Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2012 17:03:02 -0600 From: Chad Perrin <perrin@apotheon.com> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: CLANG vs GCC tests of fortran/f2c program Message-ID: <20120621230302.GB575@hemlock.hydra> In-Reply-To: <26.30.12873.06EE2EF4@smtp02.insight.synacor.com> References: <26.30.12873.06EE2EF4@smtp02.insight.synacor.com>
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On Thu, Jun 21, 2012 at 05:50:24AM -0400, Thomas Mueller wrote: > Snippet from Wojciech Puchar <wojtek@wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl>: > > > > I successfully predicted the fall of linux (in quality point of view) > > years ago, then netbsd - after this and my prediction were good. > > > > Now i predict FreeBSD will fall within 2015 time frame. > > What i mean fall - that it would be better to use older version as long as > > possible because newer are worse. > > > > For now > > > > - FreeBSD 6 was an improvement > > - FreeBSD 7 was an improvement, except first releases but that's normal > > - FreeBSD 8 was a big improvement in performance and quality. > > > > FreeBSD 9 as for now: > > > > - have similar performance at most > > - have some improvement and important functionality like TRIM support. > > - have some useful functionality like softdep journalling, but risky. > > Still - forcing full check reveals some inconsistencies now and then. > > > > FreeBSD 10 will unlikely be better, but for sure slower unless you will > > force gcc build that MAYBE will work. possibly not. > > > My experience with NetBSD suggests you may be right there, but Linux? > > I'll have to build a new Linux installation and see for myself! > > I'm still inclined to say FreeBSD 9.0 is an improvement over 8.2; I never got to 8.3. I can definitely vouch for his estimate of the quality of Linux-based OSes, at least in the majority of cases. I primarily used Debian for a while, then went through a transitional period where I gradually phased out Debian, until about half a dozen years was spent entirely Linux-free (apart from the Linux kernel on a couple of embedded consumer devices), during which time I used FreeBSD for everything. Over the course of the last -- well, more than a year, less than 1.5 years -- I have been "forced" to use a Linux-based system again to get halfway decent graphics support on a laptop I bought without checking hardware compatibility carefully enough. In the meantime, however, I have provided some support for other people using Linux-based systems. During that time, I had occasion to see a Slackware installer hose an entire system (luckily with backups) that was initially intended to be set up as a multi-boot with FreeBSD and MS Windows; Ubuntu get cursed at great length with words like "If I wanted to deal with this crap, I'd use Windows!"; and similar issues crop up. Even so, installing Debian on my new laptop early last year (and trying to install Arch Linux on it -- which didn't hose anything up, but did fail to detect the free space on the hard drive, and thus failed to install, before I decided it was easier to skip Arch) and using it since then on a regular basis has been an eye-opener. Myriad little stupidities have crept into the system, including such wonders of engineering brilliance as some documentation to the effect that basic system network management tools were no longer guaranteed to work. I have some pretty strong opinions about the way things are getting broken in the Linux world, and some of the reasons this sort of problem is growing, but they're increasingly off-topic for this venue. Suffice to say that I could write a short book about the subject, and still leave a lot of problems unaddressed. Anyway, switching from GCC to Clang has essentially nothing to do with the kinds of problems we increasingly see in the Linux world. In fact, one of the biggest problems in the Linux world is the fact that GNU projects have a tendency to degrade in quality over time and pretty thoroughly undermine the Unix philosophy in egregious ways, which means that the sooner we can divest ourselves of GNU tools (including GCC) the better off we will probably be (though I would still advocate a measured approach to replacing GNU tools, rather than a headlong rush without any forethought). -- Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ]
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