[geeks] EV1 Servers makes me sick

[Charles Shannon Hendrix]

Tue, 03 Oct 2006 @ 13:12 -0700, Nicole said:

>  I manage a rather large instalation for a site that, so far, is all
>  FreeBSD based. Becouse of certain laking features however I have been
>  looking at various Linux versions. I have to say that to anyone who
>  dis's the FreeBSD install script, run off and install Gentoo. As for
>  the other distro 's, after using FreeBSD for so long, I have to say I
>  find it a little disturbing to install an OS and like it or not, get
>  everything including the kitchen sink installed. 

Well, that's really your fault, not the fault of Linux. If you don't
want the kitchen sink, then don't install it.

If I install all of FreeBSD, NetBSD, or Solaris it would be pretty huge
too.

Almost all of the Linux distributions will let you install a lean setup.
Most people don't want that, so the defaults are geared toward them.

I think they should have a base install, but most of us who argue for
that get shouted down, and as I said, you can still do it anyway.

The idea is that for servers you will create tag files (most
distributions support this, though it varies among them how to do it) so
future installs are hands-off affairs.

Slackware is easier to keep lean from the start, and its tag files are
probably the easiest to use for creating custom install media.

> In my mind FreeBSD is more Unix like. Linux is more Windows like. 

What about Linux makes it more Windows like? Linux kernel and library
support is nothing remotely like Windows.

I think you must be talking about the desktop environments used on it,
all of which are also available for the BSD systems as well as Solaris.

> Lets face it who has more market share, Windows. FreeBSD has tried to
> do everything,

Um, no. FreeBSD primarily focused on the server end, which was ironic
given that it didn't have much of a server platform for the first few
years.

> whereas Linux went after the desktop crowd and grew the server aspect
> via sheer userbase demand.

Not really.

Linux early on wasn't focused either way, but was used primarily for
servers. Heavy desktop use didn't come for years.

Starting with 2.6, the majority of the changes were focused on servers
and big iron, and embedded systems. Very little of it was specifically
geared toward desktops, though much of it did help there. In fact some
of the most important desktop stuff like hot plugging and USB still
isn't done.

O(1) scheduler, futexes, new I/O subsystem, new networking, new VM,
preemptable kernel, scalability improvements, improvements on mainframe
version, microkernel Linux code accepted into mainstream kernel,
a move sub-architectures to cover more hardware, NUMA support, etc.

Most of that was done for server use, even if it did also help desktops.

In fact, that is usually true, since the primary difference between
desktop and server usage is how you want to tune VM paging, and wether
you want throughput or interactive response.

The rest is largely the same.

-- 
shannon "AT" widomaker.com -- ["That which is overdesigned, too highly
specific, anticipates outcome; the anticipation of outcome garantees, if
not failure, the absence of grace." -- William Gibson, All Tomorrow's
Parties]