This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Java Buzz by Nick Lothian. Original Post: Java/Linux performance improvements Feed Title: BadMagicNumber Feed URL: http://feeds.feedburner.com/Badmagicnumber Feed Description: Java, Development and Me Latest Java Buzz Posts Latest Java Buzz Posts by Nick Lothian Latest Posts From BadMagicNumber

I was reading Joseph Pranevich's "What's new in Linux 2.6 and I noticed this:

Another major change in the 2.6 release, is that the kernel's internal threading infrastructure has been rewritten to allow the Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL) to run on top of it. This can be a major performance boost for Pentium Pro and better processors in heavily threaded applications, and many of the top players in the "enterprise" space have been clamoring for it. (In fact, RedHat has already backported the support to Linux 2.4 and includes it starting with RedHat 9 and Advanced Server 3.0)

I got a bit excited about this, because the dirty little secret of the "Linux/Java anti-Microsoft kabal" is that Java on Linux usually isn't comparable to Java on Windows on the same hardware (note, I said usually!). A little searching came up with Red Hat Linux 9 and Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition 1.4.2: A Winning Combination, which mentions:

On a 2 X 1.6 Ghz P4 Xeon system, time to completion was 191% faster with J2SE 1.4.2 running on NPTL, compared with J2SE 1.41 running on the original Linux threads.

Is anyone familiar enough with this to comment as to how real this improvement is? I'd love to see someone run ECPerf on Windows/Java 1.4.1, Windows/Java 1.4.2, Linux/Java 1.4.1 and Linux/Java 1.4.2 on identical hardware and see how it comes out. Any takers?