Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2000 07:56:03 -0500 From: Andrew Gould <AndrewGould@shannonhealth.org> To: FreeBSD-Questions <FreeBSD-Questions@FreeBSD.org> Subject: RE: Technical Comparasin 'tween FreeBSD and Linux Message-ID: <206499C84775D3119A000000F879310E011276CA@ISTECH4>
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Your timing couldn't be better for me to try to answer your question and ask mine! Some background: I don't have an IS background; but have been experimenting with Linux of various distros for about 2 years. I now work in a place with *no* Unix/Linux. I have been given permission to bring in my personal machine to demonstrate "proof of concept" regarding a database warehouse. At my previous employer's, I had MySQL running on SuSE 6.4; but have, since, installed Slackware 7.1. In about one week, I will receive about 3 Gb of data in ascii files on multiple cd's. Since I knew the size of the database was going to start big and grow, I decided to consider FreeBSD. The test: I have a MySQL table with approximately 1.9 million rows. I did fresh installs of both Slackware 7.1 and FreeBSD 4.0. Hardware specs include an Athlon 700 Mhz chip; 384Mb RAM; one 20 Mb, 5200 rpm, ATA 66 IDE hard drive and one 15 Mb, 7200 rpm, ATA 66 IDE hard drive. The operating systems were loaded onto the 20Mb harddrive. Two copies of the MySQL data table were created on the 15 Mb harddrive -- one in a ufs partition and one in an ext2 partition. From within each OS, using the MySQL client, I submitted the following query: 'select count(hospname) as cases from hc1998;'. The results: Slackware completed the query in 63 seconds (rounded down). FreeBSD completed the query in 49 seconds (rounded up). (63 - 49) / 63 = 22.22% difference My test indicates that, in this instance, FreeBSD 4.0 is faster than Slackware 7.1. My questions to the database and OS experts on this list are: Can I expect this result to be fairly representative of general performance differences: 1) when running various SQL queries? 2) when running any large process? I am fairly comfortable as a user in Linux now. At this point, I am not comfortable at all in FreeBSD; but I can't dismiss a 22.22% performance difference -- not when I (a non-IS, pro-Unix/Linux, new employee) have to prove a server concept on desktop hardware to a non-Unix IS Director 2-3 weeks from now. To quote Dr. Allaire, philosophy instructor at UT at Austin, "We do most of our growing when we're uncomfortable."...........(damn!) Best of luck, Andrew Gould > ---------- > From: Tad Marko[SMTP:txtad@yahoo.com] > Sent: Thursday, August 10, 2000 7:44 PM > To: FreeBSD-Questions > Subject: Technical Comparasin 'tween FreeBSD and Linux > > Hello, > > I have often heard FreeBSD is better than Linux in many ways, but I > have never seen these quantified. Does there exist a technical > comparasin between FreeBSD and Linux that quantifies these? I am > interested in technical facts only, not things like the cohesiveness of > the FreeBSD development effort vs. Linux (though that certainly is an > important factor in favor of FreeBSD). > > Honest, I'm not trying to start any sort of flame war. I happily use > both, I'm just wanting to know what makes them different. > > Thanks, > Tad > > ===== > It's tough being libertarian. Liberals think you're a > conservative, conservatives think you're a liberal. > > This isn't my real email address. I only use this one > when I need web access to mail. You can reply to this > note here, but my real email address is tad@earthling.net > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Kick off your party with Yahoo! Invites. > http://invites.yahoo.com/ > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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