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Date:      Mon, 2 Dec 1996 23:34:17 -0500
From:      "David S. Miller" <davem@jenolan.rutgers.edu>
To:        jgreco@brasil.moneng.mei.com
Cc:        jkh@time.cdrom.com, dyson@FreeBSD.org, dennis@etinc.com, kpneal@pobox.com, hackers@FreeBSD.org, torvalds@cs.helsinki.fi, lm@engr.sgi.com, iain@sbs.de, sparclinux@vger.rutgers.edu
Subject:   Re: TCP/IP bandwidth bragging
Message-ID:  <199612030434.XAA18481@jenolan.caipgeneral>
In-Reply-To: <199612030319.VAA25727@brasil.moneng.mei.com> (message from Joe Greco on Mon, 2 Dec 1996 21:19:50 -0600 (CST))

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   From: Joe Greco <jgreco@brasil.moneng.mei.com>
   Date: Mon, 2 Dec 1996 21:19:50 -0600 (CST)

Now here is an intelligent posting.

   Let the jerk win, because clearly Linux is superior.

   We all run FreeBSD because it sucks rocks and because
   we like running something that is inferior.

   Benchmarks are always meaningful.  Real world heavy
   duty applications mean nothing.

I've said nothing that asserts the statements you are making.  I've
said nothing to the effect that "Using FreeBSD is not a good idea." or
that doing so would get you less performance than Linux or any other
system for that matter.

As for real world heavy duty applications, I did give examples of
where those are in use, but you can certainly feel free to ignore
those statements as others have as well.

   Clearly I am not someone in the "real world" as my
   clients only invest six digit figures to implement
   my FreeBSD-based recommendations.

You're one person, if you want to start talking market share then I'm
game.  But that is not much of a constructive thing to discuss.

   Marketing tally sheets are authoritative.  So is the
   MIPS rating, a venerable benchmark.  Let's all start
   using that!

Regardless of whether they are authoritative or not, they do sell one
machine over another, and often do translate into market share and
installed base.

   Buying SPARC equipment is fiscally responsible.

Yes I know, it drives me nuts how every major installation is composed
of numerous Intel's running FreeBSD, very few Sparc's are to be found
at all.

   But that's okay, because it's a free country.  And he
   is free to believe whatever he wants, whether it is
   bullshit or fact.

I have stated many facts, you have not refuted nor disproved any of
them.

   The real shame is that this rivalry is antagonistic.

As I have stated above I am not being very antagonistic.  I have not
denounced FreeBSD once as anything which is inferior, or that Linux is
superior.  At least not directly, and if people want to read between
the lines and state that I meant for such things to come through in my
arguments then that is fine, we can read into peoples wording all day.

   But we need to keep sight of the fact
   that FreeBSD and Linux are free software cousins - 
   and I would rather see someone run _some_ free OS
   rather than a Gates Borg-osity.

I do agree here, the Redmond crap is the real enemy indeed.

   Look, folks, benchmarks are benchmarks.  They are not
   real world performance indicators.  They are simply
   relative artificial performance evaluators, and as 
   such can be influenced by a wide variety of factors,
   including OS tweaks.

I agree one must be careful when analyzing the results of benchmarks,
but I would not go so far as to call them completely artificial at
all.  That is a mistake and Mr. Dyson has made similar comments.

   I never make the mistake of taking a benchmark's results as an
   absolute comparison of apples and oranges.

I have not stated that people _should_ do as such, but some people
(and many of which decide what systems are to be run on what hardware
platform) actually do.

   Hey, Linux may have some great benchmarks.  I promise
   you that I can skew them in favor of FreeBSD.  Hey,
   FreeBSD may have some great benchmarks.  I promise you
   that I can skew them in favor of Linux.  Hey, I can
   skew benchmarks to favor _SOLARIS_.  Now there's a real
   performance lion!

I've never skewed benchmarks, if you think I have then please support
such claims.  I'd be more than happy to be corrected.  I run all of my
benchmarks with both systems running on top of the same exact hardware
configurations, sometimes the same exact machine using the same exact
disk installed from scratch for both sides.  How am I being impartial?

   Nobody will give a shit about any of this in a few years when we
   are looking at ten gigabit networking technologies.

They will if people buy those pieces of hardware and nobody can fill
the pipe.

---------------------------------------------////
Yow! 11.26 MB/s remote host TCP bandwidth & ////
199 usec remote TCP latency over 100Mb/s   ////
ethernet.  Beat that!                     ////
-----------------------------------------////__________  o
David S. Miller, davem@caip.rutgers.edu /_____________/ / // /_/ ><



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