“FreeBSD 7.0 will be the next release of FreeBSD, and is the first major release in 2 years. It’s due out some time later this year (currently in pre-release and available for testing). FreeBSD 7.0 brings major changes to the BSD and open
source operating system landscape.” This document [.pdf] describes all the changes.
Just don’t trust the graphs. Never trust data provided by the manufacturer, especially when it shows their product as the best.
I trust the graphs. I trust BSD to return to outstading performance levels. I trust FreeBSD developers and community.
Hey, I like BSD, what I was saying is not BSD specific, just a universal truth.
Even someone with the best intentions can unintentionally create a biased benchmark.
Sounds much like a profession of faith. I’m eager to see what FreeBSD will be like in action, but I’m not that religious about it.
I do not trust your premise either. At least in the document they have some references! You DONT!
The graphs you see were discussed heavily in the several mailing lists which made the NetBSD guys and the Linux guys improve things. You must have been missing a lot lately? Esp. regarding the Linux scheduler and FreeBSD’s ULE 2.0.
http://jeffr-tech.livejournal.com/5705.html (follow the links in the comments)
http://mail-index.netbsd.org/tech-kern/2007/10/03/0003.html
(read the entire thread)
and
http://mail-index.netbsd.org/tech-kern/2007/10/05/0025.html
(in case you missed it)
Edited 2007-10-29 21:29
Excellent references.
Anybody knows what is the maximum number of threads the FreeBSD 7.0 kernel can suppport before stabilizing or losing performance ? Maybe we can dream HPC on FreeBSD systems….
The presentation showed an 8-core CPU. So you get performance up to 8 concurrent threads after that things will degrade “a little bit”.
If you have more CPUs then you should get more benefit
like if you have 128 cores:P but freebsd 7 is still not optimized for that though they are working on it so if you have the hardware you can always join the mailing list for testing and performance improving.
Jeez, you don’t understand? I’m not disputing the numbers, or the graphs. xBSD may perform better than Linux, or Windows.
Just never trust the people who make something to tell you how much better it is than anything else.
Here are some examples:
Microsoft: http://download.microsoft.com/download/0/7/1/0715a190-70f5-4b0d-8ce…
LightHttpd: http://www.lighttpd.net/benchmark
Postgree: http://www.postgresql.org/docs/techdocs.83.html
>Just never trust the people who make something to tell you how much better it is than anything else.
No just educate yourself first, all of these things are explained at the current mailinglists. BSD is no hype-ware. The configuration of the benchmarks are done with help from some Linux developers too.
May be you don’t understand what you are saying?
One time your telling me “Just never trust the people who make something to tell”
then you tell me “I’m not disputing the numbers”
“Not Trusting” is to doubt, suspicion, lack of confidence, etc.
“Dispute” is disagree, clash, question, impugn, etc.
Consequently, by distrusting you are disputing the facts provided somehow.
I believe you are contradicting yourself in your msgs.
The examples you listed don’t mean anything they just say what the vendor is promoting.
So, in other news, Microsoft managed to push Windows Desktop Search to millions of corporate users without their consent.
If Microsoft were to say that they now had the hightest market share in the Desktop Search market, then I wouldn’t dispute the fact, but I wouldn’t trust the announcement. See?
I can’t dispute that they have the most installs of WDS.
BUT
I don’t trust the fact that a marketing person is implying that WDS is the most (willingly) used Desktop search software on the market.
You understand now? No? Try this: http://www.amazon.com/Logic-Dummies-Math-Science/dp/0471799416
lighttpd is faster then apps mentioned in their benchmarks (true)
postgresql is faster/better scale then mysql (true)
If you do not see the diffrence between MICROS~1 and FREE Open Source projects, then I would say poor you …
postgresql is faster/better scale then mysql (true)
No it isn’t True. I’m a postgres user and generally prefer it to mysql, but saying that it is unqualified faster than mysql is pure non-sense. Both have their strengths and weaknesses and which one is fastest depends on all kinds of factors like what kind of data you have and what kind of queries you are doing.
Yes, an unqualified statement like that is worthless. For example, MySQL is usually faster on simple SELECTS but then seriously lacks in other areas. OTOH, these benchmarks are useless for most people given how braindead most use MySQL (no proper indexes, no normalisation etc). For a serious database system I’d go PgSQL over MySQL every time due to consistency issues.
No trust the LKML, it was in discussion there.
Being critical of a source is not rejecting it blindly simply because of its nature, but rather assembling evidence to support this criticism that one rises – and the apply the same pragmatics to that set of sources as well in order to justify one’s argumentation and to support a certain angle to the subject.
Just don’t trust the graphs. Never trust data provided by the manufacturer, especially when it shows their product as the best.
May be I can give a little correction:
Just don’t trust the graphs [if the result doesn’t favor your OS]. Never trust data provided by the manufacturer, especially when it shows their product as the best[, but trust it if your OS is shown as the best].
Time to test something new, ubuntu is already getting boring
Lol, and how is FreeBSD 7 is going to change that? FreeBSD just offers a different kernel and a few low-level libraries. The rest is pretty much the same. X.org, Gnome/KDE, firefox, openoffice….
What’s different between Ubuntu and FreeBSD? Well, quite a lot, like, for example, the whole concept and way of managing software. Available file systems are different. Installation is different. Hardware support is quite different. Community, philosophy and documentation is different. Etc.etc.
You can also use Firefox and OpenOffice on MS Windows or other operating systems but the underlying OS is still completely different. Also, for example, X.org for FreeBSD is not 100% the same thing as X.org for Linux.
Edited 2007-10-29 22:05
What do you mean?
That’s like saying Firefox for FreeBSD is not
the same as Firefox for Linux.
It’s surely the same source code.
“It’s surely the same source code.”
Yes, but depending on the importance of the software in question programs may have various dependencies etc. that may differ in various operating systems and that need to be taken into consideration too. Programs are often not only static separate pieces not interfering with each other but often share some libraries, have certain ways of communicating with the kernel etc. Those things may be different in different operating systems.
