
Even with a $199 Laptop, Clear Linux Can Offer Superior Performance - bsg75
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=clear-199-laptop
======
zaat
I have no idea why phoronix isn't highlighting the reason for Clear Linux
superior performance, it isn't magic:

Clear Linux OS sets the CPU governor to performance which calls for the CPU to
operate at maximum clock frequency. In other words, P-state P0. While this may
sound wasteful at first, it is important to remember that power utilization
does not increase significantly simply because of a locked clock frequency
without a workload.

from:
[https://docs.01.org/clearlinux/latest/guides/maintenance/cpu...](https://docs.01.org/clearlinux/latest/guides/maintenance/cpu-
performance.html)

The only reference in the article for this is in the compiler details box,
where you can see that all the distributions run the ondemand governor, and
Clear runs with performance.

~~~
yjftsjthsd-h
So, what's the catch? Why doesn't everybody do that?

~~~
ebg13
> thermald is a Linux thermal management daemon used to prevent the
> overheating of platforms.

> By default, thermald is disabled in Clear Linux OS.

It sounds like the catch is that your computer will happily fry itself.

~~~
Rebelgecko
I thought CPUs and GPUs throttled themselves to keep the thermals safe?

~~~
murderfs
Safe for the CPU is a pretty low bar: the Tjunction of their latest mobile
CPUs is 100°C, and I'm pretty sure most users would not be very happy with
using a laptop at that temperature.

~~~
zozbot234
Some laptop models (particularly the more "fruity" ones) get _awfully_ close
to that Tjunction number. Close enough that there's most likely a decent case
that the hardware _is_ taking quite a bit of actual wear and tear from those
temperatures.

------
drewg123
This is their second recent article about linux laptops, and I have seen no
mention of battery life. While its nice to have a 15% faster OS, I would also
like to know how the battery life differs between various distros (and
Windows).

~~~
dyingkneepad
I should note that power and performance are _not_ opposites. Good power
management ensures you don't waste power, which helps you draw all you need
when you need it by the component that needs it. Good power management often
helps overall performance.

One thing that it often works against is latency, because it takes time to
wake up things that are sleeping. But that is really not something you should
care about if you're using a laptop. Your laptop is not servicing Google
search results.

~~~
drewg123
Yes, it often does in a broad sense. But there is a lot more to power
management. Things like putting busses and devices into low power states when
idle, and batching up I/O so that devices can spend most of their time in low-
power states. Scheduler tweaks to idle most of the cores, etc.

------
AdmiralAsshat
It's worth noting that the $199 price tag for this laptop may be inaccurate or
temporary. I looked it up on Wal-Mart's website just a moment ago and it shows
$279, marked down from $500:

[https://www.walmart.com/ip/Vega-HDMI-Front-RAM-Rose-
FHD-4GB-...](https://www.walmart.com/ip/Vega-HDMI-Front-RAM-Rose-FHD-4GB-
display-AMD-128GB-Tuned-Camera-Radeon-14-Ryzen-Gold-720P-THX-Graphics-IR-SSD-
Laptop-3-MOTILE-Spatial-Performance-Aud/708573214)

Not saying it wasn't $200 at the time he bought it, just saying that he
might've bought it on sale (there was probably a bunch of Linux enthusiasts
clamoring, "There's a laptop on sale for $200 at Wal-Mart that can run
Linux!"); it doesn't appear to be its retail price anymore.

------
zh3
It's more aout getting rid of what slows you down (bloatware/fat distros) than
it is about linux (the kernel) itself.

Who else finds that animations/smooth scrolling just breaks the flow/gets in
the way?

