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Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!msuinfo!agate!ihnp4.ucsd.edu!swrinde!pipex!sunic!EU.net!ieunet!news.ieunet.ie!jkh From: jkh@whisker.hubbard.ie (Jordan K. Hubbard) Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions Subject: Re: Linux or FreeBSD? Date: 29 May 1994 09:39:59 GMT Organization: Jordan Hubbard Lines: 116 Message-ID: <JKH.94May29093959@whisker.hubbard.ie> References: <CqH2z7.29E@dit.upm.es> <2s618a$34t@pdq.coe.montana.edu> <2s86fj$cn4@acmex.gatech.edu> <hastyCqJBED.9yz@netcom.com> <2s8mbn$e1o@acmex.gatech.edu> <JKH.94May29030102@whisker.hubbard.ie> <2s937t$7sp@acmex.gatech.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: whisker.hubbard.ie In-reply-to: gt8134b@prism.gatech.edu's message of 28 May 1994 23:47:09 -0400 In article <2s937t$7sp@acmex.gatech.edu> gt8134b@prism.gatech.edu (Robert Sanders) writes: But this isn't one of those issues! Sure, that's the subject, but the whole point of my two (now three) posts was to simply explain why some people who had used both Linux and FreeBSD came away with the subjective feeling that Linux was much faster. I don't give a damn about feature comparisons from other people: my roommate and I went out and *tried* it. In the same vein, I don't try to offer authoritative feature comparisons; I merely summarize my expereinces. Well, I guess I should point out that I came in late to this discussion and haven't seen your earlier posts, so I may have misinterpreted your basic viewpoint from lack of sufficient context. In fact, I do have to say that your basic approach is one that I greatly approve of - I wish more people in this generally useless FreeBSD vs Linux debate would actually _take the trouble_ to load and run both for awhile before spouting off, and your willingness to do so is only to your credit. That said, I think that it's also pretty important in these `debates' (only in quotes because so few of them up to now have qualified for such an exalted label ;-) to differentiate between the *subjective* points and the *objective* points, since it's sometimes hard to tell the genuine technical gripes from the personal preference issues. Your later comments regarding packaging indicate that you've probably realized that in retrospect, so I'll say no more about it. You're fighting straw men, Jordan. I never said that. I'm not trying to win credibility for anyone, but if I were, it would be for FreeBSD. Two separate messages on this group expressed dismay at the relative speed of FreeBSD; one even said that out of Linux, Windows, etc., FreeBSD was the slowest OS he'd had on the machine. I was trying to explain that it isn't that slow, that it's just tuned less for interactive response than Linux was. Ok, fair enough. Again, blame me for coming in late. I might also note that FreeBSD's detractors should also bear in mind that we, too are still evolving and still have more than a few optimizations to go - we're not at all insensitive to the criticisms of those Linux users who make unfavorable (and credible) comparisons between FreeBSD's and Linux's interactive response. When I met Linus in Holland last year, one of the major points of discussion was, in fact, Linux's VM and scheduling algorithms and how FreeBSD would do well to take a closer look into how interactive processes were scheduled in environments with small process counts. It should always be noted, of course, that there's no free lunch with these things. Linux's scheduling and VM code does offer superior performance with light job mixes, but the `ramp' of performance vs number of system intensive processes actually declines much faster on a Linux system as well, so you have to pay the price somewhere. At least this was my experience with Linux 0.99, and also backed up by a number of others (some of whom were die-hard Linux fans). This is, again, just being honest about where the plusses and minuses lie and my personal preference would, of course, be a pan Linux and FreeBSD team actively engaged in looking at performance issues (in both light and heavily loaded environements) across BOTH operating systems, trying to merge in some of the best features of each in order to strengthen the quality of both. I would actively support such a movement. We should always bear in mind (and I don't necessarily mean you personally, Robert, since I sense I'd be preaching to the choir) that UNIX itself is what's living a somewhat besieged life here, not FreeBSD or Linux specifically. If we want to extend the lives of both in the face of competition from a number of `young turk' operating systems now coming down the pike, we may someday have to seriously consider working together just a little more (and I almost cry at the amount of effort being gratuitously spent on parallel efforts or competing implementations where there's _really no need_ for a lot of it). This is not to say that I necessarily see this as an easy thing, as the frequently touted FreeBSD/NetBSD mergers have pointed out in very painful detail, simply that it's a damn shame that it has to be the case. I personally think that Linux and FreeBSD are also not so far apart, ideologically speaking, and if FreeBSD and NetBSD cannot enjoy a closer working relationship (though in truth it's far more cordial as of late) then perhaps FreeBSD and Linux can. I'd be more than keen to extend the requisite olive branches! I don't know if the Kranenberg/FreeBSD shlib implementation uses fixed addresses; I doubt it does. Has anyone benchmarked statically linked vs. dynamically linked executables on speed of *library* code? I'll bet it's not insignificant. Again, I know Linux's implementation isn't perfect, but there are good reasons to have it. Linux developers aren't idiots. I never said they were, simply that I wasn't a big fan of some of the trade-offs they chose. It's more than just a one-off hit to the developers, as well. Did you know, for example, that OI lets you create your own subclasses interactively, flesh them out, then bring them up in the builder? Probably not since Linux's OI version has never allowed you to do this (and boy, was I annoyed when I found this out since I was trying to use the OI port to Linux to do some work!) since it was too much trouble to generate a shared library automatically without any intervention by the `customer'. I am happy to see that Linux is heading down the ELF route, and I expect that this will render many points like this moot, I simply wanted to point out that it's not always a `one time cost' borne only by the developer and then completely transparent to all users thereafter. To sum it up: I wasn't contributing to the Linux-vs-FreeBSD thread itself, but merely trying to comment on the apparent speed difference. Ok.. Like I said, we're both still evolving OS's with great potential for gains in performance and functionality, and if we can learn from eachother's implementations, all the better. That is why an honest appraisal of Linux's strengths is actually of *benefit* to me, and why I generally have so little patience with these (in general, not yours) Linux/FreeBSD flame wars that generate much heat but shed so little useful light. Jordan -- Jordan K. Hubbard FreeBSD core team Friend to mollusks