nixCraft » performance improvements

Linux HugeTLBfs: Improve MySQL Database Application Performance

Vivek Gite — Wed, 20 May 2009 07:59:39 +0000

Applications that perform a lot of memory accesses (several GBs) may obtain performance improvements by using large pages due to reduced Translation Lookaside Buffer (TLB) misses. HugeTLBfs is memory management feature offered in Linux kernel, which is valuable for applications that use a large virtual address space. It is especially useful for database applications such as MySQL, Oracle and others. Other server software(s) that uses the prefork or similar (e.g. Apache web server) model will also benefit.

The CPU's Translation Lookaside Buffer (TLB) is a small cache used for storing virtual-to-physical mapping information. By using the TLB, a translation can be performed without referencing the in-memory page table entry that maps the virtual address. However, to keep translations as fast as possible, the TLB is usually small. It is not uncommon for large memory applications to exceed the mapping capacity of the TLB. Users can use the huge page support in Linux kernel by either using the mmap system call or standard SYSv shared memory system calls (shmget, shmat).

Download of the day: Linux Kernel 2.6.28

Vivek Gite — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 14:36:54 +0000

Linux kernel version 2.6.28 has been released and available for download. The new version includes following stable and new features:

a] ext4 file system - The ext4 filesystem can support volumes with sizes up to 1 exbibyte and files with sizes up to 16 TiB. ext4 removes ext3 64-bit storage limits and adds other performance improvements.

b] Graphics Execution Manager (GEM) - It is a a modern memory manager specialized for use in device drivers for graphics chipsets. It manages graphics memory, controls the execution context and manages the Non-Uniform Memory Access (NUMA) environment on modern graphics chipsets. The "xf86-video-intel" device driver will feature GEM integration.

c] Other features - Stable USB drivers, KVM, bug fixes and other stuff.

=> Download Linux kernel 2.6.28 here. You may also find our kernel compile tutorial useful.

Install Flash Player 10 Under Ubuntu Linux

Vivek Gite — Fri, 16 May 2008 14:05:48 +0000

Install new flash player 10 in three simple steps under Ubuntu Linux.

Download FreeBSD 6.1 ISO CD Image

n00b_Programmer — Tue, 09 May 2006 10:21:31 +0000

From the FreeBSD 6.1-RELEASE Announcement "It is my great pleasure and privilege to announce the availability of FreeBSD 6.1-RELEASE. This release is the next step in the development of the 6.X branch, delivering several performance improvements, many bugfixes, and a few new features as follows": Addition of a keyboard multiplexer. This allows USB and PS/2 [...]