If the program is only some relatively small 3rd party extra app that does not have many dependencies and does not interfere much with the rest of the system, then it may be quite possible to just compile it from source code without much more thinking and headaches.
But porting important central pieces of software, like X.org to different operating systems requires testing, and often tweaking software is needed too. It took a rather long time for FreeBSD to have a stable modular X.org version, while many Linux distributions already had a working X.org. Software may need to be patched and tweaked to work well in a certain OS, or even when not, the rest of the system, like various other apps that depend on the new software (like X.org), may need to be tweaked and at least tested well in order to work well also within the new framework.
Edited 2007-10-30 11:56
“It took a rather long time for FreeBSD to have a stable modular X.org version, while many Linux distributions already had a working X.org.”
Well, it was a matter of doing the packaging work, not actually making it work on FreeBSD. The x11 team on FreeBSD is a bit short-staffed these days and this was a huge task to accomplish (from ~5 ports to ~150 AFAIR).
That’s silly. There are fundamental differences between FBSD and Ubuntu.
Different base system, different base system _management_, different software installation, different security features, different filesystem layout strategies, different approach to *nix.
That’s off the top of my head…
You shoud first inform yourself about the BSD or especially the FreeBSD operating system. It’s a whole system, not just kernel and some libraries.
There is a lot more different between candy-fied linux and FreeBSD. FreeBSD is a wholly different OS than GNU/Linucks. Oh, and the “OS” is not the desktop. The OS is what sits between the hardware and applications – and there is a lot that goes into it.
True, it does provide a different kernel and much of its own libraries, but its entire guts are different: the scheduler, network stack, memory management, file systems, etc.
It also provides its own “userland,” default tools, and features. I attribute ignorance to statements like this, and I hope you one day get a clue.
Dont know if you are joking or not but I actually wanted to dabble in FreeBSD and LFS now having settled down into Linux , with Ubuntu as my main desktop distro.
Its so easy and works so well,its not boring really but its no challenge.I want to learn more and be challenged:)
That’s exactly what I meant. I’m thinking of installing it on another harddrive to test something new.
Cool then.Good luck with it and cheers.
This is going to be one GREAT release…
I’m figuring most people will focus on the graphs and a “debate” will ensue on whether it’s true. But personally I’m glad to see all the new features as well as performance increases. Is it faster than linux, I don’t care, because this is still going to be a great release for FreeBSD.
FreeBSD never loses its cool.
The only reason I stopped using it was because I got tired of the long wait of having to compile ports when I wanted the latest version. Full system updating is very long and tedious even on my P4.
The video driver situation is also very problematic on FreeBSD. The FreeBSD Nvidia drivers only work on x86-32 and the FOSS ATI drivers only support R400 or older. The ATI drivers may improve now that AMD released the GPU specs but developing drivers for today’s complex graphics cards is very complex and time consuming; this means it will be sometime before we see FOSS Radeon drivers comparable to the proprietary ones.
The long wait never bothered me because I usually start it just before going to sleep or leaving for work. When I wake up or get back (sometimes the same thing) long compiles like X or KDE are finished, and this on a P3 1.13GHz laptop without a nice fast disk.
Even compiling FreeBSD world and kernel isn’t too bad. I just hope I can get 7 to compile, doing it on this laptop that had 6 on it didn’t work (installed 7 on new / slice and kept the old /usr slice).
So now I’m copying my home and data directories to another server and wil go for a complete clean install.
That’s fine, but you’re probably not working on the system. Sometimes you just need some software to do your job NOW and unless you’re lucky and the thing isn’t in C++ and doesn’t have megabytes of sources, you’re going to have to waste time waiting..
That’s wasting TIME AND ENERGY.
Don’t get me wrong, I love their kernel and base system, but hate the ports. (and packages are usually too old, or not available).
Yeah because not having the absolute latest sub-sub-sub release of firefox would cause massive issues with “getting work done.” For god sake just install the latest available package (hint. you can change PACKAGESITE to point to the bleeding edge crap on the pointyhat build cluster) and then compile the bleeding edge latest sub version, super duper, prolly gonna crash and cause more loss of getting work done version.
… The idea of having to build KDE*.* just because KDE 3.5.8 is released is problematic.
Do I have to get KDE 3.5.8? No. Do I want to get 3.5.8? yes. Do I want to compile it using ports? No.
Binary packages are there for a reason – doing apt-get install or yum install XX is faster and for most users easier then using ports.
P.S. The Firefox example was a (very) bad example.
Give the fact the most post-release updates are security-oriented I doubt that using an old(er) version can be considered prudent or even sane.
– Gilboa
P.S. Before I get the usual flame, IMHO pkg_add cannot rival apt and yum. Life sucks.
Edited 2007-10-30 17:26
No flame but I will say you are very, very wrong about pkg_add not rivaling apt. The FreeBSD developers maintain a cluster of servers that do nothing but build packages from the ports tree for you. Want the newest KDE? Don’t want to build from source? No problem. As I said earlier, point your PACKAGESITE variable at the pointyhat cluster and pkg_add will happily upgrade you to the latest version.
* Not specifically intended toward you, but I’m absolutely sick of every discussion that gets anywhere near package management ending up as a trumpet call for every Debian zealot to trot out apt and belittle every other package management system there is.
Don’t get me wrong… I like BSD; If I had a working 3D driver under BSD64 I would have made it my primary OS.
However, as a Fedora/CentOS user (and part time BSD user), Fedora’s (as Debian’s) out-of-the-box experience is better.
This is not a trump card and I’m far from being a zealot.
As a developer I want BSD to be just as successful as Linux – in-case the GPL wars go over-board. (Most of my code, at least the user-land part of it, already works out of the box on BSD6)
– Gilboa
– Gilboa
P.S. Before I get the usual flame, IMHO pkg_add cannot rival apt and yum. Life sucks.
