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Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!yarrina.connect.com.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!msuinfo!uwm.edu!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!gatech!prism!prism!not-for-mail From: gt8134b@prism.gatech.edu (Robert Sanders) Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions Subject: Re: Linux or FreeBSD? Date: 28 May 1994 15:36:19 -0400 Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology Lines: 55 Sender: gt8134b@prism.gatech.edu Message-ID: <2s86fj$cn4@acmex.gatech.edu> References: <Cq6u20.KFw@hkuxb.hku.hk> <CqH2z7.29E@dit.upm.es> <2s618a$34t@pdq.coe.montana.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: acmex.gatech.edu nate@bsd.coe.montana.edu (Nate Williams) writes: >In article <CqH2z7.29E@dit.upm.es>, >GARCIA VALDEARENAS <cdt94001@oasis.dit.upm.es> wrote: >> Linux is faster than FreeBSD, but has a very poor network support. If >Where do you get your numbers? Have you benchmarked Linux and FreeBSD >on the same hardware? I don't think he has *any* numbers :-) My roommate installed FreeBSD on his machine because we were both curious about how the other half lives. We weren't entirely happy with it: it's not as tuned for interactive response as Linux is, it has *apparently* slower disk access because of the synchronous meta-data updates (I turned that option for Linux on and the slowdown is similar), the shared libraries, whilc more conceptually "cleaner", were slower than Linux's (or, at least, executable loading seemed slower), and the base system was very spare (= didn't include perl, or much of any non- BSD utility). No numbers for anything, of course, since we trust our own subjective feelings; even if it's slower, we'd rather have a system that *feels* faster, and Linux definitely feels faster under heavy load. We also ran into some "gotchas", most of which I've forgotten. One that sticks out in my recollection is the poor compatibility of /bin/sh. We replaced it with bash, but didn't think to link /bin/sh statically. The system refused to boot, apparently because the system uses /bin/sh to configure sharedlibs upon startup. Another problem was that the sound driver was apparently an old version and produced poor results when used with GMOD on our Gravis Ultrasounds. A point I hesitate to bring up is that FreeBSD didn't seem to work with Linux's NFS server. Knowing that no *BSD will admit that it got things wrong, and not knowing that Linux's NFS server got it right, all I'll say is that Solaris, an MS-DOS client, and Chameleon NFS/32 for NT all worked perfectly with it, as did Linux's client. >> Linux >> supports graphics whithout X. Linux can execute many MS-DOS programs >> using a MS-DOS emulator (exceptions are all MS-Windows programs). Linux >> can execute all SCO binaries (so you can buy many programs for Linux) . > ^^^ (I'm pretty sure this isn't true either, though it > can execute some) >The above are all true however except for the one mention. And except for the "very poor" network support, as I've mentioned in another post. Linux's networking is very close to being fully mature. You can also run many MS-Windows program under dosemu if you have a copy of Win3.0 (for real mode), but since that's rare, that part is practically true. -- _g, '96 --->>>>>>>>>> gt8134b@prism.gatech.edu <<<<<<<<<--- CompSci ,g_ W@@@W__ |-\ ^ | disclaimer: <---> "Bow before ZOD!" __W@@@W W@@@@**~~~' ro|-<ert s/_\ nders | who am I??? ^ from Superman '~~~**@@@@W `*MV' hi,ocie! |-/ad! / \ss!! | ooga ooga!! | II (cool)! `VW*'