Xubuntu as host, Windows XP as guest - Slow performance

[martyouel]

Hi,

I'm doing some test to see if it will be better to run our winxp virtual machines on linux host rather than windows xp host. We are developping software and using virtual machines to run automated tests. Currently, all of our host os are windows xp. We are testing one computer using Xubuntu as host.

On linux computer, execution of our automated tests are 50% longer.

Here's the results of my test ;

Virtual Machine : Guest os : Windows XP SP2 Ram allowed : 512 Software installed : AutomatedQA TestComplete and our Accouting software

First computer : Dell P4 2.8ghz with 1 gig of ram - Running Xubuntu 7.1

Second computer : Dell P4 2.8ghz witg 1 gig of ram - Running Windows XP SP2

Both computer use a copy of the same virtual machine.

Test1

On first computer : 9 minutes 40 seconds

On second computer : 7 minutes 20 seconds

Test2

On first computer : 44 minutes 57 seconds

On second computer : 24 minutes 34 seconds

Somebody know why is slower on my linux host? I was sure that I should able to get more performance on a linux host...but for the moment it's not the case.

Thanks!

[Peter_vm · Accepted solution]

Probably Windows storage drivers are more efficient on your hardware.

[admin]

Yep, it could be disk related or there might be some other cause. It's hard to say without knowing a lot more about the specifics of your test workload. I would not have expected to see that dramatic of a performance difference either way which suggests that perhaps there's a configuration issue on the Linux host side, e.g. DMA settings on your disk controller or something like that.

Are you sure there's no other services running on the Xubuntu machine? E.g. if you're running a search indexing service like Beagle or Tracker, that can significantly impact disk performance.

[martyouel]

Thanks for the answer.

No there's nothing special running on Xubuntu. I'm just running Xfce and Vmware Workstation.

Linux seems to take the ram that my virtual machines needs in swap, rather than using my physical memory. My memory load is about only 14%...so maybe there's a setting to be able to do not swap?

[dconvery]

I would do a "ps -e | more" to see what is going on. I am running the full-blown version of Ubuntu 8.04 on a Lenovo Stinkpad and my WinXP VM screams like it was on physical hardware. I do have 4GB RAM on it though..

Dave

[martyouel]

Here's the result of my ps -e.

Hope this will help you to help me. I'm newbie with linux, and my goal is to be able to use it as my host on all my tests computers.

PID TTY TIME CMD

1 ? 00:00:01 init

2 ? 00:00:00 kthreadd

3 ? 00:00:00 migration/0

4 ? 00:00:00 ksoftirqd/0

5 ? 00:00:00 watchdog/0

6 ? 00:00:00 events/0

7 ? 00:00:00 khelper

26 ? 00:00:00 kblockd/0

27 ? 00:00:00 kacpid

28 ? 00:00:00 kacpi_notify

87 ? 00:00:00 kseriod

106 ? 00:00:00 pdflush

107 ? 00:00:00 pdflush

108 ? 00:00:00 kswapd0

159 ? 00:00:00 aio/0

1901 ? 00:00:00 ata/0

1902 ? 00:00:00 ata_aux

1905 ? 00:00:00 scsi_eh_0

1906 ? 00:00:00 scsi_eh_1

1921 ? 00:00:00 ksuspend_usbd

1922 ? 00:00:00 khubd

2198 ? 00:00:00 kjournald

2389 ? 00:00:00 udevd

3296 ? 00:00:00 kpsmoused

3809 tty4 00:00:00 getty

3810 tty5 00:00:00 getty

3813 tty2 00:00:00 getty

3815 tty3 00:00:00 getty

3816 tty1 00:00:00 login

3817 tty6 00:00:00 getty

3990 ? 00:00:00 acpid

4025 ? 00:00:00 kondemand/0

4103 ? 00:00:00 syslogd

4156 ? 00:00:00 dd

4158 ? 00:00:00 klogd

4321 ? 00:00:00 atd

4335 ? 00:00:00 cron

4397 ? 00:00:00 vmnet-bridge

4415 ? 00:00:00 vmnet-netifup

4424 ? 00:00:00 vmnet-dhcpd

4434 ? 00:00:00 vmnet-netifup

4446 ? 00:00:00 vmnet-dhcpd

4451 ? 00:00:00 vmnet-natd

4542 ? 00:00:00 dhclient3

4575 tty1 00:00:00 bash

4608 ? 00:00:00 gdm

4609 ? 00:00:00 gdm

4614 tty7 00:00:10 Xorg

4651 ? 00:00:00 x-session-manag

4681 ? 00:00:00 ssh-agent

4684 ? 00:00:00 dbus-launch

4685 ? 00:00:00 dbus-daemon

4690 ? 00:00:01 xfce-mcs-manage

4692 ? 00:00:00 gnome-keyring-d

4694 ? 00:00:00 gconfd-2

4695 ? 00:00:00 xfwm4

4697 ? 00:00:00 xfce4-panel

4699 ? 00:00:01 xfce4-menu-plug

4705 ? 00:00:00 nm-applet

4709 ? 00:00:00 xfce4-places-pl

4710 ? 00:00:00 xfce4-places-pl

4711 ? 00:00:00 thunar-tpa

4713 ? 00:00:00 gam_server

4717 ? 00:00:00 Thunar

4722 ? 00:00:00 xfce4-terminal

4723 ? 00:00:00 gnome-pty-helpe

4724 pts/0 00:00:00 bash

4747 ? 00:00:00 wrapper-gtk24.s

4777 ? 00:00:04 vmware

4779 ? 00:00:01 vmware-tray

4786 ? 00:00:41 vmware-vmx

4796 pts/0 00:00:00 ps

[dconvery]

Nothing out of the ordinary there. Maybe more RAM would help, or it could be the SCSI drivers. Sometimes Dell will have an updated driver for disk, but usually only for RedHat and Suse. Also, if you are using the beta version of workstation or server, debugging is flipped up, so it will also give you a performance hit. you may want to search or post on the ubuntu forums as well. It just surprises me that winders gives you a 50% performance boost over linux.

Another thing you can do is set the reserved memory in the preferences. I pasted a screenshot from WS6.5 B2.

Dave