Oh please… as if anyone using FreeBSD is stuck merely using pkg_add. Life only started to suck when I had to use Fedora.
Portsnap, portinstall, portupgrade, portdowngrade, not to mention all the other tools in /usr/ports/ports-mgmt/ give you all kinds of control over the FreeBSD ports and dependencies, and none of those requires that you compile source (but none of them prevents that, also, which is nice when you need additional choices). You can even have a GUI if you install desktopbsd-tools. The only real problem with FreeBSD software management is that FreeBSD doesn’t have an army of support people compiling latest versions of packages for the FTP servers. Since FreeBSD is server-oriented, server packages like PHP/Apache/MySQL/PostgreSQL tend to get priority rather than the latest version of KDE or Gnome.
I have spent the last few months with Fedora 6 and 7, fiddling with yum and apt-get, and I did not find it easier or more useful in the least (can’t wait for AMD to release a BSD driver for my Radeon Mobility). Yes, the Fedora GUI for Yum seems nice as a ‘point and click’, but if something goes wrong with packages, you end up with a major headache. Not to mention, even with the Fedora, Livna, and FreshRPMS repositories, I get *nowhere* like the number of packages to choose from that FreeBSD gives me.
The story of BSD systems on laptop hardware is not exactly a love story. And while I am also totally commited to get FreeBSD to install on my IBM Thinkpads I must also acknowledge that this is not really the platform that it was designed for.
And anyway, my Debian systems (running and humming away on this hardware) get as close to the FreeBSD *nix approach as Linux can get.
Best of luck anyway. I still have trouble instaling it what seems to be related to an old BIOS bug that FreeBSD has no exception handling for.
I’ve had the luck with this Dell C810 that I was able to run FreeBSD as of 4.8 on it. That was the time I started using FreeBSD so I don’t know if older version would run as well.
The only thing that bothered me about FreeBSD is that you have to set so many things manually; auto-mount drives, GDM, etc. I want to be able to build from a base install with no fuss.
But I like FreeBSD. Fun to geek on.
Check out DesktopBSD and PC BSD.
Do not start a Penguin vs. Daemon flamewar. BSD and Linux are interacting communities, and both projects advance sharing code, or in general, trying to achieve the speed, features, or aspects of the other. This is a good race, a race which final result can’t be other than excellent free operating systems.
Finally the ULE scheduler seems to be working 100%…
Kris Kennaway just showed us the work and energy of several highly educated and energetic BSD developers. It is a joint celebration to all. So many people have worked on the SMP project to get these results, others worked on networking and storage there were several sub projects being tackled at the same time to make this happen. Let’s not forget the collaboration between *BSD e.g. drivers, portability, firewalls, etc.
I am currently running RELENG_7 which is tagged as BETA 1 and honestly I am very happy with it! I have been running FreeBSD for several years and I have enjoyed every single day using it.
Show your support if you like their product! Order FreeBSD 7 CDs/DVDs and check out the nice shirts at http://www.freebsdmall.com
Some ‘morons’ like to mod down every single fact they don’t get into their small head. Ingo, the creator of CFS, did some fixes in Linux after seeing these benchmarks from FreeBSD.
Not to mention that sysbench is one of those benchmarks that gives very different numbers depending on very subtle changes in semantics (and mysql versions). And that sysbench is just one benchmark…
At least they (Linux kernel developers) could find some heavy bug, while using these benchmarks
They need apt or equivalent ported to bsd. ports was revolutionary for it’s time, but now it is horrible in comparison with other package management software. I used freebsd for a long time, but got sick of all the port maintaining, and now use kubuntu.
It depends what you use ports for. I would say ports is terrible for Gnome, Xorg, OpenOffice, and other bloated monsters (generally desktop use.) However, it is great for daemons and server tasks as it takes minutes to recompile the entire world, if necessary, and you get to compile the exact options you need.
… it takes minutes to recompile the entire world, …
I like FreeBSD and NetBSD. And I like that recompile the world concept. But I have only succeeded at it once, That is, I only ended up with a stable system on one of my several attempts at it. And I usually run BSDs on cast-off low-power machines which take forever to compile anything, so I’m very sympathetic to the desire for apt or similar, or at least better archives for pkg_add.
I have recompiled world close to a bagillion times. I don’t think I’ve ever had it crap out on me once. The only time I’ve had trouble is following current instead of a stable branch… even then, current is usually pretty reliable unless you’re unlucky.
apt is no silver bullet. My ubuntu system has had all sorts of little hiccups when upgrading to new releases… things like xmms sound suddenly quit working (and never worked again), or other programs just got screwed up. And even worse — no error in the upgrade process was reported… the problems virtually impossible to solve.
That being said — what FreeBSD really needs is a SANE update system for ports/packages. It’s not so much that ports sucks, or pkg_add sucks… it’s that there’s no really good high level piece of software that can update stuff safely. I know some of this stuff exists — but hey — it tanked my system too many times so I quit using it.
First read FreeBSD Handbook [http://freebsd.org/handbook] then spread FUD/shit. FreeBSD offers BOTH building from source thru Ports and adding binary packages using pkg_add and handles dependencies the same way apt does, or even better, because it is able to detect and fix loop dependencies.
pkg_add is much less efficient at everything than apt[-get]. Sorry to put you out of your illusion but I used both and it’s like comparing rotten tomatoes to apples.
apt-get works within seconds, and since the WHOLE system is packaged with it, you don’t get crappy situations with ports/package mixups (yes, userfault, but sometimes required, eg: when packages are too old and you just NEED that latest lib).
Sorry to put you out of your illusion but I used both and it’s like comparing rotten tomatoes to apples.”
I also used both (and still use), I just do not get why you jerk off so much about apt, its not bad, but its also not such that awesome.
And how about latest versions of software avialable in apt?
Do they come from XX or XXI century?
