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From: robert@ec531667.slip.cc.uq.oz.au (Robert Brockway)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.os.linux.advocacy
Subject: Re: FreebBSD 2.0.5-R crashes every 2 DAYS!!
Followup-To: comp.os.linux.advocacy
Date: 25 Jul 1995 14:52:28 GMT
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Followups have been set tp comp.os.linux.advocacy
Matt Dillon (dillon@best.com) wrote:
: Linux isn't bad, but it is so informal that it is extremely difficult
: to merge in only bug fixes due to the large number of people experimenting
: on the main tree. Ignoring performance aspects, I find I have to
: discount Linux as a production OS on those grounds alone, but I still
As i'm sure you know, linux kernels come in two varieties, stable and
development releases. Yes many ppl around the world patch stuff to the linux
kernel, but only Linux torvalds himself can integrate official patches into
the source tree. The stable releases have only bug fixes, the development
releases introduce new features. This system makes it trivial to seperate
bug fixes from new (perhaps buggy) features. the naming convention used
on linux kernels is useful, making it trivial to know whether a kernel
is stable or development at a glance.
: think Linux is an excellent choice for a home machine. Taking
: performance into account makes the situation even less tenable. While
: I admire all the work that has gone into Linux, it is simply too
: inefficient for a production system: Disk I/O and network performance
: is abysmal and I could never load it down as heavily as I load down
: our FreeBSD machines. But, again, for a home system, Linux is fine.
It is interresting that you should say these things as they are in
direct opposition to what i know to be true. Due to the e2fs which
is an asynchronous fs, linux achieves better disk i/o over most disk
functions than FreeBSD (or NetBSD, or WinNT). As for network performance
i can't really say, but i believe (with the exception of nfs) that Linux
is on a par with FreeBSD. As for loading, tests carried out by a company
evaluating various PC-Unices in the US found that Linux operated the most
efficiently under loads up to 25. Since no one in there right mind would
run a machine with a system load of 25 (have you ever seen a load
of 10? :-) this makes Linux the most efficient under heavy load for all
usable system loads.
My intention is not to start a flame war, or OS bashing war, as we have
too many of those already, but i have followed up to comp.os.linux.advocacy
to keep flames/OS bashing out of misc groups.
And now for something completely different:
I take it that the Matt Dillon i am following up to is not the same
Matthew Dillon of 'Dillon's cron' ? The email addresses are different,
but these things change. If crond is your program, i would like to
congratulate you on a fine piece of work.
-Robert
--Robert Brockway, email: ec531667@student.uq.edu.au
WWW: http://student.uq.edu.au/~ec531667
snail mail: never mind.
I'll try anything once, and if i like it, i'll take it up as a hobby!