Date: Wed, 26 May 1999 19:50:14 -0500 (CDT) From: Jay Nelson <jdn@acp.qiv.com> To: freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: (off-topic) thanks! Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.05.9905261830550.573-100000@acp.qiv.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.3.95q.990525205439.1185B-100000@netinfo3.ubc.ca>
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This is long winded, opinionated, largely irrelevant and should be deleted. On Tue, 25 May 1999, Dustin Lang wrote: > >Hi, > >I've been on this list for about two days now. I'm one of those Linux >brats who's considering trying out FreeBSD. In fact, I think I might try >to make Linux, FreeBSD, and Solaris co-exist. Hey, it could work... Dustin -- thank you for your post. I was debating whether or not to add my two bits when your post showed up. The answer to your question about Solaris coexisting is -- no. the way x86 Solaris installs will generally take an entire disk. _If_ lilo or FreeBSD's boot mechanism can figure out how to boot Solaris off a second drive __and__ if Solaris could live with that, you _might_ make it work. But from what I've seen, I wouldn't be willing to try it. Further, after using FreeBSD, Solaris is _extremely_ frustrating. I've been using FreeBSD since 2.0 days (early '94, I think.) Back then, I was running SunOS 4.1 in a commercial environment and found that FreeBSD was actually _more_ stable than Sun's product. The hardware was, unfortunately, no where up to the task and from that time till now, 99.9% of my problems have been hardware. I ran Linux for a time, as well. Slackware, mostly. For a while, it did what I wanted. But I got tired of the endless chasing of upgrades and fixes. In addition, of the two breakins I've had to deal with, both were Linux. (Both cases were Red Hat of different versions.) At the time these Linux boxes were penetrated, two FreeBSD servers were running on the same network. The attempts were made on those, as well, but none succeeded. You have to work harder to harden a Linux box than any of the *BSDs to create a secure system. The original thread was about stability. I have 2.2.7, 2.2.8, 3.1 and 3.2-STABLE boxes running in production. The _only_ stability problems I've ever seen came from hardware. Most generic PC hardware out there could suck the scum off the bottom of rocks, but there is also a growing selection of higher quality parts available. My experience has proven to me that, if you pick your hardware carefully and configure it properly, you will have no problem. Now -- this is thanks to all those who have contributed to the development of FreeBSD: I work mostly with AIX, but also Solaris. On lesser hardware, FreBSD has proven to be as stable as either. The Fixes list that comes out every week for AIX is longer than the outstanding PRs for FreeBSD. The patch list for Solaris is equally impressive. The fix list for Linux is almost non-existant. FreeBSD is the easiest OS to install and configure that I've ever used. AIX comes close, Solaris is a distant second. Keeping a FreeBSD system up to date is, hands down, the best I've seen. Linux falls down near the bottom. FreeBSD is also one of the easiest to administer in a production environment. In fact, I get very little time on the FreeBSD production machines, because there is no need. My FreeBSD machines only go down for hardware failures, maintenance, or power outages. (Bone head users have also played a part, but that's a different story.) So -- the answer to the original question about stability is: read, learn and make sure the hardware is good. I do, and FreeBSD is as good or better that anything else I've worked on. For you, FreeBSD is a good choice for a personal OS. Once you understand it, you'll find that it's rather boring at times, since it's so easy to keep up-to-date and you don't have to chase the latest rpms, if they exist. If you have no tolerence for grief, stay with -stable. If you want to bleed on the edge, go with -current. But, in truth, from what little experience I've had, -current hasn't been as unstable as AIX 4.2 or the average Linux "distribution";) Good luck. The only reason I post it to this list is that the answer to the original question is: "Yes, it's stable." -- Jay To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
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