*BSD News Article 95975


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From: "Jay Rothschild" <jay@ais.net>
Subject: Re: Dell Pentium II, EIDE HD, NTFS, Linux-Compatibility
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
References: <338461F9.1814F4BF@ttl.pactel.com>
Message-ID: <01bc66d5$c49704f0$32a19acf@jay>
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Date: 22 May 97 17:29:44 GMT
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I have several FreeBSD & several NT server machines here and I can tell you
the worst performing system will be the NT with an IDE/EIDE drive. Single
user performance for EIDE under FreeBSD *might* be acceptable (we don't use
Xwindows, so I cannot comment on that) but NT single or multiple user
performance will be unacceptable with EIDE.

Systems with 128MB RAM and ultra wide scsi drives tend to be quite
satisfying on either platform in performance. RAMwise the NT is a much
hungrier, needing 2-4 times the RAM of a FreeBSD system.

David B. Small <dbsmall@ttl.pactel.com> wrote in article
<338461F9.1814F4BF@ttl.pactel.com>...
> I'll be buying a computer next month.
> I know I have to run NT (because I have to run MS Office, and I'm
> unwilling to run W95)
> 
> In the past, I had a 486 running Linux, but I've decided to switch to
> FreeBSD (I'm generally more comfortable with BSD) on a second partition.
> 
> Before I 'take the plunge', I thought I'd ask the newsgroup some
> questions:
> 
> 1) I'm considering a Dell Pentium II/266.  (I really *was* going to
> build a K6/200, and save some money, until I realized I couldn't
> actually save money by building it myself)  Does anyone have any
> experience running FreeBSD on Dell Pentium IIs?  Good/Bad/Comments?
> 
> 2) I can get a pretty fast 6.4Gig EIDE hard Drive with the Dell (or I
> can spend the bucks to get a SCSI setup).  I know FreeBSD supports IDE
> hard drives, but what about EIDE?  Will it work, or do I need to go
> SCSI?
> 
> 3) NTFS.  If I run NT Workstation, I can install either on NTFS or
> FAT-32.  When I ran Linux, I was able to mount FAT partitions under
> Linux.  Is it possible to mount NTFS partitions under FreeBSD?   (There
> are some performance disadvantages to NTFS, I understand... but it
> *does* give you better access control)
> 
> 4) Since FreeBSD has the ability to run Linux Binaries (right?), does
> that mean I can use the newly developed JDK 1.1 for Linux on FreeBSD?
> (Realistically, my FreeBSD partition will be used for development,
> mostly)
> 
> Please followup to the group (unless I've asked *really* stupid
> questions, in which case you may humble me privately)---I'll bet I'm not
> the only one who wants to know these answers (and I didn't find them in
> the FAQ).
> 
> -David
> 
>