Nacho-BSD

[Brian K. White]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Walter Vaughan" <wvaughan at steelerubber.com>
To: "filePro" <filepro-list at lists.celestial.com>
Sent: Saturday, June 24, 2006 9:09 AM
Subject: Nacho-BSD


> Brian K. White wrote:
>> Definitely Linux comes with significant overhead. The whole moving target 
>> problem is a huge problem not a brush-off problem.
>
> Thus I wonder why all the fuss about Linux, when we have real BSD-unixen 
> with all the work in the past few years designed around making the OS work 
> better in a future world of multi-processing servers, rather than a 
> *nix-like OS that really wants to be Windows2000.

Because I've been trying to use freebsd for a few years and always have 
problems I don't have on linux.
Those linux hassles I mentioned are none of them show-stoppers.
Software raid arrays that blow up and machines that lock up every few hours 
to days and non-availability of necessary 3rd party software and hardware 
drivers. Those are show-stoppers.
Freebsd's stability has not been there since 4.x days.
These days they are doing what linux does, adding exotic new features while 
the existing stuff isn't even nailed down yet.
Only unlike linux they don't have nearly the user base to show patterns and 
find the bugs, nor the developer base to deal with them quickly.
Going by some peoples comments and the traffic on those freebsd mail lists I 
follow, I've formed the impression that these days, it's pretty reliable if 
you're lucky about what combination of hardware you have and what 
combination of software you run and what your usage profile is.

I've been testing and trying to use it for various non-critical tasks on 
various heterogeneous boxes, some good some cheap some new some old, spread 
over the last 5 years, 4 or 5 just within the last year since I was gearing 
up for switching off of sco and really wanted freebsd not linux exactly for 
the sanity you refer to and which I thought was there, and all of them ended 
up having some kind of nasty issue I knew I could never tolerate in 
production. Most I was powerless to either fix myself or convince any 
developer there was really a problem he should address. And that's even when 
I *can* afford the time, and downtime, to rebuild the box with some other 
version, and/or with various kernel debugging options turned on, or a 
sequence of rebuilds with slightly different options followed by running 
watching waiting & logging each time...  in production I could never come 
close to being able to do that. MAny of these problems didn't manifest right 
away, so every box I installed would be a crap shoot.
Meanwhile, linux ran without issue on the very same boxes. That's a crap 
shoot too, except: precnfigured linux boxes that are not a crap shoot are a 
dime a dozen, and my own first hand experience has shown it to be both far 
less or a crap shoot, and more easily dealt with when there was a problem.

I have absolutely no problem figuring out something that's hard, learning a 
new OS, etc... but it's simply not in anyones best interest for me to 
struggle with something that's problematic, worse, it's flat out 
irresponsible or negligent to witniss these types of failures and then still 
put the customers livelyhoods on it, while there are any other options that 
have had at least as much scrutiny and fewer problems. For no better reason 
than what? Because I just wanna? I like a little devil better than a little 
penguin?

I have to use what will work the best.
I'm still not a Linux lover. I see it as the least evil. I really wish SCO 
hadn't turned into a Dali painting. If I love any OS it's that.

> I guess I just don't get Linux in the same way I don't get the Napoleon 
> Dynamite style of comedy.

I dunno, I found most of it slightly amusing, a few bits pretty funny. All 
in all, not enough to justify making it or even going to a theatre to see 
it.
But I think I "got" it all. Possibly there were sublties only a midwesterner 
would appreciate that I missed altogether, but I doubt it because I didn't 
perceive many sublties of any other type so why should there be only 
demographic specific ones?

Brian K. White  --  brian at aljex.com  --  http://www.aljex.com/bkw/
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