From owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Jun 2 17:48:02 2005 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id ECAFE16A41C for ; Thu, 2 Jun 2005 17:48:02 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from nwestfal@dslextreme.com) Received: from mailgate1.dslextreme.com (mailgate1.dslextreme.com [66.51.199.94]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4D6A943D55 for ; Thu, 2 Jun 2005 17:48:02 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from nwestfal@dslextreme.com) Received: from mail5.dslextreme.com (unknown [192.168.7.93]) by mailgate1.dslextreme.com (Postfix) with SMTP id 3C99C6303DC for ; Thu, 2 Jun 2005 09:45:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: (qmail 22960 invoked from network); 2 Jun 2005 17:47:58 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO dslextreme.com) (66.159.199.206) by mail5.dslextreme.com with (EDH-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA encrypted) SMTP; Thu, 02 Jun 2005 10:47:58 -0700 Received: from Osgiliath.home.lan (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by dslextreme.com (8.13.3/8.13.1) with ESMTP id j52HlwgO020563; Thu, 2 Jun 2005 10:47:58 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from nwestfal@dslextreme.com) Received: from localhost (nwestfal@localhost) by Osgiliath.home.lan (8.13.3/8.13.1/Submit) with ESMTP id j52Hlwga020560; Thu, 2 Jun 2005 10:47:58 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from nwestfal@dslextreme.com) X-Authentication-Warning: Osgiliath.home.lan: nwestfal owned process doing -bs Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2005 10:47:58 -0700 (PDT) From: "Neal E. Westfall" X-X-Sender: nwestfal@Osgiliath.home.lan To: Dan Langille In-Reply-To: <429EF96E.16172.33600ABA@localhost> Message-ID: <20050602100934.Y20286@Osgiliath.home.lan> References: <429EF96E.16172.33600ABA@localhost> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed X-DSLExtreme-MailGate-Information: Please contact the ISP for more information X-DSLExtreme-MailGate: Found to be clean X-MailScanner-From: nwestfal@dslextreme.com Cc: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Negative Review of FreeBSD 5.4 X-BeenThere: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: FreeBSD Evangelism List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2005 17:48:03 -0000 >> Anybody have any thoughts on this review? >> >> http://os.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=05/05/24/2153257&tid=8 > > I suggest you provide your thoughts first. Well, as I run FreeBSD on older 32-bit hardware, I have not seen some of the problems the author mentions, so my thoughts on the article will be somewhat limited. The impression the author gives is that the 4.X branch was more stable, but it doesn't appear that the author has actually used the 4.X branch. It probably isn't really a fair comparison anyway, as the 4.X branch doesn't support the hardware he was trying to use. I would have liked to see how a major linux distribution or two would have fared on the same hardware. I don't think that the reviewer really did extensive enough testing to be able to render a fair review, as he was using some pretty bleading edge hardware, and it is not clear from the review whether linux would have fared much better. Then again, as a FreeBSD user myself for a good 15 years or so, I am probably a little biased towards FreeBSD. Maybe linux is rock-solid on a 64-bit platform. It appears to be pretty stable at my jobsite, where we run 64-bit Linux on two Altix servers, but they do freeze up every once in a while, maybe once every 2-3 months, requiring a hardware reset.