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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.rmit.EDU.AU!news.unimelb.EDU.AU!munnari.OZ.AU!news.mel.connect.com.au!news.mira.net.au!inquo!bofh.dot!in-news.erinet.com!bug.rahul.net!rahul.net!a2i!ddsw1!news.mcs.net!not-for-mail From: les@MCS.COM (Leslie Mikesell) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: FreeBSD vs. Linux Date: 29 May 1996 00:12:51 -0500 Organization: /usr/lib/news/organi[sz]ation Lines: 40 Message-ID: <4ogmcj$3f3@Mercury.mcs.com> References: <318FA7CB.8D8@hkstar.com> <4o1om8$156@dyson.iquest.net> <4o4lel$mu3@Mars.mcs.com> <4o7gsh$8ge@dyson.iquest.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: mercury.mcs.com In article <4o7gsh$8ge@dyson.iquest.net>, John S. Dyson <root@dyson.iquest.net> wrote: >>But can you quantify that a bit? I don't think my machines are >>ever CPU bound to a point where I would notice this, but perhaps >>it is just because I have cheap disks and network cards. >> >If your systems are not saturating your networks, then the slower networking >perf on Linux won't make much difference. This helps, but doesn't completely make things clear. I have 2 linux boxes and get 970-1100k/s ftp'ing large files between them using the recent kernels. >Slow network cards probably >overshadow most of the os overhead of either FreeBSD, Linux or NetBSD. >At 100% 10Mbps ethernet, an NE2000 takes 50% of your CPU for ISA >bus overhead, and an SMC shared memory card takes about 25% of your >CPU for ISA bus overhead. One machine has a 3c509b, the other an SMC ISA card. I thought the ISA bus supported about 5M/sec throughput - does this have an impact on the PCI scsi controller running simultaneously? Or memory copies that don't involve the ISA bus? >These numbers are constant if you are >using a 486/66 or Pentium-Pro!!! (since the bus timing is pretty much the >same.) Except that the Pentium should be able to get a lot more done in the remaining 50%. I'd expect the machine to be i/o bound most of the time anyway. >Things get more interesting (the OS becomes more critical) when you >use efficient PCI based ethernet adapters or 100Mbps networks. Or perhaps even multiple 10Mbs cards. Les Mikesell les@mcs.com