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authorSamuel Thibault <samuel.thibault@ens-lyon.org>2013-03-17 14:28:50 +0100
committerSamuel Thibault <samuel.thibault@ens-lyon.org>2013-03-17 14:28:50 +0100
commitde92647ad706c6784e60592f6a95428c53a91814 (patch)
tree7df8543970d1e94242bace7035d4dc4ea8172aaa
parent5672d307c7d2cd6bbc55bd8ffd3ad31954488e26 (diff)
more comments about slowness
-rw-r--r--faq/slow.mdwn14
1 files changed, 10 insertions, 4 deletions
diff --git a/faq/slow.mdwn b/faq/slow.mdwn
index 831be01f..cb6c4655 100644
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@@ -10,11 +10,17 @@ License|/fdl]]."]]"""]]
[[!meta title="Is the Hurd slow?"]]
-The Hurd is currently slower than Linux, yes.
+The Hurd is currently slower than Linux, yes. But not very much, so it is
+completely usable.
-The main reason is *not* because of the overhead of RPCs. It's simply because
-less care has been done on implementing what makes Linux fast: intelligent
-read-ahead, carefully-tuned page cache, etc.
+Take care when running the Hurd in fully-virtualized machines: virtualization
+software use ugly heuristics to make Linux run faster, which will not work on
+the Hurd (or BSD, etc.) so comparisons in virtualized environments do not really
+hold.
+
+The main reason for slowness is *not* because of the overhead of RPCs. It's
+mostly simply because less care has been done on implementing what makes Linux
+fast: intelligent read-ahead, carefully-tuned page cache, etc.
There is no ground reason this can not be achieved on GNU/Hurd, it has just not
been a priority until now (first make it work, then make it work fast). We are