“since the WHOLE system is packaged with it, you don’t get crappy situations with ports/package”
That is consequence of (not well thought) mixing of ports and packages, Debian limits you ONLY to use bianries, in FreeBSD you can use binaries, sources, or even both, but only if you KNOW what are you doing.
You can also use only binary packages like in Debian you know?
Yes, but I’m comparing Ubuntu to FreeBSD on the desktop in regards to packages here
Sorry, I should have made it clearer. With ubuntu you get at most 6 (+ initial age of import) months old packages, which is quite ok unless you REALLY need bleeding edge, but that’s usually ok to go from source manually (eg: you’re most probably not going to need more than few things from source).
In FreeBSD the packages are (by default) quite old. Take latest release for example. Now, I know that you can change the repository to an updated one, but those are usually just broken. (I guess this has to do with userbase too tho). Pkg_add is also simply slow..
FreeBSD might be a killer server but it’s simply not a good desktop IMHO (as I said before, I think that the FreeBSD kernel and base system is superb).
I’m probably biased tho, because I used it for desktop in the “turbolence” period when things got changed around. For example I had these experiences:
1. renaming of “libgtk12.so” to “libgtk-1.2.so” (breaks binaries and some compilation of non-ports)
2. SDL renaming (sdlxxx1.1 to just sdl)
3. X11R6 -> /usr/local (btw. I mentioned the idiotic idea of putting special dir for X in your channel some years ago and got kicked for it.. I guess I should be the one laughing now)
4. python update (one day it was 2.5, next day it was 2.4, guess why…)
I think the ports/packages system might “work” if there was much more users and willing testers with quick-build testfarms for at least x86 systems so you couldn’t break your system by updating eg: python (or just “update everything”)
I’d really love to be on freeBSD, I think it is based on better design and generally better ideas. Sadly tho it has also a lot of incosistencies on the upper layers. I personally like it more than linux tho.
>Yes, but I’m comparing Ubuntu to FreeBSD on the desktop in regards to packages here
Try to compare hype-ware to hype-ware, like Ubuntu to Mac OS X and see how it fails. FreeBSD is an open source UNIX derivative for people eager to learn something. I wouldn’t even compare Ubuntu to Debian, Ubuntu is just a somewhat untested Debian-SID released every 6 months.
You obviously didn’t use it on the desktop..
Ubuntu is debian with sane defaults and polish. The 2 things most other linux distros just can’t get right (most important are the sane defaults).
“””
“””
Yep. And sane defaults are often a simple, common sense thing that we in the OSS community have an extraordinary time getting right. One of my favorite examples is CUPS behavior when it can’t print to a printer for some reason… any reason. The default is to disable the printer and never re-enable it. So the user let’s his printer run out of paper, refills it, and the printer doesn’t work any more. Rebooting doesn’t help. If he doesn’t know to drop to a command line and type “cupsenable <printername>” he must delete the printer and reinstall it. Totally brain dead behavior. It’s set that way to avoid wasting “valuable system resources”. I mean, what if your system has 900 printers? Would you really want it wasting valuable processor time retrying dead printers?
For years, there was not even an option to tell it *not* to behave this way. (RHEL4/CentOS4 do not have the option.) Finally, after many complaints, the CUPS guys provided an option to get sane behavior in the event that a printer runs out of paper. But guess what the *default* is? You guessed it! Broken behavior where running out of paper permanently kills people’s printers.
People say that Ubuntu is all marketing. That it is nothing special. But simply recognizing and avoiding the *worst* of the brain-deadness that is the norm in most other distros sets them apart for the rest. Ubuntu is one of the few distros where the maintainers actually succeed in thinking like a regular computer user and design accordingly.
I implement a mix of Fedora, CentOS and Ubuntu at my customers’ sites. Each has its own unique collection of strengths and weaknesses. And avoiding brain-dead stupid defaults is definitely a major strength for Ubuntu relative to the others.
And yet I still cannot believe why FreeBSD is compared to Ubuntu. Compare FreeBSD to Debian and Ubuntu with PC-BSD as those have much more similar targets.
Beep, wrong, you can use binaries and source packages in Debian too, just as easy as in Gentoo or FreeBSD (probably easier & better).
Beep, wrong, you can use binaries and source packages in Debian too
Yes, you CAN but it hurts. I make my living with Debian so you can take my word for it that it majorly sucks compared to FreeBSD ports. Got your own patches to those apps? Ouch. FreeBSD ports is a dream in this respect. I’ve seen apt fail in spectacular ways. Multiple repositories? Been there, done that, major concentration needed. apt-get update && apt-get upgrade is a recipe for disaster in some occasions. Debian is a nice system in it’s own respect but apt sure has some shortcomings that cause me to still prefer ports majorly for source packages.
“FreeBSD ports is a dream in this respect.”
You can always use http://pkgsrc.org (NetBSD cross platform ports tree), it runs on NetBSD, Linux, Solaris, … and many others very well.
Yes the Debian bloatware-management. It fails very often, so don’t bother with it. FreeBSD is a source-based operating system like Gentoo. It’s safe to use pkg_add shortly after the release or if you do know other sources (and there are a lot of it) with the latest binary packages. So yes it’s indeed the users fault – nothing more, nothing less.
“pkg_add is much less efficient at everything than apt[-get]. Sorry to put you out of your illusion but I used both and it’s like comparing rotten tomatoes to apples.”
More like comparing pipes to taps. If you want compare pkg_add to something, that should be dpkg.
if you read the handbook or you can also try to search on google, you will observ that FreeBSD has also binary updates, security binary updates, … like debian or any different distro.
[Looks at shelf with FreeBSD 4.3 and 4.4 reference titles.]
7.0?
[Starts tearing up as my youth flashes before my eyes and the realization of decrepitude settles in like a layer of IcyHot.]
4.3? Are you kidding? I still have my 2.x CD’s! Now let’s wax poetic about days of yore…
I still have my IBM CPM/86 floppy disks. Get off my lawn.
