Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1998 13:20:37 +0200 (MET DST) From: Sascha Schumann <sas@www.schell.de> To: Konrad Heuer <kheuer@gwdu60.gwdg.de> Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: FreeBSD or LINUX??? - Which one should I choose? Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.96.980728124826.1777E-100000@www.schell.de> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.3.96.980728090257.10378C-100000@gwdu60.gwdg.de>
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On Tue, 28 Jul 1998, Konrad Heuer wrote:
>
> On Fri, 24 Jul 1998, Sascha Schumann wrote:
>
> > > * Of course there are minor differences wich can be important depending on
> > > what you want to do, e.g.:
> > > - more commercial software for Linux
> > > - greater popularity of Linux
> > > - file size is still limited to 2 GB with Linux ext2fs
> >
> > Since version 0.5a of ext2fs it supports 2GB+
>
> Yes - file system size is >2GB but *not* file size! `off_t' is just a long
> - and have you an idea how to address more then 2GB with 32 bit? In
> FreeBSD as in 4.4BSD off_t is 64 bit!
If you need such big files, it's probably better to use some kind of raw
file system. There are known issues with ext2 - one of them is the limited
file size, but there are big efforts done on a new implementation of ext2
(e.g. journaling comes to my head).
A 2GB limitation is a problem. Oracle wants to port their database to
Linux (like Informix) what should help speed up development of ext2.
> > > - Linux scheduling algorithm is poor on high system load
> > > (THUS - to run an internet server I'd prefer FreeBSD!)
> >
> > Which of the scheduling algorithms do you mean? There are actually three I
> > remember now (rr, fifo, other). And there is Linux-rt (realtime support).
> > Does FreeBSD have this?
>
> Excuse me - is Linux so confusing? I thought the kernel sources are
> uniform. I've seen just one scheduler in the kernel source. Concerning
> real time support - I don't know about it in FreeBSD.
Nope. You need different schedulers for different purposes. The only
uniformity you will see in Linux is its plurality. See man
sched_setscheduler for more info (or dl the rt-tools from sunsite).
>
> > And dont't forget: Linux supports SMP hardware since somewhere in 1.3.x
> > days. FreeBSD does not. I read sth that FreeBSD 3.0 might support it...
>
> It will!
I've looked into the features of -current now and it looks very promising.
>
> > I installed FreeBSD some days ago on one of my machines and I found it
> > first a little bit confusing... I searched for the /usr/src/sys tree a
> > little bit too long ;)
>
> Depending on one's experience it's question of time to get accustomed to a
> system. I need more time to look for something in Linux ... :-)
I'll spend more time in FreeBSD. I just unpacked the XFree86 sources and
until that big thing is ready, I'll have to stay under FreeBSD...
>
> > BTW, is there some "nicer" interface for configuring the kernel? While
> > compiling the kernel first, I got some undefined references to
> > __isa_devtab_cam which were solved with hacking around a little bit
> > (#define _ISA_DEVTAB_CAM_NOT_EXTERN)
>
> Hmm - did you copy the GENERIC kernel config file, edit it and run the
> config program?
I did. But it was the config program for 2.2.6 which had a problem with
2.2.7. Btw, the hacked kernel worked too ;)
> > > * FreeBSD evolved from the BSD branch of UNIX and thus is a UNIX
> > > derivative. Linux started from Tanenbaum's Minix and is a
> > > reimplementation of the UNIX interface.
> >
> > Linux DID NOT start from Minix. Linux was complety written from scratch.
> > You should read the comp.os.minix newsgroup archiv where Tanenbaum and
> > Linus started their first argument...
>
> I did not want to say that the Linux contains Minix code - I don't know.
> But as far as I know Linus T startet the development of Linux on an Minix
> system.
Sorry for becoming nervous. I also tend to believe that if you reimplement
something, you will avoid previously done mistakes. That's learning. If
you don't want to become incompatible to the rest of the world, you choose
a commonly accepted interface - that's why it became so popular among
students and researchers around the world.
Bye,
Sascha
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