Date: Thu, 8 Apr 1999 16:36:24 +0930 From: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> To: Wes Peters <wes@softweyr.com> Cc: advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Data Communications Magazine article Message-ID: <19990408163624.Q2142@lemis.com> In-Reply-To: <370C3C17.19CBD1C7@softweyr.com>; from Wes Peters on Wed, Apr 07, 1999 at 11:18:15PM -0600 References: <370C3132.29B9E0F2@softweyr.com> <19990408151256.L2142@lemis.com> <370C3C17.19CBD1C7@softweyr.com>
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On Wednesday, 7 April 1999 at 23:18:15 -0600, Wes Peters wrote: > One more time, with feeling: > > Mr. Lee Bruno, > Data Communications Magazine > > Re: your April 7, 1999 article "Open-Source Software: Power to the People" > > Mr. Bruno, > > I read the referenced article with great interest and care. I am > pleased to see such even and fair coverage of Open Source software, > and am particularly pleased to see your mention of BSD systems, often > overlooked by your colleagues in the popular computing press. > > It is often difficult to research articles such as this, and > I have found in this message I have identified? > some developments your readers may need in order to make > informed decisions about what BSD systems may do for them. > > Paid professional support is available for the FreeBSD operating > system from FreeBSD Mall; details are available at > http://www.freebsdmall.com/. Each of the Open Source BSD operating > system groups also offers lists of consultants familiar with BSD > systems; many of these can provide professional support on an > individual basis as well. All are supported through the usual mail > and web resources as mentioned in your article. > > Clustering is most certainly in the cards for FreeBSD as well. > Several projects are working on various forms of clustering, and have > stable reliable systems based on clustering technology. Simple server > load balancing, a weak form of clustering, is available from the > Eddieware project at http:://www.eddieware.org/. The David Sarnoff > Research Center has created a loosely coupled cluster of FreeBSD > machines for parallel computational work; see > ftp://ftp.sarnoff.com/pub/mnfs/www/docs/cluster.html for more > information about their parallel computing cluster. > > Both Linux and BSD systems support standard, open-source LDAP servers. > Linux and FreeBSD also support PAM--Pluggable Authentication > Modules--to enable user authentication via LDP servers. While > interoperability with NDS and AD is not guaranteed, it is certainly a > goal of the developers of the LDAP PAM modules. > > Linux does have a 2 GByte filesystem, ext2fs, but this limitation does > not hamper BSD systems; the ufs filesystem in 4.4BSD has supported > large filesystem sizes--greater than well beyond > 100 GBytes--for many years. > > FreeBSD 3.1 has added softupdate support, which allows asynchronous > updates of filesystem data without the dangers of the Linux ext2fs > approach, in a much more resilient manner than Linux's ext2fs > and the Vinum Volume Manager, which allows administrators to > add space from new disk drives to existing filesystems. These > additions make FreeBSD by far the best open source system for > supporting large disk systems. Greg -- See complete headers for address, home page and phone numbers finger grog@lemis.com for PGP public key To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
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