Re: Performance on Solaris Vs Linux

[Dan Nelson]

Faisal Feroz wrote:
> We recently ran a few tests on mysql on both solaris and linux 
> environments. It turned out that mysql was much faster and responsive 
> on linux. After doing some digging, we found out one of the possible 
> reasons is the fact that mysql source code uses malloc all over the 
> place.
> 
> On solaris malloc calls block all threads and create heap contention. 
> Indeed, Sun actually dis-courages the use of malloc. This would explain 
> why we could never see our CPU utilization go up on solaris.
> 
> Question #1) are we right in our assumption that mysql runs way faster 
> on linux rather then solaris or are we on drugs.
> Question #2) If it does indeed run faster, is there a way or a ported 
> binary of mysql that runs equally fast on Solaris. Reason being I have 
> two big Sun E3500 lying around that I would like to put to good use ..

Solaris has a malloc library especially for threaded apps.  Just link 
your binary with -lmtmalloc.  Also see "A Comparison of Memory 
Allocators in Multiprocessors": 
http://developers.sun.com/solaris/articles/multiproc/multiproc.html