[Nix-dev] Performance impact of Nix

[Tony White]

2009/7/29 Marc Weber <marco-oweber at gmx.de>:
> Excerpts from ludo's message of Wed Jul 29 22:24:27 +0200 2009:
>> In a recent discussion, Ralf Wildenhues [0] rightfully wondered about
>> the performance impact of Nix' file system layout and/or that of the
>> symlink indirection in profiles.
> No, but I wondered as well. I don't think you can neglect it.
>> Did anybody try to measure this?  Thoughts?
>
> Which is the best way to measure it?
>
> Basically you only add one lookup operation so it shouldn't be too much.
> One way to measure it is rewriting the env builder to use hard links
> instead of symlinks?
>
> How much time does it take to compare paths
> /nix/store/32d5rw61pr6ffl0mnbrfs2ih5xjk4nls-vim_configurable-7.2/bin/vim
>  instead of
> /bin/vim
> ?
>
> I mean all /nix/store/* paths have at least additional 43 chars in
> length and additional 3 directories, don't they ?
>
> So would nix be faster if we used /store only ?
>
> Again: How to measure this ? Reboot a system once?
> Compile Open office ?
>
> I'll be on vacation for one week. I can test this when I'm back.
>
> cu
> Marc Weber
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Hi,
I think that if the package name came before the hash in the folder
name for each package in the nix store, we would experience faster
search results.
As far as launching applications in x goes, on the two machines I have
NixOs on there is no adverse difference to an LSB GNU/Linux install in
comparison to boot speed, application launch times, that I have
noticed and one machine is a slot one Pentium 3 with 512M. That's
pretty old (Museum piece almost.)
If anything, all round, NixOs is actually faster in general (On the
two machines I have here) Than Mandriva Linux, Fedora Linux and
Debian.
Can't be sure about the compile speed, I never used either machine to
compile much before using NixOs. I felt like rpm was a lost cause.

How about the phoronix test suite?

http://www.phoronix-test-suite.com/

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=distro_four_way&num=1

Thanks,
Tony