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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.rmit.EDU.AU!goanna.cs.rmit.EDU.AU!munnari.OZ.AU!ihnp4.ucsd.edu!agate!reason.cdrom.com!usenet From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@FreeBSD.org> Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.networking,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.infosystems.www.servers.unix Subject: Re: Linux or Free BSD for WWW server? Date: Thu, 09 Nov 1995 09:27:54 -0800 Organization: Walnut Creek CDROM Lines: 29 Message-ID: <30A23A1A.167EB0E7@FreeBSD.org> References: <47oul2$35j@kadath.zeitgeist.net> <47ojep$rr1@dns.crocker.com> <1995Nov8.200134.21191@loretta.la.ca.us> <47r28k$tru@dns.crocker.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: time.cdrom.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.0b2 (X11; I; FreeBSD 2.1-STABLE i386) To: "Nathan J. Kurz" <nate@tripod.com> Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.networking:18805 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:8331 comp.infosystems.www.servers.unix:6079 Nathan J. Kurz wrote: > Yes, but this is really a seperate question. I'm sure that both Linux and > FreeBSD do fine on an unloaded server -- they are both reliable operating > systems at this point. The worries I have are what happens when the machine > is loaded down with silly CGI programs and serving out T1's worth of data. We > are using SunOS now, and I know for a fact that it _flails_ once the load on > the machine becomes significant - it just doesn't take any new connections. This is actually where FreeBSD really starts to shine. I have used FreeBSD in load situations that would have had your average SS5 or even SS10 system crying out for mercy. Sun's VM system is somewhat weak under serious loads, and performance drops off sharply once you pass a certain threshold (defined strongly by how much memory you have configured). This is not to say that you can't cause a FreeBSD box to beat itself to death if you really work at it or don't have enough main memory, but I've found that the performance degredation drops off in a far more linear fashion than I've seen with SunOS or Linux. I have a machine pumping out 700K/sec *average* here with 350 FTP users and around 50 running HTTP daemons. That's around 460 very active processes on an off-the-shelf P5-100 system, which isn't bad when you consider the price differential between a commodity priced P5 system and an SS10. The Suns used to enjoy a significant advantage with their SCSI disk I/O, but this advantage has dropped considerably with the advent of speedy 3.5" drives married to one of the newer PCI SCSI controllers. But don't just take my word for it, try it out! The OS is very reasonably priced! :-) -- Jordan