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From: caj@tower.techwood.org (Craig A. Johnston)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd,comp.unix.advocacy,comp.sys.sun.misc,comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit
Subject: Re: What do people have against BSD (or Linux for that matter)? (was: Whither NeoSoft)
Date: 27 Jan 1995 23:35:50 GMT
Organization: none
Lines: 151
Message-ID: <3gc00m$cld@nntp1.u.washington.edu>
References: <3g3s2k$6i@villa.fc.net> <3g697f$gs0@keys.csi.net> <3g8b6m$plu@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM> <3g9eev$egq@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM>
NNTP-Posting-Host: tower.stc.housing.washington.edu
In article <3g9eev$egq@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM>,
jpsb <jpsb@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM> wrote:
>
>Looks like i'm going to get drawn in like it or not.
>remember folks i tried to back out nicely ... no flames please.
>disclaimer: i'll admit up front i'm NOT a sysadm.
No shit, huh? You tried to back out nicely, no flames? After
basically just spouting bullshit where you acknowledge you know
little?
Get real.
>
>first off the PC you are all reffering to is not standard PC!
>You have high performance IO devices that you do not get at
>Best Buy. A "Best Buy" intel will feed the cpu 16 bits of data
>at 1 or .5 the CPU clock speed. Ergo the mother board can't keep
16 bits? Last thing to do that was a 386-sx. Bullshit.
>up witjh the CPU. Next a Best Buy intel's disk i/o is also 16
>bits at (hmmmm) 8 or 12 mhz can't remember which. very slow.
Um, are you an idiot? Let's assume 16 bits at 8 mhz. That is
2 bytes * 8 Million/sec = over 15 megs/sec max. If correct. An
ISA bus will actually do over 5 megs/sec. Are you getting
5 MB/sec disk throughput on your sparc 10?
But one does not have to get an ISA bus, which is admittedly
crappy. PCI is cheap.
>At Best Buy Intel will have 16k maybe 64k of on-board chache,
>not a whole lot. If you get into heavy swaping, the disk i/o will
>bring the pc to it's knees. Now *maybe* there are new io cards and
Maybe? Yes. There are. It's called Fast SCSI-2 on PCI.
But my 32 meg PC never swaps. That's 64 megs for you RISC guys.
(Don't get me wrong -- I like RISC.)
>data buses that eliminate these problem (EISA, local bus, etc) but
EISA is quite old.
>will all the DOS and Windows Apps still work? Once you have beefed
Yes. But why run this crap on a real machine?
>up your intel with alot of chache, a fast scsi controler, a EISA
that's "a lot." Hope this helps.
>mother board a high preformance SVGA card etc, you have pushed the
>price up to 5k. 5k will get you a Sun or an HP or even an RS6k.
Bullshit. You're talking out of your ass. Don't you realize yet
you just can't bullshit on the Usenet? A 5k rs6000? Ok, can I have
some memory, a disk bigger than 300 megs, and a monitor with that?
NCR 53c810 SCSI controller cards are available ~ $100, maybe less.
Mine came on my $245 motherboard, attached to the PCI bus.
Yes, they're quite fast.
No EISA; PCI. Video cards that make damn near any workstation look
silly are available for ~ $300. Cards that make most workstations
in use today look silly ~ $200.
PCI mboards are relatively cheap, the peripherals quite cheap.
My $70 network card will push Ethernet to its practical limit, while
leaving my CPU pretty well alone.
>
>If you are real good with Unix you can get the system setup right,
>but you don't have days to spent figuring everything out then maybe
>a free OS is not for you. Seems like a lot of work, and money just to
>get an intel to act like a LOW END Unix host. And I don't believe for
Bullshit. Comparing my dx2-66, PCI, SCSI-II, 32 meg RAM, 2.6 Gb
disk intel system to most workstations actually in current use, the
workstations fare badly, except in FP performance.
Note that of course I am not talking about the cutting edge, or most
workstations being put out at this moment. I'm talking about most
currently in use.
I invite you to telnet to my box and run any sort of benchmarks you
like, get a feel for interactive performance, whatever. Really.
Indicate your interest and I will whip you up an account. But
you get to, on your honor, come back here and eat crow when you
realize you are totally mistaken.
>one second an intel 586 performs like a sparc 10, and yes I've got both.
>plus an SGI, and RS6k and HP's. Now the intel is an NT host so i'm sure
>that has a lot to do with it being a barking dog. But the 486 (33dx,scsi,
I hate to be repetitive, but no shit, huh? Then why bother making
the comparison? You have just admitted you know nothing about
how a pentium-90 running a free unix would stack up to a sparc 10.
NT != Linux/*BSD
>16meg ram, 256k cache). running Linux is *much* slower (compile
>times) than the slowest sparc 1. I bought the 486 a few years back thinking
That's probably called GCC vs. standard, non-optimized Sun cc, you
dolt. Hope this helps. Try a head-to-head 'echo 2^8192 | bc' for
some kicks. For the record, my '66 does it in 4.1 sec.
>i could build a cheap Unix WS. well i've got more $ into it than i paid
>for my new PowerPC RS6k! Way more then the used sun 1's hanging around
There ya' go, total proof of idiocy: "a few years ago." Do you
have any idea what happens to the price of an average PC in a year?
dx2-66 system: Asus SP3G mboard $245, has scsi-II onboard, 256k cache,
dual 16550's, gets ~20 meg/sec memory bandwidth. dx2-66, $190.
BOCA PCI PCNet32 ethernet, $70. 1 GB 5400 RPM SCSI disk, $550
#9 GXE64 Pro, 2 megs VRAM, $325. 32 megs RAM, $900. There ya'
go, ~$2300, and these are seriously nice components - without
specifying particular SCSI disk, arguably the fastest, nicest dx2-66
one could put together. Make it a Pentium-90 for say $500 more.
(for processor + a little extra for Pentium mboard.) (above system
is my dx2-66, so yes, I know the prices are correct.)
Under $3k for a system that, especially under X, will absolutely
trash any workstation anywhere near the price. Toss in a 21"
Nanao greyscale that will do 1280x1024 @74hz quite comfortably for
$1000, add Linux/*BSD, and you have one hell of a workstation. Can
you say 250k Xstones on the above, w/p-90? I knew you could.
Under 4k, and any workstation near that price is going to be stripped.
Show me what sort of rs6000, HP, Sun you can get for that. I'll
laugh.
Don't forget to put twice the memory in the workstation because it's
RISC, no 300 meg disks allowed, no 15" monitors allowed. If you can
get something equivalent to the above PC for < 8k, I'd be surprised.
>here. But times change, *maybe* you can turn a Pentium into a blazingly
>fast Unix box for pennies, maybe.
Pennies? Hardly. Less than 5k? Absolutely.
(BTW, ftp.cdrom.com, a pentium FreeBSD system, supports 400 simultaneous
ftp users. And things happen *quickly.* Give it a try.)
--
Craig A. Johnston -- caj@tower.techwood.org -- finger for PGP 2.6.2 key
"Cavitas in dentibus facimus!"