7.0 that I’m giggling like a little schoolgirl
Edited 2007-10-29 22:15
Okay, I did not need that mental image this early in the morning. -.-
FreeBSD is a very well documented and polished system. To me, one of the best you can find in *n[ui]x world, period. I’m very glad the developers can show strong results, despite the huge difference in manpower resources, that is not an easy achievement.
About the graphs, there are some things I would like to see corrected/updated. Take a look on “http://kerneltrap.org/FreeBSD/Threading_Benchmarks_NetBSD_versus_Fr…. There you will read that exist a contention related to malloc from glibc (see “http://www.netbsd.org/~ad/sysbench2/4cpu.png“). See also “http://kerneltrap.org/mailarchive/linux-kernel/2007/10/12/335695“.
Anyway, what can be seen (or deduced) is that all systems involved in this healthy dispute (FreeBSD, NetBSD and Linux) are getting ready for the new multi-core/cpu era, what is great.
I am not sure what you are saying. The NetBSD numbers in the graphs in this PDF were the absolute best case scenarios following from the benchmarking you cited, i.e. using the experimental scheduler with experimental libpthread. The “stable” NetBSD code has much lower performance, so this is being somewhat generous in only graphing the experimental code.
Ditto with Linux; the 2.6.22 data is the best that Linux have been able to produce with glibc (and they regressed significantly with 2.6.23). It is still “not good enough” on this test.
Almost the same can be said about the FreeBSD ones, none of the best results compared are production ready yet.
What I was trying to point out is that all them are making strong progress and that this dispute is very good to make the developers even more aware of the weakness and virtues of their systems. This can be better emphasized by “http://kerneltrap.org/Linux/Measuring_Process_Scheduler_Performance… on linux side.
Why I would like to see the results updated? For sure not because I want Linux or FreeBSD to win over each other but because:
– that would make the scenario a bit more fair to each camp, showing the real progress of each team;
– this would put a bit of pressure on the developers to tune their algorithms and try harder to improve the weak points.
Doesn’t it looks good for all?
It looks a brighter future than ever.
The FreeBSD numbers are for the version that is currently in beta. This means it is basically ready now but undergoing minor polishing in the lead up to the release process. You can choose to interpret this as “not production ready” if you like
I still dont understand what you mean by wanting to “see the results updated”. What updates are you asking for, when it is already the most current data being graphed?
I heard Gnash is close to working
for Flash-9 videos. Anyone have more news on that?
To me lack of Flash-9 is a showstopper
to using FreeBSD as desktop, much as I want
to. I suppose if the linux compatible layer
is good enough we may get it via a linux binary
Edited 2007-10-29 23:11
Nice LaTeX presentation!
“I heard Gnash is close to working
for Flash-9 videos. Anyone have more news on that?
To me lack of Flash-9 is a showstopper
to using FreeBSD as desktop, much as I want
to. I suppose if the linux compatible layer
is good enough we may get it via a linux binary”
I had moderately good results using the linux version of flash 7 in FreeBSD 6.2. I may run FreeBSD 7.0 when it is released, I’m happy with Slackware at the moment.
make me try it out again.
I looked at the graphs and saw that DragonFly was suspiciously only about half as fast as FreeBSD 7.0 and in other graphs, it’s just crawling. Is it just the DragonFly kernel that isn’t up to spec yet?
Yes, unfortunately Dragonfly BSD has failed to live up to any of the initial goals promised for it.
DragonFly BSD did not get all the updates that FreeBSD 7.0 has, they almost did not touched SMP subsystem because its not their most important thing to do, they focus on clustering, virtual kernels, HAMMER clustering filesystem and other things that are written from scratch.
Mattew Dilon told in some interview that SMP work is not their current most important target.
Yes, but that is because the goals have changed. When Dragonfly BSD was forked, the promise was that he had a better way to do SMP than the FreeBSD model, and he would quickly prove his ideas with code.
That never happened, and it is reasonable to underline this fact since many people developed the (perhaps reasonable) belief that after 4 years Dragonfly BSD *must* have made some progress on their initial project goals.
We’ll have to wait until a third party benchmarks this thing. Just because it’s faster in a certain test in MySQL, doesn’t mean it’s faster in other aspects, if any.
Please do! You can go and get all of the code right now, we’d love to hear how well it performs on your workloads.
Heh, I just got done installing NetBSD, so no thanks, I’ll wait+.
I just made the move from Linux -> NetBSD, and I love it so far. It’s small, and probably the least used of the three “main” BSDs. I like to go against the grain, so I decided to skip FreeBSD; OpenBSD’s philosophy just didn’t sit well with me (at least for use on the desktop).
Maybe in a few months I’ll try out FreeBSD… it’ll be interesting to see.
FreeBSD can also be used as a desktop alternative, see also PcBSD, and personally, I use it for my day work as a desktop. I don’t care to much if FreeBSD has no support for everything new (sound cards, video cards, video cam), because when I want to buy something I will search some minutes on google to see what the others people used and in this way I can be sure that my hardware is fully supported. What I would like to see for FreeBSD is virtualization support (vmware, xen). I use jail, qemu, but I can not say that I am so happy with them.
“What I would like to see for FreeBSD is virtualization support (vmware, xen). I use jail, qemu, but I can not say that I am so happy with them.”
KVM has been ported to FreeBSD:
http://www.freebsd.org/news/status/report-2007-07-2007-10.html#Port…
Xen domU support is already in alpha/beta stage some developer took some time to achieve that.
Expect full Xen support (dom0) in next release, 8.0-RELEASE of course which will be about late 2009.
Also VMware has been cooperating lately with FreeBSD developers, maybe we will get VMware to FreeBSD, check freebsd-emulation mailing list archives.
check this:
http://www.zolaesque.com/messages/freebsd-emulation.freebsd.org/vmw…
I am also curious how it is QEMU development process, since they release daily snapshots:
http://qemu-forum.ipi.fi/qemu-snapshots
Edited 2007-10-30 17:36
Maybe you should ask Ingo (CFS, Linux) too, he can certainly help you. In the end these benchmarks helped Linux to fix a nice performance bug. But last not least it’s open source, do whatever you want if it.
