*BSD News Article 77972


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From: John Dyson <dyson@freebsd.org>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Benchmarking different Unix Operating Systems
Date: Tue, 10 Sep 1996 00:53:35 -0500
Organization: John S. Dyson's home machine
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Chris Mauritz wrote:
> 
> I was using an older version of FreeBSD (2.0R) on the following
> system and it easily handled over 400k hit/day as a web server.
> 
> 486 DX4/100
> Buslogic BT-445 VLB SCSI controller
> 32mb RAM
> 256k cache
> 1 2gig Barracuda
> 1 1gig Fujitsu (subsequently failed)
> 3COM 3C509 ethernet card
> 
> Even during peak usage, top and "vmstat -systat" showed the
> machine to be 80-90% idle.
> 
Oh my gosh!!!  FreeBSD is light-years beyond that now
(almost literally.)  I shuddered when we released that, and
am very happy that you had successfully used it in a real
application.  The (now ancient) history of the desperate
and rushed effort of getting 2.0 out still gives me
(and especially the others who did the herculean effort
of release engineering) nightmares.

Within 2wks of getting the 4.4Lite code, DG and I had a
running kernel with all of the non-included parts
minimally rewritten from scratch.  We all cooperated
very very well at that time (and the FreeBSD kernel
developers are still the easiest people that I have
worked with in my career.)  The version from the 2.0
FreeBSD generation of my
buffer cache code is still being used in Lites (at least
the last time that I checked.) 

The current end result (2.2 and on) of that forced migration
to the 4.4-Lite code has paid off in the long run though.
Additionally, I have had a wonderful time just being able
to program and work on things that are fun.  Many of the
contributors and core team members have gone beyond that
and done some of the really hard parts (esp. the release
engineering.)  Those guys are really the unsung heroes.
(They sometimes get an extra that-a-boy on the CDROM cover,
but IMO is only a minor thanks considering the effort
involved.)

Right now, Jordan (at least the last time that I heard :-)),
is not only the President, but also the release engineer.
That guy is really going all out...

So much for my rambling...
John