Date: Sun, 22 Dec 2002 01:52:16 -0500 From: Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@online.fr> To: Jonathon McKitrick <jcm@FreeBSD-uk.eu.org> Cc: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: FreeBSD's momentum and future prospects Message-ID: <20021222065216.GA468@papagena.rockefeller.edu> In-Reply-To: <20021222064026.GA421@papagena.rockefeller.edu> References: <20021222034806.GA34537@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org> <20021222064026.GA421@papagena.rockefeller.edu>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
I wrote: > As an aside, I think this topic is about as useful as an argument on > "Linux's momentum and future prospects" (vis-a-vis, say, Microsoft) -- > that is, not useful at all. However, here's one concrete reaction I did recently get in reaction to attempted FreeBSD advocacy: a sysadmin of my acquaintance was complaining about the instability of linux's VM under load, apparently there were machines which would reboot if stressed too much, etc. (Known problem in early 2.4.x kernels, apparently things haven't improved too much since then.) I asked, well, why not use FreeBSD then? Answer -- but these are dual-processor machines, and FreeBSD's SMP sucks. I don't know enough to answer that. Hopefully 5.0 will be an answer. Meanwhile, stability under extreme loads (which may occur 0.1% of the time) may be a priority for servers, but for desktop machines and "numbercrunching" machines, raw performance the remaining 99.9% of the time is far more important. Even on uniprocessor machines, linux sometimes "feels" faster, if (or because?) it's somewhat less solid (eg the async-mounted filesystem, etc), and these perceptions eventually do influence user choice... Rahul To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?20021222065216.GA468>