Category: Linux

Linux is my primary operating system. I used it on the servers, desktops, laptops, netbooks, and even mobile phones since approximately 1997. I’ve tried a number of distributions over the years, and even created a couple myself. I still look around sometimes to see what others are up to. But most of my machines are running some sort of Red Hat – either a quick and easy Fedora Linux, or a stable and secure Red Hat Enterprise Server, or a cheaper CentOS alternative.

And while by now I am very comfortable in the Linux environment (both graphical and command line), I still discover a lot of new and interesting things about it. When I come across something worthy, I usually share it with the rest of the Open Software world, using this category.

Computers are *fast*!

Computers are *fast*!

So instead I used perf, which is a totally magical performance measurement tool for Linux. I needed to upgrade my kernel first, which was a bit nervewracking. But I did it! And it was beautiful. There are colours, and we got it to annotate the assembly code with performance statistics. Here’s what I ran to do it:

$ perf record ./bytesum_intrinsics The\ Newsroom\ S01E04.mp4
$ perf annotate --no-source

And here’s the result:

perf

The movdqa instructions have to do with accessing memory, and it spends 32% of its time on those instructions. So I think that means that it spends 32% of its time accessing RAM, and the other 68% of its time doing calculations. Super neat!

7 habits of highly successful Unix admins

7 habits of highly successful Unix admins

  1. Don’t wait for problems to find you
  2. Know your tools and your systems
  3. Prioritize, prioritize, prioritize
  4. Perform post mortems,  but don’t get lost in them
  5. Document your work
  6. Fix the problem AND explain
  7. Make time for yourself