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Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!bunyip.cc.uq.oz.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!yeshua.marcam.com!MathWorks.Com!noc.near.net!news.delphi.com!usenet From: John Dyson <dysonj@delphi.com> Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd Subject: Re: BSD vs. Linux Date: Sat, 12 Mar 94 11:47:24 -0500 Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice) Lines: 43 Message-ID: <5o9twmM.dysonj@delphi.com> References: <michaelv.763141055@ponderous.cc.iastate.edu> <CMJ38u.H1r@megatest.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: bos1f.delphi.com X-To: Dave Albrecht <albrecht@megatest.com> Dave Albrecht <albrecht@megatest.com> writes: >on it. I have read of a CDROM that has the latest FreeBSD on it so I might have >to settle for that even though I'd rather try NetBSD. Oh come on :-). FreeBSD has some optimizations that are being put in place that really help it on *86 architectures. After these optimizations get completed -- then we are going to start adding features. I am currently using FreeBSD in embedded applications and in timesharing applications. We just in -current have improved process startup of in-memory segments by 6 times (and originally startup was faster than 386BSD.) The FreeBSD people are actually very easy to get along with -- and there is not elitism. FreeBSD in on incarnation or another is going to be around for at least a couple of years (I cannot look ahead farther than that.) We are actually improving the technology base of *BSD (we cannot concentrate on features, since our group is fairly small.) At least two of us are actually working *almost* full time on it, and major bugs are usually fixed within a week or faster (once we are informed.) Patches that users come up with are *gladly* accepted, we really look at them. The advantages of FreeBSD include: 1) Real VM speedups (many argue this who haven't tried it.) 2) Easy to get along with people (actually friendly.) 3) Improved paging algorithm (the old pager basically randomly swapped out pages :-)). 4) More efficient memory use by paging more of the process (Old versions of *BSD left about 5 pages of a process memory (20K)). If you have say, 20 processes -- 400K can be wasted under swapping conditions!!!! 6) Numerous other kernel improvements. 7) We have no secret kernel source tree (other than development sources on local machines.) You and others can see exactly what we are doing. 8) I personally elicit public open discussion of future changes and kernel (VM oriented) enhancements. I even accept phone calls anytime and am usually helpful (others on the team are like that too... (317)547-8347 John dyson@implode.root.com