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Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!yeshua.marcam.com!MathWorks.Com!news2.near.net!news.delphi.com!usenet From: John Dyson <dysonj@delphi.com> Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions Subject: Re: Q: When to expect a 4.4-Lite based FreeBSD/NetBSD? Date: Thu, 11 Aug 94 17:34:27 -0500 Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice) Lines: 37 Message-ID: <B6wTERT.dysonj@delphi.com> References: <32dt8u$m7p@ra.nrl.navy.mil> NNTP-Posting-Host: bos1g.delphi.com X-To: Craig Metz <cmetz@sundance.itd.nrl.navy.mil> Craig Metz <cmetz@sundance.itd.nrl.navy.mil> writes: > 1. About when will there be a (beta is fine) release of a 4.4-Lite > based FreeBSD or NetBSD? (messages saying ``whenever it's out'' > are not useful answers, I'm looking for an order-of-magnitude-- > are we talking a few days, a few weeks, or a few months?) FreeBSD tree will be available for supping soon, and NetBSD people have said that they are going to release RSN. FreeBSD release won't be here for about 2mos. The NetBSD 4.4Lite stuff != FreeBSD 4.4Lite stuff, so there will be differences between the two. > 2. Is there a 4.4-Lite based ``current'' tree available from either > of the core teams that's enough for an adventurous soul to get > up and running? (crashing = not a problem. crashing really, really > frequently = problem) FreeBSD is still being worked on, it is not *there* yet. It is getting better and better (but not ready for sup yet.) It does not crash *often*, but can be crashed with a little encouragement. We have noticed some interesting things re: performance though. We have essentially the same VM performance as FreeBSD V1.1.5 (very fast), but the file I/O on small blocks (512 bytes at a time) is slower than FreeBSD V1.1.5 to/from the cache. On big blocks to/from the actual disk it is significantly faster. I guess that it will be a little while (1-3wks) before it will be ready for supping. The Merged VM/Buffer Cache won't be ready for about 3wks -- and there will probably be a short time of instability around then. I will try to warn everyone. We have had the kernel running for around 2+mos now, but there was the need for lots of userland work. You will NOT be disappointed. We found that initially, the performance of the kernel had some of the original nits found in early versions of FreeBSD, but have made equivalent updates and things look really good now. John dyson@implode.root.com