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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.cs.su.oz.au!metro!metro!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!news.ysu.edu!news.radio.cz!voskovec.radio.cz!news.radio.cz!CESspool!news.maxwell.syr.edu!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!cam-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!howland.erols.net!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!ihnp4.ucsd.edu!nntp.ucsb.edu!usenet From: Axel Boldt <boldt@math.ucsb.edu> Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.linux.advocacy,comp.unix.bsd.misc Subject: Measuring "stability" (was: Linux vs BSD) Date: 05 Feb 1997 16:33:33 -0800 Organization: Univ of California at Santa Barbara, Dept of Mathematics Lines: 27 Sender: boldt@emile Message-ID: <ywtu3nq7oyq.fsf_-_@math.ucsb.edu> References: <32DFFEAB.7704@usa.net> <slrn5fejrn.353.bet@onyx.interactive.net> <5d7spf$8n6@web.nmti.com> <5d9p55$t1h@news.ox.ac.uk> <5dadfr$cnu@web.nmti.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: emile.math.ucsb.edu X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.3/Emacs 19.34 Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.misc:156987 comp.os.linux.advocacy:82942 comp.unix.bsd.misc:2391 peter@nmti.com (Peter da Silva) writes: [FreeBSD is more "stable", "reliable", "solid" than Linux] I have some problems with these terms since we all seem to agree that neither Linux nor FreeBSD ever crashes in everyday usage. So why don't we try to come up with some test that both camps can agree on as a measure of stability? > I'm a bad pet-owner when it comes to operating systems. I abuse them. I > make them run two concurrent X servers (on different VCs) with Netscape > and Xkobo and other horrid programs bashing away all at the same time. > And that's on a fairly 486 with 16M running 3 mailing lists, 3 MUDs, and > a website. I've got gobs of swap, but I'll run it out of that, and come > home to see that it's been running out of swap on and off all day. The above looks like a good start. Should be a little bit more formalized though. I saw a test of Unix utilities a while back, where they threw random input at them, and the GNU tools came out as the most stable, far ahead of comercial Unices (does FreeBSD use the GNU tools at all?). Maybe we can do something similar for OS's. Surely, both systems will improve as a result. Axel -- Axel Boldt * boldt@math.ucsb.edu * http://www.math.ucsb.edu/%7Eboldt/