit the media anyway. > > > > Should any media keep a defect quiet when they make their living informing > > the readers? I see a lot of glee among Linux users every few days when a new > > Windows bug becomes public. Phoronics tested and reported, why is that less > > honorable than Tom's Hardware telling us a new CPU sucks? > > Of course they shouldn't keep it quiet. The problem is they went and > wrote an article that was basically "OMG HUGE PERFORMANCE LOSS!!1!!" > without reporting the problem to people that can actually do something > about it, and also didn't provide any very useful details like dmesg, > config, etc. that might let someone figure out what's going on. Shrug. If eggshells land in our omelet, they can make a buck telling people about it. Who cares? If tasty bacon bits land, they'll make a buck on that event. Either way, we get some test coverage. -Mike