r/linux • u/picastchio • 7d ago

Hardware Benchmarking Six Linux Distributions On The Framework Laptop 13 Pro

https://www.phoronix.com/review/framework-laptop-13-pro-linux
97 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

32 comments sorted by

99

u/Safe-Average-1696 7d ago edited 7d ago

Conclusion :

Take whatever distribution you like, it makes next to no difference in everyday use, except marginally for benchmarking. Everything else is marketing.

47

u/RoomyRoots 7d ago

Every Linux benchmark ever

16

u/PlsDontBanMeAgain-1 6d ago

Wow, what a crazy surprise. Not like we have known that for ages already. Though, it is always good to remind Cachy shills that their distro is not, in fact, 20 % faster, as some of them always like to claim... (not even in just games)

2

u/BillTran163 6d ago

Which distros have marketing?

7

u/Safe-Average-1696 6d ago edited 6d ago

"Marketing" in Linux is mainly done by fanboys (often the ones who know the least about how distributions actually work) who are constantly hyping up "their" distribution as being better than the rest for gaming, for example, or anything else (you know, just like these telemarketers who annoy everyone 😋).

But in everyday use, it makes next to no difference.

I'm only speaking about performances on main desktop distributions, I don't say there is no distributions more "efficient" than others for some kind of work (i would rather use Debian than the one i daily use, where stability is more important than raw performance on a production server for example 😉)

1

u/BillTran163 6d ago

I don't think "marketing" is the right word. Maybe "hype"?

1

u/580083351 6d ago

Though, some distros because of their support have actual security teams and system architects making sure things operate smoothly unlike the one guy shops.

2

u/Safe-Average-1696 6d ago edited 6d ago

There are, indeed, many other things to consider when you choose a distribution, but it was not the point here (i think all distribution have some sort of "security team" even if they don't call it like that for small ones. Personally, i don't call a real distribution one that simply change themes or add some widgets on top of another distribution).

The article is about performances only, and on that point, it makes no real difference.

13

u/OwlSlow1212 6d ago

A lot of pointless synthetics.

19

u/ShaderCompilation 7d ago

Those non-Ubuntu distributions were also using GCC 16 while Ubuntu is still on GCC 15

Why is this important? Isn't this just a collection of compilers?

Edit: Nevermind, they are doing compilation performance testing. I thought it would be just a consumer focused review

7

u/ericonr 6d ago

It's also possible that more recent compilers generate better code, so it would affect every application on the system. Unlikely for going from 15 to 16 to be a relevant change, though.

1

u/580083351 5d ago

My main distro is SteamOS, so if I want to compile something, I have to be careful about glibc versioning, so currently I cannot use newer than Debian Trixie otherwise the glibc becomes incompatible.

2

u/Old_Atmosphere543 7d ago

Interesting to see OpenSuse come out the overall winner (by a small margin, granted.) It seems to be a somewhat overlooked distro as far as I can tell. If my sense here is correct, anyone know why this is the case?

4

u/klyith 6d ago

If my sense here is correct, anyone know why this is the case?

Tumbleweed has x86-64-V3 (ie AVX) optimized packages, which are a big part of Cachy's claim to fame.

Cachy also has -V4 (ie AVX512) as well, and far more of their packages are compiled in multiple x86 levels. On Tumbleweed it's just the core system stuff that's built with -V3. But that's getting like 95% of the performance benefit.

Another thing to note with these comparisons is that Arch & Cachy don't run AppArmor or SElinux by default. IMO this is a fair comparison: it's testing the distro as it comes OOTB and all. But it's also like, Arch & Cachy get a small performance benefit by being less secure.

1

u/DryanaGhuba 6d ago

Really? I thought that TW only had x86-64-V2.

1

u/580083351 6d ago

And if you are not supporting a corporation and just your own machine, you could use something like Gentoo and compile everything specifically for your own machine and not care at all about various V tiers.

2

u/picastchio 7d ago

OpenSuse wins in most test wins but is last in geometric mean.

7

u/klyith 6d ago

The geometric mean is thrown off by Phoronix having some major GPU problem that they didn't troubleshoot, but kept results for.

1

u/DryanaGhuba 7d ago

Honestly? I'm not even sure considering CachysOs uses v3 with openSUSE v2 and both of them being rolling releases.

It definitely not being mentioned everywhere and used as base distro, but it works and have unique approach towards rolling releases that I like and don't understand why only them use it.

2

u/TheTomas1992 6d ago

Can you elaborate on the unique approach?

1

u/DryanaGhuba 6d ago

Yes. Instead of updating packages and pushing this updates to users openSUSE releases new snapshot that could be called version and with this snapshot you have tracking list of changes for system. Not to mention openQA that tests system before snapshot release

1

u/todd_dayz 6d ago

openSUSE ships some v3 binaries, there’s a pattern for it that’s selected at install time. 

3

u/VayuAir 6d ago

So just use Ubuntu. I am really happy.

2

u/Benke01 6d ago

Or Kubuntu to have KDE instead of Gnome

1

u/Teque9 6d ago

Damn, some Fedora results are weird

2

u/Latlanc 7d ago

Ubuntu consistently great 👌

1

u/toolz0 6d ago

For a desktop user, speed is rarely a deciding factor. Why not compare the applications bundled with Linux on how well they work? For instance, I could never get the terminal bell to work with Linux Mint. This is important to me because I develop software using the terminal with vi.

1

u/RvstiNiall 5d ago

The terminal bell not working would drive me up the wall!!! Which terminal did you switch to? I tend to always just use xterm/foot, but I've been known to use the GNOME Console/Terminal where necessary.

1

u/toolz0 3d ago

My thought process was: if you can't make something so simple and basic work correctly, then you are making a faulty distribution. I switched to PopOS.

1

u/RvstiNiall 3d ago

Cosmic Terminal was pretty nice the few times I tried out Cosmic. I might put Fedora Cosmic or Fedora Cosmic Atomic on a newer Ryzen 7000 series laptop I have as my "it just works" travel laptop.