If you wouldn't mix things up. FreeBSD 6 hasn't got a "poor" MySQL performance, just some small points in certain circumstances. Secondly FreeBSD 7 (the system in development/ but don't compare development to that of Linux) performance is equal to that of Linux and under heavy load the scaling is better (in FBSD7) and the performance higher. It's by the way some bug in Linux.

The not-so-easy bug in Linux,

http://jeffr-tech.livejournal.com/6831.html

What does this mean for the average user? Nothing, this "performance mumbo jumbo" is something for servers. You don't have 8 cores at the desktop or many MySql clients running at a machine

@Stalwart

You could ask Yahoo too

---

By the way, regarding multimedia etc. You don't have to spread FUD about it, I'm using Debian at a Jabber-server and FreeBSD at desktop plus sometimes just out of curiosity ArchLinux. I'm using for example an Audigy 4 nonpro without any problems, I can use a Logitech webcam (spca5xx drivers) and so on, Doom III (or Quake 3 too) has got the same performance as in ArchLinux. I'm using the same scanner (canoscan lide60) hardware, printer (hp photosmart d61xx) as in Linux. Guess why? Because most of the time these drivers do not have anything to do with the operating system.

Have a look at freshports.org, there are all of the almost 17.000 ports. 17.000 ports ready to install and solving dependencies. You have a journaling filesystem, FBSD has got softupdates (there is ZFS and geom journaling for FBSD7)- just a different approach. You see, there are indeed differences, but nothing inferior.
Why I'm using ArchLinux too? Because it's very similar to FreeBSD: abs, compiling "ports" from aur, BSD init style and so on. But to see the difference, why some people are using FBSD with priority, you have to use it actually. I do see many disadvantages with Linux (more in userland, than sole kernel), but some of them I don't see in ArchLinux because of the different approach (userland, package management).

And toward i386, this is just a marker, FreeBSD will not run on any 386 hardware. You can deactivate e.g. in FBSD kernel code for 486, 586 systems and using only 686. As you see kernel is optimized for 486/586 and 686. Regarding the ports, most of them are optimized (O2 and so on) but not for CPU. I don't see any sluggish performance compared to ArchLinux too. You can optimize it in /etc/make.conf -> CPUTYPE= ... but it's in my opinion nonsense for 90% of the applications and you'll get a real performance gain only if you tune the code instead doing some compiler mumbo jumbo (O options are just fine).
So in the end *BSD is a several decades old UNIX derivative with a different approach in some areas. After 10 years of Linux (without any ArchLinux in sight ) I migrated to FreeBSD (fed up with some distros *g*) and I'm happy with it since two years. This isn't an advert for FBSD, try whatever you want, but don't spread FUD - most of the user in FBSD are former Linux users or users from commercial Unices
If I would go with Linux nowadays, I would certainly choose ArchLinux. There are some hick-ups from time to time but altogether it represents the best out of KISS, an up-to-date OS and an able community.

Cheers,

Oliver

Lontronics · 2007-03-19 11:56:50

Thanks Oli, nice explanation

Jan

oli · 2007-03-19 12:27:22

But please don't see this as flame bait, it's just my very personal opinion. I'm ranting very often about Linux and it gets some very harsh words too - but actually I do know the pro and cons of both of them. And maybe some day I'm with Linux again - the only constant is Windows, it's a no-go

jb · 2007-03-19 16:07:15

@oli: I should have emphasized the "last I heard" a bit more in terms of the MySQL thing, which the last time I heard about database performance was sometime just before 6.0 made release.

I have to agree though, the only issues I've had with freeBSD is the fact that I have a broadcom 43xx wifi chipset in my laptop, and I've yet to come across a inf/sys set that works with ndisgen... that and I have a habit of making linux partitions with jfs.

deficite · 2007-03-20 04:18:20

Very nice post oli. I didn't think that was flame at all. I also thought it was pretty fair and wasn't saying "OMG FreeBSD liek is teh r0x0rz!" I especially like how you mentioned that a lot of the problems in Linux is in the user space (and although the kernel isn't perfect, it's true). One thing that many Linux users with no *nix experience outside of Linux do not realize is that FreeBSD is a complete OS. A lot of the tools in FreeBSD were written by FreeBSD for FreeBSD, whereas Linux is just a kernel and the other tools were built on top of it (this is why GNU nuts get pissy if you don't refer to a Linux system running GNU tools as GNU/Linux). Personally, there are pros and cons to both (a lot of the cons are eliminated with Arch due to its KISS philosophy). I also agree that Arch and the *BSD's have a lot in common (then again, so does Gentoo and the *BSD's). Arch's KISS philosophy is what appealed to me. I'm ranting now.

