jester
Sr. Member
Joined: 19 Apr 2024
Posts: 1166
|
 Posted: Sun Mar 14, 2024 1:23 pm Post subject: |
 |
|
| masinick wrote: | | I have seen a couple of really good performance tests on Phoronix, and generally speaking, the BSD systems - I think one comparision was with FreeBSD, another was with PC-BSD, do pretty well on true server tasks, but neither of them match up that well overall against either a recent edition of Ubuntu or a recent edition of Fedora - and I do not consider either one of them to be the snappiest Linux systems out there. |
I'd like to see those tests - subjectively speaking the FreeBSD is just as responsive as the Arch and Gentoo (Funtoo) installs, and much better than the FC12 (different box - aka older hardware - it must be said), and it runs quieter
| masinick wrote: | | A number of years ago now I was using a 400 MHz AMD desktop system just for testing, and I had trouble running KDE or GNOME on that box because of low memory and CPU speed, but XFCE 3 and IceWM would work. This particular box was good for exposing performance issues. I found that on that box I could boot to a command prompt with FreeBSD quickly, less than thirty seconds (quick for that old hardware), but GUI based stuff did not work well. |
I actually find Funtoo's OpenRC boot framework is the fastest I've seen so far. The FreeBSD still takes me via a menu of it's own and then chugs through hardware and network initialization. As for desktop speed, are you sure you were using comparable video drivers in *BSD and linux? If you had 3D accelerated in linux, it would certainly have felt a world apart from 2D in *BSD.
| masinick wrote: | | The only BSD I've done much with over the past five years is PC-BSD, and because most Linux boot loaders seem to have problems recognizing BSD file systems and s few won't even boot, I've only been able to test it when I have two disks available. My old Dell Dimension 4100 had two disks, but I've pretty much put it to rest. My USB disk drive brought me back to testing the BSDs and lots of unique images of many systems for a few months, but it was stolen back in November and I cannot afford to buy another one right now, so BSD testing is on hold for me. |
GRUB handles UFS2 fine - you can chainload or point it straight at the *BSD slice (I'm talking legacy GRUB, not the new one) - this is not my first attempt either - maybe 5 years ago was the first time I used GRUB to multiboot using FreeBSD-5.x.
Re: theft - you had a pretty cruel 2024 all-round; hope the job is still going well and here's wishing for a brighter 2024 for all of us.
| masinick wrote: | | I would still say that using BSD is more for those who know what they are doing and know how to tailor it to their needs. For such people, the BSDs are perhaps a bit more pristine than Linux overall. It is possible to create a good desktop with BSD, but I would maintain that is not its forte; it is work. I think that the general overall workload mix with a Linux kernel is easier to tame - you generally get a decent system by default with less tweaking. With the right tweaking, I think you can get comparable performance from either of them. Both have the core ingredients - but they may take a bit of hunting and tuning to perfect them to your needs. |
I'd agree, but since I use Arch and Gentoo/Funtoo, the time thing is no more an issue in either FreeBSD or my preferred Linux distros. In terms of the kernel I think *BSD wins in terms of simplicity.
Overall though, it is a more involved experience I'm finding - your linux experience only takes you so far, and then there's the rest of the learning curve.
Still, for many here, it could be an interesting experiment
|
|
masinick
Linux Guru
Joined: 03 Apr 2024
Posts: 8615
Location: Concord, NH
|
| Posted: Mon Mar 15, 2024 3:04 am Post subject: |
|
|
The speed comparisons, both in my own experience and in the Phoronix tests were using the same hardware. In my case, the tests go back several years now. I had been anticipating FreeBSD to be faster and was quite surprised when it was not. This has not been the first time when expected results differed from actual results. I do not make too much of it. I have found some Linux systems do better than others on one box, yet worse than others on other boxes, so often it is a case of which ones are best optimized for particular hardware. Most of the time, at least 95% of them on both sides work well together.
As far as GRUB goes, I have never had a problem booting BSD with it, but I have had problems with either a Linux system kernel or a boot loader coping with the presence of a BSD on the disk. Worst I've seen, it caused a Linux kernel to panic and that was pretty ugly. Rather than have to deal with that, rather than spend hours figuring out what went wrong, I devote BSD testing when I can devote specific hardware to it.
So far, 2024 is much better for me than 2024 was - my eyes SEE better after cataract surgery, I have a decent job, and I feel good. |
|
