Phoronix article – windows subsystem for linux benchmarks (2018-05-18)
Phoronix posted an article benchmarking the window subsystem for linux. The comparisons are between Ubuntu 18.04 running in WSL vs. Ubuntu 18.04 running directly on the processor and the older WSL using Ubuntu 16.04.
The general conclusion from the article is that WSL I/O performance is much worse, but other benchmarks are close and in a few cases just slightly faster than running native Ubuntu 18.04.
I don’t have the WSL, but in this article I’ll look at the benchmarks to understand what is being measured. All of Phoronix tests were done on an i9-7980. These observations are summarized in the table below.
| Benchmark | Phoronix observations | My observations | Analysis |
|---|---|---|---|
| sqlite | Ubuntu native is much faster than running under WSL. | Database implemented as one large file using file locking. Disk-centric and not much of a CPU benchmark. | analysis |
| fsmark (1000 files of 1MB and 5000 files with 4 threads) | Ubuntu native is faster but not as big of a gap as sqlite. | Benchmark is of basic filesystem operations. Disk-centric and not as much of a CPU benchmark. | analysis |
| compilebench | Ubuntu native is order of magnitude faster for "compile" and two orders of magnitude faster for "initial create" | Filesystem performance benchmark. | analysis |
| polybench-c | WSL almost same, just slightly slower than Ubuntu 18.04 native | Memory-bound linear algebra operations. | analysis |
| mafft | WSL is 1.5x slower than Ubuntu 18.04 native | Runs in only 4.5 seconds. Some I/O with 96% voluntary context switches. Higher amount of speculative stalls. | analysis |
| go-benchmark: | WSL is several times slower on http but close to same speed on json. Also slower for build and garbage. | http has ~25% system time; build is mostly sequential, json is most purely CPU. | analysis |
| java-gradle-perf | WSL 1.5 slower. | Many short-lived processes; overall On_CPU only 39% with voluntary switches suggesting some I/O. | analysis |
| fhourstones | WSL slightly faster than Ubuntu 18.04 native | Single threaded, on-core of 100%, some backend stalls but overall higher IPC | analysis |
| scimark2 | WSL slightly faster than Ubuntu 18.04 native | Five workloads, single-threaded, on_core of 100% with backend stalls. | analysis |
| x264 | WSL ~10% slower than Ubuntu 18.04 native. | On_Cpu of 71%, IPC of 1.3 with some frontend stalls. | analysis |
| graphics-magick: resize | WSL ~20% slower than Ubuntu 18.04 native. | Small amounts of I/O. On_CPU of 33% with moderate IPC. | analysis |
| stockfish | WSL almost same performance as native. | On_Cpu 100% with IPC of 1, frontend stalls and some branch misses. | analysis |
| ebizzy | WSL slightly faster than Ubuntu 18.04 native. | Testing kernel memory management with various allocations/accesses. | analysis |
| build-linux-kernel | WSL more than 2x slower than Ubuntu 18.04 native | On_Cpu of 88% some parts not parallel, some I/O, higher frontend stalls. | analysis |
| build-php | WSL more than 1.5x slower than Ubuntu 18.04 | Some I/O, On_Cpu of 82% with frontend stalls. | analysis |
| povray | WSL performance almost same as Ubuntu 18.04 native | On_Cpu of 98% with IPC of 1.3. Some frontend and bad speculation. | analysis |
| y-cruncher | WSL performance same as Ubuntu 18.04 native | On_Cpu of 90% with some I/O. IPC of 1.18 and moderate amount of backend stalls. | analysis |
| pgbench | WSL performance 3x slower than Ubuntu 18.04 native | On_Cpu of 60%. I/O operations and heavily frontend stalls. Read seems to be more driven than read/write. | analysis |
| pybench | WSL performance just slightly faster than Ubuntu 18.04 native. | Single threaded, high IPC and On_Core at 100% | analysis |
| phpbench | WSL performance slightly slower than Ubuntu 18.04 native. | Single threaded, high IPC and On_Core at 100% | analysis |
| git | WSL performance ~3.5x slower than Ubuntu 18.04 native | Single threaded, I/O, higher branch misses | analysis |
| numpy | WSL performance just slightly faster than Ubuntu 18.04 native | Single threaded, medium IPC, some frontend stalls | analysis |
| scikit-learn | WSL performance a little faster thanUbuntu 18.04 native | Single threaded, high IPC and On_Core at 100% | analysis |
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