Date: Sun, 06 Feb 2005 13:04:49 +0200 From: =?iso-8859-4?Q?Art=FEras_Lapien=EC?= <rwd@res.lt> To: Scott Long <scottl@freebsd.org> Cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: The case for FreeBSD Message-ID: <1107687889.8402.4.camel@localhost> In-Reply-To: <4205F382.8020404@freebsd.org> References: <4205F382.8020404@freebsd.org>
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And what about linux 2.6 vs FreeBSD ? On Sun, 2005-02-06 at 03:37 -0700, Scott Long wrote: > All, > > There has been a lot of recent talk and advocacy for NetBSD 2.0 from the > NetBSD team. Most recently there were a series of articles posted my > Chritos Zoulas describing why NetBSD is relevant and why it's a better > choice than either FreeBSD or OpenBSD. While I strongly applaud the > accomplishments of the NetBSD team and happily agree that NetBSD 2.0 is > a strong step forward for them, I take a bit of exception to many of > their claims and much of their criticisms of FreeBSD. > > First of all, the last decade has been ripe with cooperation between all > three of the major BSD projects. Each projects gives and takes from the > others, and there are a number of developers that have commit > privileges to multiple BSD projects. Drivers, infrastructure, > bug fixes, and features readily flow between projects. This benefits > everyone, especially since it allows each group to focus on unique > aspects of the system without having to be bogged down with other > aspects. As the old saying goes, FreeBSD is about performance, NetBSD > is about platform portability, and OpenBSD is about security. > > So is that still the case? The NetBSD advocates are quick to claim that > NetBSD 2.0 now beats FreeBSD in both performance and features. > Fortunately, that just is not true. There is a very long list of > reasons why FreeBSD is an excellent operating system and an ideal choice > for the enterprise and the desktop. Briefly: > > - Netgraph provides unparalleled flexibility to build complex network > environments. Netgraph modules are available for packet filtering, > tunneling, redirection, inspection, and injection at any point in the > network stack in a transparent and quick fashion. Modules can be > stacked together like bricks to meet just about any need. Developing > custom modules is also easy and very well documented. There simply is > not anything else in any other OS that is as flexible, easy to use, and > full-featured as netgraph. > > - GEOM provides to the storage stack what netgraph provides to the > network stack. Transformations like mirroring, striping, spanning, and > encryption can be configured for any storage object from the filesystem > on up. The vinum volume manager was recently converted to use GEOM and > now provides high-availability and high-reliability redundancy to any > storage object. While NetBSD recently imported Vinum, it took the > older, less stable and less functional version that has since been > deprecated by its author in FreeBSD in favor of GEOM-Vinum. > > - Advanced network features and protocols such as SACK, NFSv4, > SYN-cache/SYN-cookies, compressed TIME_WAIT, and accept filters allow > for fast, secure, and scalable network operations in an ever-increasing > hostile and busy Internet. Packet filters like IPFW and PF provide > advanced filtering, shaping, and NAT sharing. FreeBSD continues to run > some of the busiest and most important network sites in the world with > these technologies. > > - Outstanding desktop and laptop support is provided by a number of > technologies. Nvidia develops and distributes native 3D drivers for its > graphics cards for FreeBSD. A team of FreeBSD developers works closely > with engineers at Intel to provide the best ACPI power management > support available in an open source operating system. The Gnome and KDE > desktop environments work flawlessly under FreeBSD thanks to another > team of volunteers that work closely with those projects. > > - The "Ports" collection provides one-step support for over 11,000 3rd > party application. Compile-time and run-time dependencies between > applications and libraries are tracked and handled automatically, > eliminating conflicts and incompatibilities. Pre-compiled binaries are > available for nearly every supported package for quick and easy > installation. This system continues to be one of the crown jewels of > FreeBSD and has been copied by other OSes due to its overwhelming > popularity. > > - Many commercial vendors also support FreeBSD. Companies like Intel, > AMD, LSI, Adaptec, and 3Ware, just to name a few, provide development > staffing, direct developer resources, and end-user support for many of > their products. The result is high quality drivers, applications, and > platform support for a wide range of modern hardware. > > - Continuous testing and QA is performed by a number of teams within the > FreeBSD community. Tests are runs every day that range from simple > full-tree compile runs to intensive network, I/O, and computational > stress tests. Developers receive status emails and bug reports to help > identify, track, and resolve defects. While no amount of testing is > perfect and bugs do slip through, the testing that exists vastly exceeds > the efforts of most other open source projects and contributes towards > every FreeBSD release being high quality. > > NetBSD 2.0 is a significant step forward for NetBSD, but the large > amount of stagnation cannot be overlooked. Their claim at high > portability should have been leveraged years ago to make them the leader > in embedded OSes. It's great that NetBSD is committed to supporting > legacy architectures, but how does the effort to do so benefit modern > architectures or encourage wider use and more adoption of NetBSD? > > And while NetBSD now supports SMP, it uses the same low-efficiency model > that FreeBSD used previously. Scalability is significantly limited > because only one CPU at a time can access kernel services or drive > hardware devices. The whole point of the 'SMPng' project for FreeBSD > 5.x is to eliminate this problem and provide fine-grained parallelism in > the kernel. Converting the traditional BSD design to this model is not > trivial, but the work on this is very much alive, and each FreeBSD 5.x > release is faster, more scalable, and more stable than the previous release. > > All of the open source BSD's have a place, whether it's OpenBSD, NetBSD, > or FreeBSD. Each continues to excel at what they've shown to be good > at, and I expect the sharing and goodwill between them to continue. And > in that vein, FreeBSD is still the 'silent workhorse' that runs > corporate networks and powers advanced appliances. However, it's time > to drop the 'silent' part and start loudly advocating it. FreeBSD is an > outstanding OS, and developers and users should be proud of it. > > Scott > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-current@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-current > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-current-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" -- Artūras Lapienė
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