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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.bhp.com.au!mel.dit.csiro.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!paladin.american.edu!zombie.ncsc.mil!news.mathworks.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!in2.uu.net!news.roundabout.org!news.demon.co.uk!demon!peer-news.britain.eu.net!strath-cs!nntphost!jim From: jim@cs.strath.ac.uk (Jim Reid) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.unix.solaris,comp.unix.aix Subject: Re: ISP hardware/software choices (performance comparison) Date: 12 Jan 1996 14:27:22 GMT Organization: Computer Science Dept. Strathclyde University, Glasgow, Scotland Lines: 26 Distribution: inet Message-ID: <JIM.96Jan12142722@dewar.cs.strath.ac.uk> References: <4cmopu$d35@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> <4cu7t0$mg5@engnews2.Eng.Sun.COM> <4cv8j1$59k@park.uvsc.edu> <4d37d4$j0l@gremlin.backfire.mn.org> <DL29Az.Ax2@ftel.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: dewar.cs.strath.ac.uk In-reply-to: I.G.Batten@ftel.co.uk's message of Fri, 12 Jan 1996 09:06:34 GMT Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc:1921 comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc:2066 comp.unix.solaris:57071 comp.unix.aix:68585 In article <DL29Az.Ax2@ftel.co.uk> I.G.Batten@ftel.co.uk (Ian G Batten) writes: The usual claim is that SunOS 4 is ``faster''. Just before I deleted my SunOS 4.1.2 and SunOS 4.1.3 trees from /export on our Auspex (*) I tried a few local jobs on a diskless 16M ELC running 4.1.2 and a diskless 16M ELC running 2.5. The 2.5 gadget came in 10% or so faster on a wide range of things. Fair enough. However, application speed is not the big factor here. [For starters, SunOS would be a *lot* faster if Mr. Sun expended as much effort on it as they do fixing their self-inflicted problems in Slowlaris.] The major concern I have is all the gratuitous SvsVR4 cruft that gets in the way of administering the system: the brain-dead and truly horrid print spooler, SAF ('nuf said), all the rc.? crap, the "-plumb" argument to ifconfig (WHY??), inittab and run levels, etc, etc. I am also heartily amused that the ``SunOS 4 is marvellous, what's this 5 crap?'' arguments are word for word identical to the abuse heaped on SunOS 4 relative to SunOS 3. Well not the arguments from me. Rather than fix something that was broken, Sun (and all the other vendors) have broken something that was fixed. This is the biggest complaint I have about Solaris: there's a lot of pain for no real gain - apart from the artificial benefit of getting an OS for the latest Sun kit that Sun won't let run SunOS.