*BSD News Article 57791


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From: root@dyson.iquest.net (John S. Dyson)
Subject: Re: a monthly FreeBSD magazine (and other *BSD's too)
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References: <4ajc07$sb7@unix2.glink.net.hk> <4bs4cu$mkm@gandalf.compumedia.com> <4bthbq$mfp@mark.ucdavis.edu> <4c8o00$p5e@news1.halcyon.com>
Date: Mon, 1 Jan 1996 22:16:52 GMT
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Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.advocacy:31511 alt.os.linux:6722 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:11181 comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc:1674

In article <4c8o00$p5e@news1.halcyon.com>,
Tim Smith <tzs@coho.halcyon.com> wrote:
>David E. O'Brien <obrien@cs.ucdavis.edu> wrote:
>>Once again we have ignorance about FreeBSD.  The reason for slower driver
>>development isn't because of the structured development nature of FBSD.
>>RATHER it is because FBSD has a smaller user base, and thus a smaller
>>number of people that have weird hardware and gets a hair up their ass to
>>write a driver for it.  There is NOTHING stopping Joe User from writing a
>
>Your theory can be seen to be bull by simply noticing that FreeBSD
>driver development slowness is not limited to weird hardware.
>
Yep -- but the same problems have existed/do exist in other OSes -- even
Linux (take a look at the 2940 driver, isn't it kind-of buggy?)  These
partisan comments really tend to decrease the credability of the various user
bases.  I probably run Linux as often (and more recent versions) than many
Linux users, and I am a FreeBSD core team member.  I do competitive analysis
runs fairly often.  Right now, Linux appears to be in the performance
"catch-up" mode.  But we also have been working on some substantial performance
improvments, with some fairly innovative changes.  Hopefully, I'll have
them committed to FreeBSD in a few weeks.  (towards the end of Jan.)  I have
been load testing and verifying my new mods.

BTW, My guess is that David's definition of "wierd" probably implies low-end --
and since FreeBSD shines in high performance/high load applications, that is
where the efforts have been concentrated.

John Dyson
dyson@freebsd.org