Don’t talk sh*t about packages. If you go the Debian route for example, they always recommend the STABLE branch for installing apt packages (and that branch contains even older packages in comparison with the FreeBSD cluster compiled ones!). And that’s good: you want stability? Install standard, prebuilt packages. You want to tune options, optimzations, add-ons, dependencies, go building packages with the ports tree.
The ports system surely needs improvements, but the stablished base is solid.
I don’t get it. Why isn’t the ULE scheduler the default? They eulagise it’s performance then go with the ‘4BSD’ scheduler for 7.0 – that’s almost an indigtment against the robustness and/or stability of the ULE scheduler.
I’m sure the ULE scheduler is good enough, but I really don’t get why they have put it off as the default until 7.1 – a strange, strange decision. If you want an older, stabler FreeBSD (i.e. the tried, tested 6.x) then why would you choose 7.0, ergo it’s the surely ideal release for unleashing the ULE scheduler on the wider public.
Go read the freebsd-current mailing list. The decision to keep the 4BSD scheduler as the default was based on the relatively limited amount of exposure that ULE had for testing. ULE has only been in the source in its current form for about a month.
http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-current/2007-October/078…
Because FreeBSD is not about Linux like hype and putting newest parts of the untested code but about to create production ready release as usual, ULE scheduler is new and shiny, even too new, its great and fast as fsck, but as all things in FreeBSD need testing and aprooval, its just not the DEFAULT scheduler, nothing stops you from rebuilding the kernel (which most FreeBSD users do by the way), just after installation with ULE scheduler.
This was a decision by the release engineers. I don’t agree with it personally for more or less the reasons you say. Maybe it would be useful to forward your comments to [email protected].
It’s about quality.
Will FreeBSD 7.0 be the next stable version, or is it going to be a technology preview? (going by the names on the website)
FBSD 7.0 will be the first stable release of the 7 branch and it will be production ready. The 6 branch will also see a new release soon, 6.3.
The next stable version. 5.0 was the only “technology preview” we have done, because it basically was not finished. Based on the stress testing and QA work we have done I think 7.0 will be an excellent production release.
Interesting data in those graphs, I’m too lazy to read the referenced links for more information on them, so I’m going to take them at face value and say that freeBSD is kicking some serious Linux booty. Good. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, Linux is now the sole toy of the big corporations, and I firmly believe that this has lead to the 2.6 series kernel (and the kernel developers, including Linus himself) not being particularly great for the average user. Most of the developments have been for big business, with little, or no impact on the average user.
Now that this data is showing that Linux is being outperformed by freeBSD, Linux is losing on the desktop and the server market. I like it, because imho, Linus has become too big for his own good, not to mention most of the lead kernel developers. Windows Server outperforms Linux server based distros, is cheaper than most of them as well. Any wonder why Linux adoption (both on the desktop and server) is slowing down? Sure, Ubuntu is growing, but that’s mostly internal growth, with other distros suffering as a result.
I’m also sick of the Linux kernel developers snubbing their noses at the FSF, simply because they prefer to keep big business happy. It’s no secret that the GPL v3 will close loopholes that big business loves, and currently uses to get away with things that are not in the spirit of the GPL. Until Linus & Co. get off their paid high horses and realise this, and become part of the free software community again, I certainly won’t support the operating system.
Dave
I sense bitterness. That’s too bad.
I’m a full-time GNU/Linux user, but I salute FreeBSD’s achievements and wish it well. Apparently, competition between Linux and FreeBSD has resulted in improvements in both. That’s healthy. Of course corporations are involved. So what?
I encourage everyone to enjoy the delicious fruits that free software offers, but to leave the unhealthy bitter aspect of competition behind.
yeah – I use xubuntu on my laptop for wifi support..it is easy and works, which is what I need on my work lappy. That is about as far in the linux world that I go, after that the geek in my really needs FreeBSD.
Windows Server outperforms Linux server based distros, is cheaper than most of them as well.
Oh BS. The only benchmark I’ve ever seen was between Linux 2.6/Samba 3 and Windows Server 2003 for CIFS file-sharing. The only thing that you could glean from that was that Samba didn’t have as good peak throughput (which means squat).
Then why is sales of Linux on the server side dropping, and Win2k3 going upwards? Why is IIs fast catching Apache as the favoured webserver?
Dave
Are you serious?
Here’s how IT works in most places.
First, management reads in eWeek, PC Magazine that Linux is written by evil communist midgets and that Microsoft solutions really are a gift from heaven and that Steve Balmer is your savior, Jesus.
Next, they invite sales engineers[1] (sociopaths) to come and tell them exactly what they want to hear. Reassured that they made the right choice, they buy all the stuff recommended and then hire MCSEs[1] (glorified janitors) to babysit a bunch of stuff setup by Microsoft consulting engineers[1]. Of course, this all has a really low TCO as promised by said sociopaths.
Of course, I assume you probably think that somehow means that Win2k3 really does have some technical merit of having better performance or that sales statistics are useful in any kind of meaningful way.
[1] notice the prolific and inappropriate engineer designation everywhere
There are no loopholes in the GPL, people are simply using it as the license was designed.
“I certainly won’t support the operating system. ”
you were never a user to begin with, just a troll on forums pretending to be the breaking point user.
hahaha. I first started using Linux (Redhat 5.2) way back in 1997. You? I used Linux as my SOLE desktop from early 2003 through to early 2007. You? Probably one of those Windows refugees that I have a heavy disliking for, that uses Linux only cos it’s free as in money. I prefer my free as in freedom thank you. I prefer the old style Linux kernel that still worked well, and wasn’t the bastard child of big corporations, where Linus wasn’t pwned by them. Where developments in the kernel were for the people, not necessarily only business directed.
