Ubuntu first time

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Tue, Jan 10, 2012 at 11:51:15AM -0500, Alejandro Imass wrote:
> I think this is a very  myopic statement and shows that the Linux
> crowd needs to get out more, especially so in the Debian crowd.
> 
> Let me just point out *some* differences between FBSD and Linux. And
> again, I'm not saying that Linux is bad, but since you have made it a
> habit to throw careless FUD everywhere it is necessary to point just
> some benefits of FBSD:
> 
> 1) For starters, Linux's overly-optimistic vm is really crappy for
> high-load systems and no matter how you tweak it you will never get
> the high-load stability of a FBSD kernel. At least not to date. A
> simple example, just push linux to near exhaustion of swap and:
> *boom*, you will need to eventually reboot as it never recovers
> completely. The over optimistic vm is a well known problem in the
> Linux Kernel, and _any one_ can try this at home with ab or httperf
> with a 2.6.x. Linux kernel running a memory hungry multi-threaded
> Apache application.

Linux's overly optimistic VM can be made not optimistic at all.

> 2) Another problem with Linux is the mixing of base system and
> applications. In *BSD there is a clear-cut separation between the base
> system and the application world, making it not only extremely secure,
> but very stable in upgrades. You can upgrade apps and system
> practically independent from each other. This could easily be done by
> any Linux distro, but none to date have.

Sometimes you do add features to the kernel and then the system libraries
have to be updated before you can use it.  As long as your library
interface is well designed, this doesn't force you to update any
applications, they just won't have any way to use the new feature until
they are updated.

> 3) FBSD Jails: There is nothing like this in the Linux world to date,
> and it's a shame because it would be so easy as is nothing more than a
> sophisticated chroot environment. Jails amongst other things (like
> pseudo-virtualization without overhead) allows you to further separate
> base system from running services with so-called "service jails"

Those are a neat idea.  Not that I have ever had a need for anything like
it, but they are neat.  I think many people use virtual machines instead,
which is certainly perhasp overkill in comparison.

> 4) The ports/package system. One thing that is superior IMO with the
> FBSD posrts system is the way they are able to use packages directly
> from source and use a very clever patching mechanism, which is a
> *light* modification to the original package.This makes it relatively
> easy to use the newest versions of the source paakcges. Debian, on the
> other hand (and may other a Linux distro)  , tend to modify packages
> extensively to make them *their way* and this is not only inefficient
> and resource intensive, but brings forth may problems and goes against
> common-sense and cost-effective maintainability.

I hate the ports system.  It is what I think is wrong with Gentoo too.
Why the heck should every person be grabbing things from source when
the same binary could have been generated once already.  It is inefficient
waste of resources.  Compiling from source should be a last resort,
not the norm.

Debian tries to avoid modifying packages when possible, but meeting the
FHS is a requirement and sometimes requries modifying the package if
upstream's makefiles are that badly done.  Sometimes there are bugs to
fix and while waiting for upstream would be nice, sometimes that can
take a long time.  They do try to get the patches accepted upstream
though.

> These are only scratching the surface. The point here is not saying
> that FBSD is better than Linux because they each serve a purpose and
> should be respected for that. Linux may be great for some applications
> but that also holds true for *BSD and other Open Source OSs; things
> like MenuetOS, Open Solaris, etc, which most Linux enthusiasts ignore
> altogether, living in their own little Linux world and fighting over
> KDE vs. Gnome and Debian vs. Ubuntu vs. Fedora, Free Software vs. Open
> Source, etc.

Once upon a time there was a system to allow Linux to run BSD binaries.
Back then BSD was relevant and hence that was useful.  Now it is the
other way around.

> I use and love Linux on a daily basis, but also FBSD and MacOSX and
> they are all great systems each with it's pros and cons, virtues and
> flaws. And yes, it took me many years to abandon zealotry and discover
> a broader and richer world in Free Software _and_ Open Source.

I did see recently that one of the BSDs now supports 64cpu machines.
I wonder if they have heard of USB 3 yet.  I know Linux handles 4096
CPUs these days and has for a few years.

So I will give you Jails are neat, but the rest are either irrelevant
or wrong.

-- 
Len Sorensen
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