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Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!ihnp4.ucsd.edu!swrinde!news.uh.edu!not-for-mail From: cosc19v2@menudo.uh.edu (cosc19v2) Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions Subject: Re: Linux or FreeBSD? Date: 30 May 1994 11:41:36 -0500 Organization: University of Houston Lines: 56 Message-ID: <2sd500$a1g@menudo.uh.edu> References: <Cq6u20.KFw@hkuxb.hku.hk> <CqL30C.8v5@rex.uokhsc.edu> <2sc59l$q3u@menudo.uh.edu> <CqLw4v.D8u@hippo.ru.ac.za> NNTP-Posting-Host: menudo.uh.edu In article <CqLw4v.D8u@hippo.ru.ac.za>, Geoff Rehmet <csgr@cs.ru.ac.za> wrote: >In <2sc59l$q3u@menudo.uh.edu> cosc19v2@menudo.uh.edu (cosc19v2) writes: > >>Well, I am one of the people who went thru Linux, FreeBSD, and NetBSD. >>I eventually switched to FreeBSD from Linux becasue of some network problems >>of Linux: >> 1) Frequent packet loss errors (ping). >Strange, we haven't had any hassles with that here: >csae:/home/g89r4222#ping -f -c 2000 cspp2 ## Linux box 486DX33/SMC Elite >PING cspp2.ru.ac.za (146.231.129.181): 56 data bytes >....... Stats deleted > >I wouldn't think you could say either has problems with packet loss, >given the above flood-ping output. (The Linux Box seems perhaps marginally >slower.) When it (Linux network) works fine, it works fine. But it ofen gives me the packet loss erros. It is mostly fine as your stats show. The packet loss is not really bothering. However, the following problem makes Linux box almost unusable on network. >> 2) Most annoyingly, once left idle, for example for half a day, >> Linux box disconnects itself from outside and would not accept >> rlogin, telnet, mail, ...etc. sessions from other nodes until >> I break the idleness on the console. >Interesting, there have been cases we've had of a Linux box losing its >(FreeBSD) NFS server, but we ascribed that to network problems (I'm not >convinced that our problem was Linux's fault). Our network consists of machines with DEC/Ultrix, NeXT, and SUN-OS. All work fine together. They are clients/servers each other. Only Linux causes the above problem. Don't ask me about patience. For a long time, I have been patiently waiting for the patch which would resolve the problem. Whenever the new patch is available, I immediately patched it and recompiled, hoping that the problem be solved. I had been doing this since 0.99.x until 1.1.xx. Oh, no more. I tested NetBSD and FreeBSD, - NO PROBLEM AT ALL. Before I started FreeBSD, I never thought that FreeBSD is this good. Since FreeBSD is becoming more and more user-friendly (I mean, installation procedure - even though it still needs more jobs to attract *average/novice* unix users) it *might* be the choice of Free Unix system for the future. >>My network card is NE2000 clone, and I have seen other people complaining >This is a more likely cause of your packet loss -- The NE2000 is not >the fastest of ethernet cards. As I said, I am not the only one who has the above problem. I have seen (at least three) postings on linux news group which reported the above problem. And they all had different network cards (better than NE2000). In fact, one guy reported that he tried several kinds of network cards, since he suspected them, but the problem was there with all the cards that he tried. Also, if it was the NE2000's problem, why does it work with *BSD without any problem ?