I’ve been a solid and regular member of the Linux community for a good number of years now, some might remember me from the Libranet forums, where I was a staunch supporter of the product and consistently helped others in the community – taking much of my own time I might add.
I wrote a highly respected 20 odd page review of Libranet 3.0, that was detailed, and not the short bullshit reviews that you see most people writing.
Shall I go on?
You sir are the troll, when you criticise others without even knowning anything about them.
Dave
Before Linux Kernel 2.6 FreeBSD outperformed Linux in nearly all aspects. 2.6 brought big speed improvements. I’ve also heard they got these speed improvements from a FreeBSD kernel hacker who switched to Linux..whether that’s true or not I don’t know.
“I’ve also heard they got these speed improvements from a FreeBSD kernel hacker who switched to Linux..whether that’s true or not I don’t know.”
Well no, it’s not true, but nice try there.
Before Linux Kernel 2.6 FreeBSD outperformed Linux in nearly all aspects.
That’s incorrect. Linux 2.4 was far more scalable than FreeBSD 4 (which has a single lock), and was also faster at many single-thread operations (although slower at some too).
I don’t suppose you really have any data to back up this claim anyway.
2.6 brought big speed improvements. I’ve also heard they got these speed improvements from a FreeBSD kernel hacker who switched to Linux..whether that’s true or not I don’t know.
Whoever you heard that from is either an idiot or a liar. Even if a dozen FreeBSD kernel developers had been working on Linux 2.5 full time (which there weren’t, I don’t think there was a single one), then they still couldn’t have contributed all the improvements in 2.6.
Isn’t it obvious by now? Debian users like myself don’t want Ubuntus defaults, “polish” and what you call “sane” behavior.We’re perfectly happy configuring stuff by hand =) Different projects, different goals my friend.
While I never played with BSD-current/ULE I did play with it back when 5.3 (?) was shipped (It disabled by default – AFAIR) and, while a bit unstable, it did present a major performance increase on SMP machines.
The Linux 2.6.22 CFS numbers seem to mirror what I’m feeling on my Opteron/Clovertown workstation(s). Close, but no cigar.
-However-, the BSD team screwed up big time with the 2.6.23 kernel numbers.
In-order to test the 2.6.23 kernel they used the September 28 pre-Fedora 8 Rawhide kernel [1] that was compiled with a large number of debug options. [2]
The BSD team should consider redoing the 2.6.23 results with a production kernel. For the time being I’d suggest they remove the invalid results from the PDF.
Incorporating invalid results into an official documents just makes the BSD team look unprofessional.
– Gilboa
[1] http://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/buildinfo?buildID=19790
[2] $ cat .config | grep DEBUG | grep =y
CONFIG_SLUB_DEBUG=y
CONFIG_PM_DEBUG=y
CONFIG_CPU_FREQ_DEBUG=y
CONFIG_IEEE80211_SOFTMAC_DEBUG=y
CONFIG_DEBUG_DEVRES=y
CONFIG_DM_DEBUG=y
CONFIG_MLX4_DEBUG=y
CONFIG_B43_DEBUG=y
CONFIG_B43LEGACY_DEBUG=y
CONFIG_IWLWIFI_DEBUG=y
CONFIG_INFINIBAND_MTHCA_DEBUG=y
CONFIG_INFINIBAND_IPOIB_DEBUG=y
CONFIG_INFINIBAND_IPOIB_DEBUG_DATA=y
CONFIG_JBD2_DEBUG=y
CONFIG_DLM_DEBUG=y
CONFIG_DEBUG_IGNORE_QUIET=y
CONFIG_DEBUG_FS=y
CONFIG_DEBUG_KERNEL=y
CONFIG_DEBUG_SHIRQ=y
CONFIG_SCHED_DEBUG=y
CONFIG_SLUB_DEBUG_ON=y
CONFIG_DEBUG_RT_MUTEXES=y
CONFIG_DEBUG_PI_LIST=y
CONFIG_DEBUG_SPINLOCK=y
CONFIG_DEBUG_MUTEXES=y
CONFIG_DEBUG_LOCK_ALLOC=y
CONFIG_DEBUG_SPINLOCK_SLEEP=y
CONFIG_DEBUG_BUGVERBOSE=y
CONFIG_DEBUG_INFO=y
CONFIG_DEBUG_VM=y
CONFIG_DEBUG_LIST=y
CONFIG_FAULT_INJECTION_DEBUG_FS=y
CONFIG_DEBUG_RODATA=y
CONFIG_DEBUG_STACKOVERFLOW=y
CONFIG_DEBUG_STACK_USAGE=y
CONFIG_KEYS_DEBUG_PROC_KEYS=y
Edited 2007-10-30 21:25
if this would be the reason (enabled debugging) of deteriorated scheduler performance, Ingo Molnar would not bother to admit the there is an issue with CFS performance in 2.6.23 vs 2.6.22 and that is the case as you can find out is his emails. He also is looking into the reasons of performance regression.
I’m not saying that there are no issues with CFS (Hence my no cigar comment) I am saying that the BSD people shouldn’t have used this kernel.
– Gilboa
Yes… I know the difference, but this is suppose to be a posting about FREEBSD not LINUX. Why is it we always have to do this? Huh?
I love BSD, I’ve used NetBSD for about 4 years and enjoyed it… now I’m using FreeBSD 6 Stable and going on a year with it. Everything is working as it should and the only gripe I have is support for flashplayer9 which I’m sure these guys are working on. I’m a hardcore SLACKER, but the BSD’s got some serious kung-fu also.. so let them shine at what each of them do best.
Opensource… For the people, by the people.
Edited 2007-10-30 22:45
Anyone know whether or not both camps still collaborate?
Thank you FreeBSD developers for making such great major release!
I enjoyed it in my SMP servers with ULE since it was 7.0-CURRENT
What’s cooking for FreeBSD 8.x?
