Looking for a Linux distribution that’s performance-optimized for your AMD processor? It may already exist, and it’s called Clear Linux. That’s right, Intel’s Clear Linux. In a recent battery of benchmarks performed on a $199 laptop from Walmart, Ubuntu proved 15-percent faster than the default Windows 10 installation, but then Clear Linux blew both Ubuntu and Fedora out of the water.
Intel's Clear Linux and AMD processors = a perfect match?
Phoronix ran a comprehensive benchmark suite on the US retailer’s dirt-cheap Motile M141 laptop which retails for $199. The laptop is powered by a modest AMD Ryzen 3200U processor with built-in Vega 3 graphics and 4GB of RAM.
The 50+ tests pitted Fedora 31, Ubuntu 18.04 LTS and the upcoming Ubuntu 20.04 against Intel’s Clear Linux. Clear Linux wins 78-percent of the benchmarks, despite being purposefully optimized for Intel CPU architecture.
Intel graphic showing how Clear Linux is optimized for Intel CPU architecture
The rolling distro captured victories in every category from audio + video encoding to OpenGL and graphics benchmarks, to Python and workstation visualization applications. Now, is anyone going to pick up a cheap $199 laptop to do these things? Likely not, but Phoronix points out that the performance gap tends to increase the higher you go up the processor stack.
What does make a difference in this particular hardware category is the Selenium suite, which measures browser performance across a wide range of use-cases. Clear Linux pulls out victories in 11 of these 13 tests using the distribution’s included Firefox 72. Browser activities dominate the usage of average PC users, so it’s a meaningful win.
Last May I had my first brush with Intel’s Clear Linux, stating it was worth paying attention to as it continues to mature. It has built-in Flatpak support, a clean installer, delta-based updates (only the updated bits of a package are downloaded as opposed to an entirely new version), useful software bundles, and rolling release model. At the time, however, I didn’t feel like it was quite ready to recommend as a daily driver for most people.
Back then I tested it against Ubuntu 19.04 on an Intel Hades Canyon NUC, and it edged out Canonical’s Linux offering in several categories.
But that was on Intel hardware. To see Clear Linux scoring this many wins on AMD hardware is a surprising twist, and demands further exploration.
So, I plan to revisit Intel’s distro on my System76 Thelio and its included AMD Ryzen 5 3400G processor. Stay tuned for the results!
In the meantime, check out the entire Phoronix article here.
