*BSD News Article 50222


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From: dyson@inuxs.inh.att.com (John S. Dyson)
Subject: Re: Linux or FreeBSD
Message-ID: <DE13p7.973@nntpa.cb.att.com>
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References: <409iah$inf@galaxy.ucr.edu> <413bkc$3t2@kadath.zeitgeist.net> <1995Aug24.222509.28085@state.systems.sa.gov.au> <41ko58$rqh@hamilton.maths.tcd.ie>
Date: Mon, 28 Aug 1995 16:12:42 GMT
Lines: 38

In article <41ko58$rqh@hamilton.maths.tcd.ie>,
Timothy Murphy <tim@maths.tcd.ie> wrote:
>chdemgt@state.systems.sa.gov.au writes:
>
>>Someone said FreeBSD handles swapping better.  Linux slows to a near-
>>standstill when it starts to swap. 
>
>I run Linux and FreeBSD, and I have never noticed the slightest difference.
>
>I read all these comments, "FreeBSD does this better", "Linux does that better",
>and I just wonder how many of the posters have actually tested their
> conclusions.
>
I have -- in fact I have a machine that can run FreeBSD and Linux both.  Even
to the point of running off identically performing IDE drives from the
prime (fastest zone) area of the disk.  My benchmarks show that Linux cannot
handle substantial paging at all without slowing down significantly.  Also
the cached reads from the filesystems are slow.  I take these comments as an
invitation to post my results and will do so from my home machine (which runs
both OSes) tonight!!!

>In my view, the only serious difference is that Linux documentation is much
> better.
>I said this before, and was flamed for my impertinence.
>In fact, I only mentioned it to suggest that if FreeBSD is to flourish
>it ought to look to its documentation.
>
I don't disagree that the documentation should be a bit better -- but many of 
the O'Reilly books were written with BSD as a base.  Linux needed more
docs...

>Personally, I think there is room in the world for Linux and FreeBSD.
>
I agree with that too :-).

John
dyson@freebsd.org