Date: Sat, 17 Jan 1998 08:17:34 -0500 (EST) From: Bill Vermillion <bill@bilver.magicnet.net> To: freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Is FreeBSD UNIX? Message-ID: <199801171317.IAA16673@bilver.magicnet.net> In-Reply-To: <34C070DA.9C610E6@w3page.com> from Blaine Minazzi at "Jan 17, 98 01:50:34 am"
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Recently Blaine Minazzi said: > Just call it FreeBSD. > I also see people gloating over the fact that THEIR > SERVERS ARE BIG BUCK SILLY GRAPHICS MACHINES I represent that fact :-). I work for a smallish ISP and our catalogs will be running on SGI's. (Package works on a limited set of machines - and the SGI - only about 2 times the horsepower of a comparable box running NT, runs about 10 times faster on this app. Not a lot of choices, NT, Sun, SGI, with HP/UX coming soon. I HAVE made a Unix believer out of the MS believer there. Instead of Mighty Supreme he nows sees that MS means Mostly Sucks). However if you keep a sharp eye out, and are lucky to fall into 'deals' you don't have to pay 'BIG BUCKS' for any hardware IF you are willing to buy used and frequent auctions. We got an SGI Challenge L - 2 processors - 256MB ECC RAM and SIX 2 GB hard drives for well under 5 figures. We got a 50KW UPS for under 4 figures. Neither of these new would have been considered. If it's 'name brand' and current production - and IF you are technically competent - there are many things in favor of used equipment. ( or whatever ), and not > "pc clones running a free unix." I tell those people that it is the > customer that pays for the hardware, and if my _wimpy_ little pentium > 166's sit here at 90% idle most of the time, Why in the hell would I > want to spend thousands on a system that will not be noticably faster > for the end user? Absolutely. I see the 'silly graphics' machine running at more than 95% idle most of the time. For servers it's the HW and net bandwidth that counts. CPU power is pretty much wasted for most server stuff. All the non-catalog apps will be moving into FreeBSD over the next month or so. (the HW decisions were made before I got involved). > And, when the silly graphics machine breaks, how fast > can you get parts? Hell, we can afford to keep entire spare servers > just laying around in case of a failure. Try that with a big bucks > machine. Absolutely. But in today's world about the only things that break are memory and HDs. Those are off-the-shelf unless you fall for the marketing hype. The 'factory approved/labeled' pieces are typically 5 to 10 TIMES more expensive than identical part that hasn't been 'blessed'. Bill -- bill@bilver.magicnet.net | bill@bilver.com
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