From owner-freebsd-questions Thu May 6 17:41:31 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from dt057n14.san.rr.com (dt051nc7.san.rr.com [204.210.32.199]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DE61B1514A for ; Thu, 6 May 1999 17:41:29 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from Studded@gorean.org) Received: from gorean.org (master [10.0.0.2]) by dt057n14.san.rr.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id RAA09569; Thu, 6 May 1999 17:41:14 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from Studded@gorean.org) Message-ID: <373236A8.A03C02A8@gorean.org> Date: Thu, 06 May 1999 17:41:12 -0700 From: Studded Organization: Triborough Bridge & Tunnel Authority X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.51 [en] (Win98; I) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Kent Stewart Cc: "'freebsd-questions@freebsd.org'" Subject: FreeBSD vs. Linux under load (Was: Re: Fact or Fiction (Unix vs NT)) References: <199904150654.XAA23108@gms.gmsnet.com> <37161B6A.BCA9C1CA@3-cities.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Kent Stewart wrote: > One of the reasons I'm using FreeBSD is because I was told by many > people that Linux is unstable under heavy loads and that FreeBSD > isn't. Whether that is true or not, it is what many Unix people > believe. My ISP went from Linux to BSDI and their system stability > went up a factor of 10 from my point of view. Our *extensive* testing on this very topic has proven conclusively that FreeBSD stands up under loads with thousands of simultaneous connections, where linux falls down at around 800. The problem seems to be in the number of file descriptors allocated per connection. My personal best is 5,382 IRC users on one FreeBSD box, there are other IRC servers that have done over 8,000. Some of the linux diehards on our network are still trying to make a go of it, but even the latest kernels just don't hold up under heavy load. They may last a day or two, but eventually something in the networking layer seems to break down and the box becomes unreachable. Different apps with different load patterns may differ of course, but for something like ircd/ftpd/httpd FreeBSD will beat linux hands down on the same hardware, every time. In fairness, this isn't all that bad of a thing really. Linux was designed to be a desktop OS for having fun with unix, and BSD was designed as a server platform for serious work. Each of those is a good thing. Vive le difference I say. :) Doug -- *** Chief Operations Officer, DALnet IRC network *** Nominated for quote of the year is the statement made by Representative Dick Armey (Texas), who when asked if he were in the President's place, would he resign, responded: "If I were in the President's place I would not get a chance to resign. I would be lying in a pool of my own blood hearing Mrs. Armey standing over me saying, 'How do I reload this damn thing?'" To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message