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#! rnews 2794 sserve.cc.adfa.oz.au Xref: sserve comp.os.linux.networking:10287 comp.os.ms-windows.networking.tcp-ip:13022 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:3715 Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!simtel!vtc.tacom.army.mil!ulowell.uml.edu!europa.chnt.gtegsc.com!library.ucla.edu!agate!violet.berkeley.edu!jkh From: jkh@violet.berkeley.edu (Jordan K. Hubbard) Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.networking,comp.os.ms-windows.networking.tcp-ip,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: Internet service providing-which OS? Date: 22 Jul 1995 02:01:42 GMT Organization: University of California, Berkeley Lines: 44 Message-ID: <3upm66$ev@agate.berkeley.edu> References: <3ue5qa$ain@panix.com> <3ufi7b$ju6@dingo.cc.uq.oz.au> <3ukbb9$7ao@gate.sinica.edu.tw> <3uo1mt$5uv@picard.cistron.nl> NNTP-Posting-Host: violet.berkeley.edu In article <3uo1mt$5uv@picard.cistron.nl>, Miquel van Smoorenburg <miquels@cistron.nl> wrote: >ftp.cica.indiana.edu, one of the busiest sites on the net (max 256 anon >ftp users) runs linux 1.2.10... Oh? 230-** To request automatic help, e-mail: ftp@cica.indiana.edu 230-** To contact us via e-mail: ftp-admin@cica.indiana.edu 230-** [deleted for brevity's sake] 230-** You are user number: 96 (of a possible 125) 230-** Local time is: Fri Jul 21 20:51:59 1995 [EST] I'd say a max of 125 is significantly less than 256.. By way of contrast, let's go now to ftp.cdrom.com - the FreeBSD 2.0.5 box: ... 230-Welcome to wcarchive - home ftp site for Walnut Creek CDROM. 230-There are currently 297 users out of 300 possible. Trust me, the difference between 125 and 300 is *very significant* and I should know, having spent many hours playing with the limits on ftp.cdrom.com. I can easily make the machine thrash its guts out by bumping the limit up to 500 since the physical limitations of RAM vs swap are always there, regardless of the OS. For every 10 users you add, you can see (and feel) a very measurable difference in system load! I'm not saying that this is prima-facie evidence that FreeBSD beats Linux, far from it. I'm saying that in all such comparisons, regardless of the conclusion reached, you need to make sure you're comparing apples with apples. 125 users does not in any way compare to 300, nor do I think that cica's link to the net is as fast as ftp.cdrom.com's (directly on the backbone at ethernet speed) which means that the users are stressing the system more with those 300 connections as they're able to pull more bits per connection across. If you're shoving 300 users through a T1 pipe, by comparison, then the system spends most of its time twiddling its thumbs with the ftpds sleeping on the overloaded link. It would take 7 fully saturated T1 lines to equal what ftp.cdrom.com is now pumping out. Jordan