From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Dec 9 22:02:11 2012 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9E7CF949 for ; Sun, 9 Dec 2012 22:02:11 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from rfg@tristatelogic.com) Received: from outgoing.tristatelogic.com (segfault.tristatelogic.com [69.62.255.118]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 777738FC12 for ; Sun, 9 Dec 2012 22:02:11 +0000 (UTC) Received: from segfault-nmh-helo.tristatelogic.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by segfault.tristatelogic.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id D97AC5081A for ; Sun, 9 Dec 2012 14:02:10 -0800 (PST) To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD for serious performance? In-Reply-To: <20121209091305.238100@gmx.com> Date: Sun, 09 Dec 2012 14:02:10 -0800 Message-ID: <20594.1355090530@tristatelogic.com> From: "Ronald F. Guilmette" X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 09 Dec 2012 22:02:11 -0000 In message <20121209091305.238100@gmx.com>, "Dieter BSD" wrote: >Ronald writes: >> the last Alpha to be produced was shipped way back in 2004... eight years >> ago... with a top speed of 1.3 GHz.  I now have a cheap little media player >> thingy sitting on my desk, and _each_ of its two cores runs faster than that. >> In short, Alphas hardly constitute high-end hardware in this day and age. > >So clock rate is the only thing that matters in your world? Yea, pretty much. As regards to reliability, except for the occasional low-level quirk (which is usually taken care of for me by the kernel guys) I've never had a processor fail on me. Once, about five or six years ago I accidentally burnt up an Athlon XP (by not having the heatsink properly seated) but that was entirely my fault. >I never found a way to boot from different partitions, much less >different disks with GPT. Having just been recently convinced to switch over to GPT (from MBR) I do most sincerly hope that you are either joking or mistaken about this. >The useless CHS baggage hangs around for decades, but useful >hardware loses all support 5 nanoseconds after the last machine >is sold. Other useful hardware waits years hoping to get support. Yeabut on the bright side, you can't beat the price! Regards, rfg