From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Feb 8 18:52:55 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B4F8716A417 for ; Fri, 8 Feb 2008 18:52:55 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from doug@safeport.com) Received: from fledge.watson.org (fledge.watson.org [209.31.154.41]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0276A13C45A for ; Fri, 8 Feb 2008 18:52:54 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from doug@safeport.com) Received: from fledge.watson.org (localhost.watson.org [127.0.0.1]) by fledge.watson.org (8.14.2/8.14.2) with ESMTP id m18IqqgR046054 for ; Fri, 8 Feb 2008 13:52:52 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from doug@safeport.com) Received: from localhost (doug@localhost) by fledge.watson.org (8.14.2/8.14.2/Submit) with ESMTP id m18Iqp0w046051 for ; Fri, 8 Feb 2008 13:52:51 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from doug@safeport.com) X-Authentication-Warning: fledge.watson.org: doug owned process doing -bs Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2008 13:52:51 -0500 (EST) From: doug@safeport.com X-X-Sender: doug@fledge.watson.org To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org In-Reply-To: <20080208083120.Q1424@wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl> Message-ID: <20080208131809.F12870@fledge.watson.org> References: <20080208083120.Q1424@wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed X-Greylist: Sender IP whitelisted, not delayed by milter-greylist-3.0 (fledge.watson.org [127.0.0.1]); Fri, 08 Feb 2008 13:52:52 -0500 (EST) Subject: RE: Some ideas for FreeBSD X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: doug@fledge.watson.org List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2008 18:52:55 -0000 On Fri, 8 Feb 2008, Wojciech Puchar wrote: >> It is one thing to add support for a POSIX call into FreeBSD. >> That's fine. >> >> It's quite another to break a header or supply hacky 32-bit-only >> code in a library or some such just because Linux does the same >> brain-dead stuff and the Linux maintainers are too stubborn or >> stupid to fix Linux. >> > don't forget that linux changed from being good unix OS to be windows > competitor. and it's competing well. I am only responding to two narrow points so I am only responding to the list. I apologize in advance if this is a protocol error. Linux got (and gets?) a boost from law suit over the name "unix" that was in progress around the advent of the BSDs. Linux seems to, at least initially, done a better job of being easier to install. Perhaps in the past even we FreeBSD-ers were willing to cede the desktop to other O/S-s. As a result Linux is probably more competitive with Windows than FreeBSD is as a desktop. I think that has nothing to do with the technical merits of this (or any) discussion. The other point is when FreeBSD starts swapping to any degree, thrashing is not far behind. There is no cure for not having enough memory. Email is not generally an interactive endeavor and can probably tolerate much swapping than running KDE. Actually running KDE on a 128MB system I know this for a absolute fact :) Swapping systems may have performed better when thrashing started because they had lots of controls to say who (or what type of workload) got screwed when memory was scarce.