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Date:      Mon, 23 Oct 2000 04:56:59 -0500 (CDT)
From:      Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org>
To:        Yifeng Xu <websoft@yahoo.com>, robert.shea@onlinecables.com
Cc:        questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: FreeBSD v Linux
Message-ID:  <14836.2923.332920.815964@guru.mired.org>
In-Reply-To: <56598337@toto.iv>

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Yifeng Xu writes:
> I don't think an emulator can run faster and more
> smoothly than a native system, If I tell you emulator
> is better, it's joke. Guy, go to use Linux if you want
> Oracle.

If you're considering Oracle, the first step should be to hire a
*good* DBA, then run what they recommend. If they don't care about the
platform, use something you can buy support for that's at least as
good as the support you buy for your database. Also, never forget
Philip Greenspuns description of paying RDBMS vendors:

    The basic pricing strategy of database management system vendors is to
    hang the user up by his heels, see how much money falls out, take it
    all and then ask for another $50,000 for "support".

As for emulators: you don't think a Gigahertz PIII with a z80 emulator
can run CP/M-80 faster than the the original 1MHz 8080? There's time
for hundreds of instructions for each 8080 instruction, happening on a
bus and ALUs that are four times as wide as the original. Emulation
code written by anyone with more than half a brain should run *rings*
around the "native system".

For Linux emulation on FreeBSD, the emulation code is a very thin
layer in the kernel, so chances are good that if application X on
FreeBSD is faster than application X on Linux, then application X for
Linux will run faster on FreeBSD emulating Linux than it will on Linux
proper.

Of course, "more smoothly" is another issue completely. So is
support. If you're going to buy a commercial database, you want
support (after all, you don't have source to do it yourself). To
prevent that from simply being throwing your money away, you should
run it on an OS that they support it on, not an emulation thereof;
otherwise you're asking for "Oh, the emulation is broken" in lieu of
fixes.

Note that, as far as support is concerned, it's not clear there is a
difference FreeBSD's Linux emulation and TurboLinux/Mandrake/etc. when
it comes to running a commercial application supported on Redhat.

	<mike


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