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Date:      Tue, 21 Mar 2000 19:19:31 +0900
From:      "Daniel C. Sobral" <dcs@newsguy.com>
To:        Garance A Drosihn <drosih@rpi.edu>
Cc:        Dag-Erling Smorgrav <des@flood.ping.uio.no>, Michael Lucas <mwlucas@blackhelicopters.org>, freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: 21st Century Unix - web serving
Message-ID:  <38D74CB3.DF3AA476@newsguy.com>
References:  <200003210130.KAA74668@daniel.sobral> <v04210100b4fcc78c7165@[128.113.24.47]>

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Garance A Drosihn wrote:
> 
> I assumed "advanced web serving" means packages like ColdFusion.
> Ignoring the question of whether ColdFusion is really "advanced" or
> not, I do know one department on campus here might be switching from
> NT to FreeBSD if they can run ColdFusion on FreeBSD.  I do not have
> much background in web-serving options, but I'm under the impression
> that ColdFusion is available RIGHT NOW for Linux, and I don't know
> how well it would work under FreeBSD.

Since I don't know what ColdFusion does, I cannot comment on this.

> Note that what I'm really hoping here is that someone will pipe up
> and say "Oh, yes, I have no trouble running ColdFusion on FreeBSD",
> which would be encouraging to me...   :-)  Maybe it can be run under
> linux emulation, but given that all this machine will be doing is
> web-serving and ColdFusion, then there seems little point in using
> FreeBSD if the only way to run ColdFusion is via linux emulation.

Not Linux "emulation". There is _no_ emulation done. It's plain ABI
compatibility. We just "run" the Linux stuff.

Now, you think there is little point, but, as a matter of fact, there
is. FreeBSD has advantages over Linux. Some claim a faster IP stack, and
I'd be really amazed if our SCSI stuff didn't leave Linux SCSI way
behind for anything but the simpler configurations, for instance. But
more important, in my opinion, is FreeBSD ability to handle *LOAD*. You
know, when you just have been slashdotted and get a sudden peak of
access way above the normal? Well, FreeBSD handles it. It doesn't do any
H0H0 magic or anything, it crawls as you would expect it to, but it
_continues to work_. That's not the case with Linux. With Linux, you get
into a trashing situation, where useful work simply ceases until the
peak is gone.

Now, if you plan to use enough hardware to avoid swapping to disk even
at peak times, or if you just plain don't care to have your page
available at the time when most people are interested in it, fine, go
Linux. Otherwise, I'd advise _taking a look_ at FreeBSD.

--
Daniel C. Sobral			(8-DCS)
dcs@newsguy.com
dcs@freebsd.org

	One Unix to rule them all, One Resolver to find them,
        One IP to bring them all and in the zone bind them.



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