From owner-freebsd-chat Tue Jul 18 12:47:20 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from turtle.looksharp.net (cc360882-a.strhg1.mi.home.com [24.2.221.22]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4470137B921 for ; Tue, 18 Jul 2000 12:47:14 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from bsdx@looksharp.net) Received: from localhost (bsdx@localhost) by turtle.looksharp.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id PAA02293; Tue, 18 Jul 2000 15:47:38 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from bsdx@looksharp.net) Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2000 15:47:37 -0400 (EDT) From: Adam To: Jason Cc: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: The joys of Windows In-Reply-To: <005001bff0ed$497234c0$9ccf1f40@pdq.net> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Disclaimer: I'm only discussing/arguing because I find it entertaining at the moment. If someone wishes I wasn't, let me know and I'll gladly stop. On Tue, 18 Jul 2000, Jason wrote: >>On Tue, 18 Jul 2000, Tim Ryder wrote: >>>All this talk about bsd and linux being better than >>>windows is bullshit. I have windows 2000 and when I >>>do anything on FreeBSD or Linux, it is always slower >>>then when I do it on windows and now with win 2000 >>>out, windows even has better memory management. >> >>Got Benchmarks ? I thought so. >>By the way, my FreeBSD machine does not consume over 64 megs of memory >>upon bootup. Do you have some tips for us on how to make win 2000 not do >>so? > >You missed the point. His application was as a workstation, not a server. >FreeBSD will of course not consume so much memory on boot, but once X is >running, it comes pretty close to 64 megs in use. FreeBSD will kick some ass >both in CPU and memory usage and management, but to anyone legally running >windows 2000, it is going to be a drop in the bucket to get 128 or 256 megs >of ram instead of 64. I have workstations as well as servers. I run FreeBSD on them all. I just booted up FreeBSD on one, started XFree86, and am in icewm with an xterm open and top running. Mem: ~7.6M active, ~7.6M Inactive, 12M Wired, 32K Cache, 8112K Buf, 97M Free out of 128M total. The 7.6M and 32K cache and 8112K cache can be considered free also if you realize they can be paged out or shrunk if more mem is needed. 31 < 64. > >Have you ever tried doing something graphics intensive on FreeBSD with >XFree86 2D or 3D? You can't. Simply put, the video drivers still suck, even Yes I have and its blazing fast (to me) with the GLX extensions for my video card. Can you have Hardware 3D animation in your windows backround? I don't think so. >with the new XFree86 architecture, especially compared to commercial windows >drivers. This is a place where perception is the ultimate benchmark. Linux >is much better off in this case with some video card manufactures creating >video driver kernel modules for X and Linux though the core isn't open >source. > >What about sound? Linux is making progress here with both a wide range of >drivers for sound cards that have some minimal PCM functionality, but also >with the groups currently working on a standard 3D audio stream API. FreeBSD >simply isn't. I guess no one using FreeBSD is really interested in having >support for more then PCM and a few well versed sound cards using it. Please tell me, how does 3D sound hardware play my mp3's in 3D? How does it play Audio cd's in 3D? > >I'd say the lack of SCSI drivers are a problem too, but windows doesn't >always do much better in this case either. > >There is of course a lack of application software, but this is slowly >changing with some KDE and GNOME apps. > >>>I like linux and freebsd, but I also know that right >>>now for the desktop and home use, windows 2000 is by >>>far the better option. I really hope that BSD or Linux >>>someday is better than windows and then I will use >>>them for everything, but until then you just cant beat >>>windows. >> >>I can. >>1:02PM up 63 days, 13:46, 9 users, load averages: 1.31, 1.25, 1.31 >>1:04PM up 196 days, 14:28, 1 user, load averages: 0.08, 0.05, 0.00 > >The main importance of this is in a server roll, but as a workstation, there >is usually a much lower consequence of such as long as the machine can stay >up between times of inactivity, times which a server can not guarantee, and >does not out right crash. I may be lucky, but I have yet to see windows 2000 >crash except with known buggy hardware - TNT2 AGP interacting with the buggy >chipset on a Asus P5A. So no, for this application, you haven't. You've only >presented three good reasons to use FreeBSD instead, though I've also >presented three much better reasons not to, at least one of which will >likely be the ultimate determining factor in what which someone uses. >Depending on how you look at it, things have a long way and a short way to >go before windows can be replaced. > >You're proving a different application then the desired - servers. That 63 days one was not a server, it is a computer I use daily for various (small) tasks. But I do run X on it the whole time and ssh around and read my email and run various other frivolous applications. The last time I rebooted was because I was screwing around with the external scsi bus in ways I probably shouldnt have been. I have my scanner attached and scan in images with gimp happily. When I'm done, top looks on average like this: Memory: 40M Act, 676K Inact, 412K Wired, 4008K Free, 508K Swap, 79M Swap free This computer has a 40mhz cpu. When I scan on my parents NT4 computer with 64 megs (more than this one) and a *400* mhz cpu it crawls from swapping. I'll continue to provide specific examples disproving assumptions about how I(we) (may) use our computers as long as I'm included in the grouping. > >As usual, it still comes down to what hardware you have or can get, and what >you want to do with it. Everything has its flaws and that fact may never >change. It pays not to take up a blind loyalty if one at all. It will only >cause you to lose your objectivity. Right - I consider myself pretty objective even if I only choose to argue specific points at times. The fact that I like *BSD doesn't stop me from using and somewhat liking other things too. When people try to fit square pegs in round holes, then I get upset =) > >- Jason > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message