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From: jnials@pentagon.io.com (Jon R. Nials)
Newsgroups: io.computers,io.general,comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.386bsd.questions
Subject: Re: Performance differences between Linux and FreeBSD
Date: 06 Feb 1995 17:29:03 GMT
Organization: Illuminati Online
Lines: 41
Message-ID: <JNIALS.95Feb6112903@pentagon.io.com>
References: <3fl8rt$mn0@ionews.io.org> <3fm2on$4bd@ionews.io.org>
<3g7ugp$919@ionews.io.org> <JNIALS.95Jan28214433@pentagon.io.com>
<3gt6fi$bmn@ionews.io.org>
NNTP-Posting-Host: pentagon.io.com
In-reply-to: taob@io.org's message of 3 Feb 1995 07:10:25 -0500
In article <3gt6fi$bmn@ionews.io.org> taob@io.org (Brian Tao) writes:
NFS is definitely much, much faster in FreeBSD 2.0 than it is in
Linux 1.1.81. XFree86 3.1 *seems* faster on Linux, but I'm sure about
that. For example: logging out of my window manager and retunring to
the xlogin screen takes a few seconds in FreeBSD. In Linux, I'm there
in about a second. I ran a benchmark simulation (my own code, relies
almost exclusively on the OS's ability to manage vast quantities of
small memory blocks) under both: Linux is about twice as fast. I get
slightly better disk performance out of FreeBSD, but probably not
enough to be of any statistical significance. I had recompiled my
Linux kernel and stripped out the unneccessary junk before giving it
the boot though. My FreeBSD kernel is the same bulky one that comes
in the binary distribution. That may affect performance.
My problem has typically been memory constraint. Swapping performance
under FreeBSD has been much better. I am quite happy now. I can run
X, emacs, and still be able to run XDVI without spending 5-10 seconds
waiting for the disk to keep thrashing. And until I am ready to drop
$800 for 4 4Meg simms, my computer will be constrained to 8 Meg.
Overall, I don't think a user will notice a difference, except for
in certain very specific cases (like my simulation code). X is still
pretty snappy under FreeBSD (486/66, 16 megs) and even large apps like
xv 3.10 come up in no time at all. I personally prefer FreeBSD over
Linux because of its BSD 4.4Lite origins, but YMMV. If you are happy
with one or the other, don't bother switching unless you're a
masochist like me and *like* installing OS's. :)
Well, I am a bit of a masochist when it comes to that. I've now
installed FreeBSD 2.0 + a patch for PPP on my system. I am *quite*
happy. My system *feels* much perkier, and I have seen definite
improvements in some applications emacs being the most noticeable.
Plus, I'm pretty much from a BSDish background (Xenix & Sparcs) so
this is like an old comfortable shoe to me.
-Jon
--
|jnials@io.com | Jon R. Nials |
|http://www.io.com/user/jnials/index.html | Phone: @Home: (512) 835-5121|