In conclusion, Arch Linux and ArchBSD would both serve their own purposes. ArchBSD would not "compete" with Arch Linux and would not try to replace Arch Linux in any way (just as how the alternate platform releases of Arch aren't doing so either). It'd be an option to use for a specialised setup. Say for some reason x app just ran 400% faster in BSD than in Linux (major unrealistic hypothetical here) and it was an important program to that computer. The user would have an option to use ArchBSD and reap the benefits. Would ArchBSD be as updated and bleeding edge? Probably not. But if that's not neccessary for your specialised environment, oh well. This is not something that just HAS to be done or would revolutionize anything, it'd just be a nice experiment and possibly a nice tool.

Last edited by deficite (2007-03-20 04:20:19)

iphitus · 2007-03-20 10:01:10

deficite wrote:

In conclusion, Arch Linux and ArchBSD would both serve their own purposes. ArchBSD would not "compete" with Arch Linux and would not try to replace Arch Linux in any way (just as how the alternate platform releases of Arch aren't doing so either). It'd be an option to use for a specialised setup. Say for some reason x app just ran 400% faster in BSD than in Linux (major unrealistic hypothetical here) and it was an important program to that computer. The user would have an option to use ArchBSD and reap the benefits. Would ArchBSD be as updated and bleeding edge? Probably not. But if that's not neccessary for your specialised environment, oh well. This is not something that just HAS to be done or would revolutionize anything, it'd just be a nice experiment and possibly a nice tool.

That's an interesting point though. Would arch go the debian way and be the "Arch Project" encompassing linux and bsd, or would it eventuate as a fork Arch BSD & Arch Linux. Either way, such a project is a long way off, not currently planned, so further discussion on this is really moot.

I also wonder whether it would be worthwhile. FreeBSD is great as it is, the *only* downside I ever felt I had with it was it's package management, which was effective, but not as I am used to with pacman. Not as fast, and it's ports were not as immediately simple as PKGBUILDs.

So freebsd+pacman would rock. But other than that, I actually preferred bsd's initscripts, rc.conf, tools and setup elsewhere to Arch's. So would such a project really be classifiable as "Arch". Or would it be just "FreeBSD + pacman". But that's presuming things are done the way i like them.

James

Last edited by iphitus (2007-03-20 10:01:55)

Flying Saxman · 2007-03-20 20:26:59

To get back to the first posting:

ihavenoname wrote:

...Linux works fine for me...

As my dad keeps on saying: "Never, NEVER change a running system!"
So: If you try a BSD-Distribution on another PC or another partition of your Linux-PC everything is alright. Keep on trying. Probably use a Qemu-image or something like that. But don't harm your running Linux. It could annoy you afterwards.

And to the ArchBSD-Idea:
That's something I would also like! ArchLinux for home-PCs that should stay up to date and ArchBSD for server/router-solutions that should be stable (You see: I would want ArchBSD a little bit more conservative with the actuality, so that it is better for servers because it ist more stable).

deficite · 2007-03-21 23:37:09

I'm glad to see some intelligent conversations going on here. I'll address Iphitus and Saxman.

Iph: I agree with you that FreeBSD has a good system going for it right now and that pacman would indeed rock. However, even though FreeBSD *is* pretty simple, I think that Arch Linux is even more simple. Plus, I think we have a good thing going on here. One benefit of having Arch's init and such is that people (such as myself) that have used Arch for a few years now yet want to get some of that BSD love can easily transition into ArchBSD. I personally like FreeBSD and the way its organized, but I like the way Arch is organized better. I'm sure some common ground can be found in this, but if you don't use Arch's configuration and init scripts and such, you're really just running FreeBSD with pacman. Possibly one could make a patch for pacman to allow it to use qpkg (FreeBSD's binary package manager, IIRC?) packages (and either convert the package to a plain .pkg.tar.gz file that pacman uses transparently and have it install it or have it call qpkg and use some other method to manage it via pacman.........lots and lots of options here) and to get makepkg to work with FreeBSD's ports (several options here as well; depends on how fancy you want to get). New packages could be written with makepkg scripts and pacman could install .pkg.tar.gz files as well (obviously).

Flying Saxman: I agree 100% and I think you get what I'm saying. I too would like ArchBSD to be a stable, conservative version that is set up for servers and the like (don't sacrifice flexibility in this, as the whole point of making ArchBSD would be to take the great things about Arch and apply them to BSD and flexibility and KISS are two important concepts in Arch's philosophy). Unlike standard Arch Linux, it wouldn't have to be as bleeding edge as Arch Linux. You don't want to be on the very bleeding edge on most servers and mission critical computers anyway. I feel this could be killing two birds with one stone too. Several times on this board I've read requests for a stable repo. ArchBSD could provide a solution (of course, some will still want the option of a stable repo on Arch Linux and do not want to switch for ArchBSD for some very valid reasons).