Storage subsystems’ improvements
Boot support for GPT partitions
Status: Committed to -CURRENT
Will appear in 8.0: sure
Author: John Baldwin
Web: commit message
Support for booting from GPT partitions has been committed to -CURRENT. This support includes the boot sector and loader that enable common i386 machines with a generic BIOS to boot from GPT-partitioned drives.
Kernel & low level improvements
Kernel threads
Status: Committed to -CURRENT
Will appear in 8.0: sure
Author: Julian Elischer
Web: commit message
Kernel threads upto now were actually “heavy weight” processes running in the kernel address space. This change introduces real light weight kernel threads which consume less low-level resources (process locks, memory maps). It also allows better grouping of threads for display purposes.
http://ivoras.sharanet.org/freebsd/freebsd8.html
I am currently using 6.2-RELEASE-p8 and when 7.0 is released I want to upgrade to it. Will it be as simple as changing tag=RELENG_6_2 to tag=RELENG_7_0 in my supfile, or do I have to delete everything in /usr/src first, then csup my supfile?
I install everything from ports and use portsnap to maintain my ports tree. Am I going to have to do anything special to get my ports in sync with the new world? Are there any benefits to recompiling my ports, or at least the ones that have a thread option?
just change RELENG_6_2 –> RELENG_7_0, then csup and go the standart way: http://freebsd.org/handbook/makeworld.html
about ports, you should recompile them all to omit any problems:
# pkg_info -qoa > /root/ports_list
# pkg_delete -far
# rm -rf /usr/local /var/db/pkg
# while read PORT; do cd /usr/ports/$PORT && make config-recursive; done < /root/ports_list
# while read PORT; do cd /usr/ports/$PORT && make install; done < /root/ports_list
and then clean up a little:
# rm -rf /usr/ports/*/*/work
I would also suggest using ccache for that process:
http://bsdforums.org/forums/showthread.php?t=47531
benefits? zero problems after upgrade, newest versions of ports, all compiled by gcc 4.2 with support for FreeBSD RedZone [1] support.
FreeBSD RedZone is automatic buffer overflow/underflow detection, more in man redzone
Thank you, vermaden, for your help. I will use your method if I keep the i386 architecture, which I should have asked about before I ask my question.
@ vermaden: is there a portmaster way of upgrading gcc and all dependent ports?
First, gcc is part of FreeBSD base sytem, so you will not rebuild gcc from ports, after you upgrade to FreeBSD 7.0 you will already have newest gcc 4.2, but you may want to add gcc 3.4 (or any other compiler like pcc) from ports, which is required to build QEMU for example.
Yes, this should work with portmaster:
# portmaster -far
Oh, I see. I saw gcc42 in freshports so I thought it was part of ports, not base.
Well, gcc42 is in ports, also gcc34 is along with other versions of gcc.
For example ypu have FreeBSD 6 installed, then you have gcc34 in base system (under /usr), but you can also install gcc34 from ports, which will be installed as all other ports under /usr/local.
FreeBSD will still use gcc34 from base system unless you modify PATH or add CC/CXX variables to /etc/make.conf to change defautl compiler.
Same for FreeBSD 7, you can add gcc42 from ports also, but as you see its just pointless, but its possible of course.
And to clarify everything both of these installed versions of gcc42 will work independant of eash other without breaking each other.
I understand. Thanks for help, also for the help you give in bsdforums.org.
You are welcome
It’s not pointless if you need ObjC, Fortran, gcj, etc.
In fact, if you install any ports that use any Fortran code (practically, everything under ports/math), you’ll get gcc42 installed.
Did not knew that cause I never use other compilers then gcc/g++, thanks for explanation.
Is FreeBSD implementing something along the lines of Grub for the boot loader in this release? I end up having to use GAG — while this really isn’t much of a problem, it would be a “neater” set-up if it was integrated in like most linux distros.
Yep, I know there is the FreeBSD boot loader present. I’ve never been able to get it to work, however. Yes, I’m sure that this is my problem, but it does seem it could be a bit easier to get installed (I always seem to end up in a endless loop during the install phase of where-do-you-want-to-install-the-bootloader).
David Xu sent this email to [email protected]
“I did a simple mysql super-smack benchmark test on a Intel XEON machine,
the CPU has 4 cores:
CPU: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU 5130 @ 2.00GHz (1997.03-MHz)
I have set environment variable LIBPTHREAD_YIELDLOOPS to 30 and start
mysql server:
setenv LIBPTHREAD_YIELDLOOPS 30
/usr/local/etc/rc.d/mysql-server start
and repeat doing
#super-smack ./select-key.smack 10 20000
The result is very surprising:
# /usr/src/tools/tools/ministat/ministat normal.txt yield_30.txt
x normal.txt
+ yield_30.txt
+——————————————————————— ———————————————————————- —————-+
| x x x
+
|
| x xxxx
+ + ++
|
|x x xxxxx x
+ + + ++ +
|
|x x xxxxxxx x x
+ + + ++++++ ++++ +++ ++
+|
| |___A___|
|________M_A_________|
|
+——————————————————————— ———————————————————————- —————-+
N Min Max Median Avg Stddev
x 30 44790.57 48609.38 45831.065 45910.616 745.54679
+ 30 60521.95 73090.6 66008.135 66254.815 1953.4324
Difference at 95.0% confidence
20344.2 +/- 764.241
44.3126% +/- 1.66463%
(Student’s t, pooled s = 1478.47)
it seems over 44% performance is improved.
Regards,
David Xu”
This is amazing now!
Kriss Kennaway, could you try it out and update the benchmark graphs?
Nice, but that’s supersmack not sysbench (a different benchmark). So there’s no need for Kris to update the graphs because there are none
Actually,
I found this graphe which uses adaptive pthread
http://people.freebsd.org/~kris/scaling/mysql-freebsd.pdf
It’s all about the FreeBSD 7.0 and older versions.
Hmm.. so “7.0, ULE scheduler” is FreeBSD 7.0 Beta 1.5 and “adaptive pthreads” is David Xu’s patch? Is that correct?
Correct.