Date: Fri, 12 Mar 1999 15:23:54 +1100 (EST) From: <nick@FERALMONKEY.ORG> To: unknown@hades.riverstyx.net Cc: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Guess we've lost the server market too...? Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.05.9903121520070.351-100000@shibumi.feralmonkey.org> In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.04.9903100514290.9316-100000@hades.riverstyx.net>
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On Wed, 10 Mar 1999 unknown@hades.riverstyx.net wrote: > I guess I'll toss something in here... I was a Linux guy for quite a > while, ran a lot of servers with Linux, got pretty familiar with it... and > then I tried FreeBSD. And it was really great, as far as initial > installation and getting new software to work on it. > > The kernel configuration is easy to use, and actually pretty cool the way > you can have multiple profiles and stuff. The ports collection is > probably the single coolest thing I've ever seen in a distribution. No > Linux distro has anything that comes close to comparing to that. On the > plus side, it appears to be really nice and stable as a web server or mail > server, no problems encountered there. Software installs seamlessly on > it, whereas on a Linux server half the time I have to go in and tweak some > minor environment variable or some such because every distro's a whole new > breed. It was a matter of running 'make install' to go from a console > only machine to a fully functional X-windows machine with Enlightenment > installed. > > Unfortunately, it's irritatingly arcane in certain areas, and some parts > of it are utterly ridiculous (the partitioning system.. who made that > up???). If there were more documentation, and a better directory > hierarchy it'd be a whole lot better. Also, if the TCP/IP stack was a > whole lot better, and a whole lot more useful, that'd be a big plus. "whole lot better"? Offer constructive suggestions. And how exactly might it be made "a whole lot more useful"? > Check out the features that Linux 2.2's got going right now. It's also a > lot harder to get FreeBSD to interoperate with other OS'. In Linux, if I Define interoperate. > bring up a standard distro, it's trivial to mount and work with the > filesystems of other OS'. FreeBSD gave me grief about the way I'd > partitioned my first drive, and totally corrupted my second ext2 drive. It > didn't want to touch my second partition on my first drive because of a > missing label problem, and the fdisk program was crippled in usability > compared to the partitioning programs that even MS-DOS comes with. > Browsing through the kernel source, a good deal of that code is just weird ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > and idiosyncratic. Like that whole 'root/swap/whole disk/other stuff' ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ This depends entirely on the perspective of the person viewing it. > partitioning scheme that you appear to have to use. The process of making > a new filesystem newfs program is painful and unnecessarily complex when > compared to the mkfs style programs that Linux comes with. NFS didn't > work all that great with my Linux or Solaris NFS servers or clients. In > fact, it was totally non-functional with files over 200 bytes talking to a > Linux NFS server (with both knfsd and nfsd). It worked great when talking > to other FreeBSD servers. > > Anyhow, that's just my experience so far. I'm not going to run FreeBSD as > a workstation again. I'm thinking of using it as a server for some > essential services, like DNS and mail, 'coz from what I've heard, it's > really quite stable, but that's about it. It doesn't appear to be usable > in a really high performance environment for say, web hosting, but again > that's a matter of poor documentation and information. Where can I get I'm sure it is useable for those who take the time to learn it. Why do you think Yahoo! uses FreeBSD on their webfarm? > information like this? It's pretty sparse out there... > > On Wed, 10 Mar 1999, Eivind Eklund wrote: > > > On Sat, Mar 06, 1999 at 09:23:31AM -0500, John S. Dyson wrote: > > > Pat Lynch said: > > > > at this point, I want to step in and mention a phenomenon that seems to be > > > > happening everywhere. It happened to me, and its happening to alot of > > > > people I know. > > > > > > > > X installs linux, X likes linux, Y says "Try FreeBSD", Y happens to be > > > > somewhat of a "guru" in FreeBSD, X respects Y, X listens, X tries FreeBSD, > > > > X *loves* FreeBSD, X starts to get clued and starts spreading the word. > > > > > > > > I think its this type of "Grassroots" marketing that works very well for > > > > us. > > > > > > Well, that is encouraging... I wonder if that has enough impact to > > > effect a critical mass for FreeBSD? > > > > I'll just note that at least 1/2 of the people I see that start with > > FreeBSD has already tried Linux. I'm one of them myself - I started > > with Linux, and tested FreeBSD due to recommendations from one of my > > friends (now a coworker). Using FreeBSD felt sort of like "coming > > home" - the system felt lived in, with most of the sharp edges gone. > > So I stayed :-) > > > > Eivind. > > > > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > > with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message > > > > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message > -- "We all agree that your theory is crazy, but is it crazy enough?" - Niels Bohr (1885 - 1962) To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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