~~~
zozbot234
Smooth animation can be critically important when dragging, swiping or
performing "fine" scrolling motions, either with a mouse/touchpad or on a
touchscreen. Because then lags and freezes are what "gets in the way" and
breaks the flow. Otherwise, yes, _most_ animations just add latency for no
good reason.

~~~
hazeii
Interesting point to discuss, because I find animations etc slow things down
and for me that breaks flow (if I'm using sharp tools, I want instant
response).

------
bxparks
Is 4GB enough with the current web browsers and web pages? It feels like 8GB
is the minimum for normal users, and 16GB is the minimum for software
developers. I have a 4GB Chromebook and a 4GB MacBookAir, and they are both
somewhat painful to use these days, even with ad blockers.

~~~
pgcj_poster
I have never owned a computer with more than 4GB of RAM. It's fine as long as
you don't embed separate copies of chromium in your text editor, IRC-
substitute, and music player.

~~~
pdimitar
More RAM -- and using the ECC kind -- definitely improved my compilation
speeds.

But maybe your workflow doesn't include compilation?

~~~
cellularmitosis
Was that a non sequitur or are you saying that ECC ram had an impact on
compilation speed?

------
dlbucci
I was just thinking about this this morning. I feel like any time I update the
OS on a device it gets slower, and was wondering if there was some OS focused
on being fast (and hopefully battery-efficient). Maybe I'll have to try
throwing Clear Linux on my old 2011 notebook and seeing how it does!

~~~
zozbot234
> I feel like any time I update the OS on a device it gets slower

Never had this problem on Debian Linux, FWIW - even when upgrading to a new
release. Of course sometimes stuff gets marginally slower due to new security
mitigations or whatever, but not in a way that's even perceptible, let alone
catastrophic.

~~~
ailideex
Never felt this on Fedora either, to the contrary actually.

------
bitL
Intel really hit the jackpot with Clear Linux, it's the best performing distro
for Machine Learning/Deep Learning now, often being 30% faster than regular
distros like Ubuntu. Not sure how they did it, but I am enjoying it very much!
Thanks!

~~~
mixmastamyk
Consensus above is performance governor and compiler flags.

------
gen3
What makes Clear Linux so much faster then other distributions?

~~~
dyingkneepad
I may be wrong here, but as far as I understand one of the major advantages is
simply that they have many versions of certain important libraries in your
system and are able to select the one that better matches your hardware. Most
distros are super generic and none of the system libraries are making use of
instructions that are not present in _all_ of the x86-64 machines ever
released.

It makes me really sad that other distros are not following Clear's lead here.

~~~
bitwize
Other (binary) distros are solving for a different problem: providing a good-
enough generic base that runs on most systems.

If you want everything micro-optimized to your particular system's hardware
configuration, you know where to find Gentoo.

~~~
zlynx
Although Clear does it with prebuilt binary libraries. No need to compile your
own.

------
metalliqaz
It would be interesting to see how it fares against Peppermint, which is known
for working really well on low-end hardware.

Also, I'm curious if Clear Linux is also fast on hardware that is slow not
because it is cheap but because it is old. Would it speed up my Core2Duo
laptop?

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RachelF
It will be interesting to see how these benchmarks look with more memory.

Could it be that Windows just eats more base memory than Linux, and the
benchmark apps do not have enough memory to run under Windows?

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Paraesthetic
Yeah that's great and all until you want to play any decent game then its not
supported or chews 1 million gigawatts of power. Yay for performance mode!

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haunter
This might sound stupid but does that also affect gaming performance, or
simply Wine and/or Proton?

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Neil44
I'm really surprised that the OS makes so much difference to CPU bound tasks.

~~~
axaxs
Not to discredit Clear's work at all, but it's not so much the 'OS' in
standard parlance, it's still just another Linux distro. It's down to compiler
flags and optimizations, which generally anyone can do given they have the
time and patience.

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ebg13
And it does that largely by disabling all thermal management. Thanks, but...

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stiray
Intel probably just compiled it with their own compiler, purpose built for
their cpus. But with distros I dont care about speed (unless something insane
is going on like thermald on thinkpads) but rather how much hardware works
well (giving a sharp stare to lenovo and their fingerprint readers in thinkpad
series).

~~~
Tomte
That laptop has an AMD processor.