Last edited by deficite (2007-03-21 23:37:56)

ihavenoname · 2007-04-01 21:12:55

I like the philosophy behind BSD. Their binary package management is not very well developed. They include several drivers in their kernel by default which aren't included in most Linux kernels due to licensing issues. (for example, madwifi). I found that Bsd worked on almost all of my hardware, all I had to do was go to nvidia to get the driver (never actually got around to the, I screwed up xorg before getting to that.)

I think it would be better to port arch's package management utilities to freebsd. That way we could leverage the downfalls of bsd (namely package management) The packages could be rebuilt for i686. (They have a ton of packages though, 16000+) There is a ports option that allows you to build the package binaries first. The most difficult part (IMO) would be getting a sever to host the new packages, and computers to rebuild the packages. But it would go along way to improve the bsd experience for a lot of people.

Lontronics · 2007-04-01 21:53:28

I do like the idea

deficite · 2007-04-01 23:27:49

It'd be really nice if we could lobby FreeBSD about them providing it officially.

scottro · 2007-04-02 01:48:33

Personal opinions.... FreeBSD, in general, seems a bit faster to me, no benchmarks, simple impressions.

Upkeep--I've changed a server or two over to Arch because of ease of update. (BTW, Arch is a popular Linux among BSD users. Same philosophy of small base install, and put in what you need afterwards.)

FreeBSD doesn't really have a smooth binary updating system--some ports can be updated with packages, but out of 16,000 plus ports, many don't have packages--or if they do, they might be out of date. As for updating the system itself, it is done through compiling source and takes over an hour on a reasonably fast machine. On a super fast machine, it might take less, but it is still a relatively lengthy process. (Keep in mind that unlike Linux, userland and the kernel are integrated.)

Various things are better supported on Linux--for instance, I have an Intel 2100 wireless card, very simple to get working in Arch (even simpler in various bloated distros which include the driver--with Arch it does have to be added through pacman) and wasn't able to get it working in FreeBSD--it might or might not work, I was not sure from googling if it simply sometimes doesn't work, or if I was just lucky.

Flash 9 is still quite problematic, and I don't know too many people who have gotten sound working with it. From what I've seen, most folks who have it working find that it crashes frequently.

VMWare isn't interested in supporting FreeBSD. Although a fellow did manage to create a port that worked well for vmware3, it seems as if he's run out of time--also, from what I understand, vmware was not very helpful to him when he communicated with them. (That last part is hearsay, I don't really know many of the details, just that they aren't really interested in supporting FreeBSD.) The vmware3 port has also stopped working in later versions of CURRENT.

These things are problems for my particular situation. Qemu works pretty well, but it's a bit clunky compared to vmware. VirtualBox is also not available for FreeBSD.

I tend to think that most of us drag out technical reasons to support emotional decisions. Practically speaking, my impression is that FreeBSD is faster for most things and more stable, even CURRENT. Linux is more convenient and has better support for some hardware (and software, such as vmware).

I have a page with a section for Linux users here. It's not a real in depth page, and the differences that I mention are simply things that Linux using friends ask me.

I would love it if pacman were ported to FreeBSD. It's interesting though that my wireless experience is almost the opposite of ihavenoname's--in my case, it was much easier to get wireless working with Arch. That and the vmware-server port are the reason my laptop runs Arch rather than FreeBSD. (I need the vmware to run a Nortel VPN client as well as be able to test various apps for my users.)

Arch Linux

#26 2007-03-19 03:34:58

Re: Bsd

#27 2007-03-19 05:37:32

Re: Bsd

#28 2007-03-19 10:51:13

Re: Bsd

#29 2007-03-19 11:23:30

Re: Bsd

#30 2007-03-19 11:56:50

Re: Bsd

#31 2007-03-19 12:27:22

Re: Bsd

#32 2007-03-19 16:07:15

Re: Bsd

#33 2007-03-20 04:18:20

Re: Bsd

#34 2007-03-20 10:01:10

Re: Bsd

#35 2007-03-20 20:26:59

Re: Bsd

#36 2007-03-21 23:37:09

Re: Bsd

#37 2007-04-01 21:12:55

Re: Bsd

#38 2007-04-01 21:53:28

Re: Bsd

#39 2007-04-01 23:27:49

Re: Bsd

#40 2007-04-02 01:48:33

Re: Bsd

Board footer