Date: Wed, 6 Mar 1996 17:20:30 -0800 (PST) From: Jake Hamby <jehamby@lightside.com> To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com> Cc: hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Linux vs FreeBSD comparison - it's time, I think! Message-ID: <Pine.AUX.3.91.960306161809.27009A-100000@covina.lightside.com> In-Reply-To: <16801.826154136@time.cdrom.com>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Wed, 6 Mar 1996, Jordan K. Hubbard wrote: > Sounds good. The Finnish Center for Supercomputing also did some > Linux vs FreeBSD benchmarks, and we out-performed them 3 to 1 on the > WEBFORCE benchmark. I forwarded the results of this to core recently > and can probably get a URL from the guy who originally forwarded it to > me. I'm sure there are others in this vein, if people can help us find > them! 3 to 1? Wow! I wonder which web server they used (Apache?). Presumably they used the same server software on each machine (I know, let's put NCSA httpd-1.3 on Linux and Apache 1.0 on FreeBSD ;-). Also, it helps that FreeBSD tends to be tuned for Internet use out of the box. An example of this is the parameter SOMAXCONN in /usr/include/sys/socket.h, which specifices the maximum listen queue length. This is 5 in stock BSD, but a busy Web server should have a higher value. FreeBSD-2.1.0 and above set it to 32, a much better value. I read about this tip in the January issue of SunWorld Online, and was pleasantly surprised to see it had ALREADY been implemented in our favorite OS! > I also probably didn't really make it clear before that I think that > this is a _very important_ project. We need to get more active in our > PR here, and folks like me are spread thin enough that we're never > going to get anywhere if we don't start doing more grass-roots > campaigning, as it were. Losing potential users by failing to give > them what they want is one thing, but losing them just because the > never even _heard_ of you is a crime! :-( AGREED! I've been recommending FreeBSD to all of my friends, but I'd like to get involved in PR on a grander scale. I remember when I first installed FreeBSD, if it hadn't been for the curiosity of myself and one of my friends, I wouldn't have taken the "leap of faith" to install it in the first place, rather than sticking with Linux. Interestingly, the sheer power of ftp.cdrom.com was one of the main reasons I thought it could be a cool OS to run! Otherwise, www.freebsd.org is woefully lacking in concrete examples of "If you are using Linux now, here is what you're missing" or "Does it bother you that Linux..." I'm pretty decent at marketing principles, I think that without excessive "negative campaigning" we can take some pretty big shots at the Linux crowd, who will hopefully say, "Yeah, I just got used to that Linux limitation. I didn't know FreeBSD could do that!". Also, the Linux "fanatics" (by that term, I mean the people who regularly post to .advocacy, and shout to the rooftops about their favorite OS), seem to have a full arsenal of "Why Linux is better than DOS/Windows95/whatever" but VERY few "Why Linux is better than FreeBSD". If we come on too strong (i.e. "Linux sucks, FreeBSD rulez"), we may cause these people to say "Oh, well Linux is still better" and blindly ignore us (if you want to see blind fanatical loyalty, go to #amiga on IRC and tell them FreeBSD is better than AmigaDOS :-). If we take a friendly "Welcome Linux users, we want you to try our OS, we think you'll like it" approach, many more people will try it out. I think that a step-by-step "Linux->FreeBSD" transition guide is also called for, because I expect a large percentage of new users will have tried or be currently using Linux. This is _really_ important to our success, and I'll try to work on it along with the other advertisement. In fact, this should probably be a chapter of the FreeBSD Handbook, so I'll type it up in sgml and submit it to John Fieber. > > 3) Full description of ftp.cdrom.com as a "case study". Also, when > > David is working on collecting some stats, and perhaps he'll have > some nice gnuplot graphs for us soon.. :-) Cool... Put them on www.cdrom.com! > > people FTP to ftp.cdrom.com there should be a BIG banner, like: > > Uh, let's not get carried away.. :-) I think the existing opening text > there is about all we'll get away with. I guess you're right. :-) > > 5) Print advertisement! I can't emphasize this enough. I was looking > > Well, WC has only limited funds right now so I don't know if you'll > see this go anywhere right away. We'll see. What about Web advertisement? Some good places to buy advertising space: Netscape (if you can afford it), SunWorld Online (you can emphasize the similarity to SunOS, and position it as an NT alternative), www.windows95.com (there is already a Linux ad there!!!!), PCN (www.pointcast.com, an excellent free news service which uses a custom Windows client, downloads its information via HTTP, and has small animated advertisements similar to Prodigy, only nicer!) Yahoo (if it's not there already) and other directories and/or search engines. I'm sure there are others I have missed. > > 6) IRC support! I know this last one sounds silly, but I notice that > > I actually make a point of dropping in there at least once a day. Any > other core team members (or anyone knowledgeable about FreeBSD at all, > for that matter!) are welcome to join in. Okay, I will too... > > Anyway, I'll try to work on this some more when I have time, and get some > > preliminary Web pages, or maybe more suggestions. Again, let me > > Great, please help Warner! Will do! ---Jake
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?Pine.AUX.3.91.960306161809.27009A-100000>