[SunRescue] Relative speeds on slow machines...etc....

[BSD Bob the old greybeard BSD freak]

> On Wed, 16 May 2001, Dave Reader wrote:
> > I have a Linux SS2/64Mb co-located. It's a nice stable machine, and a
> > breeze to maintain. It's not doing any heavy work, but working it is.
>  
> > I suspect that solaris old enough to run on that hardware wouldn't be
> > worth my time. I do have 2.5.1 media - last time i installed it (on an
> > SS2) it took all night and then some (_just_ to run the installer). of
> > course it would then want endless additions and patches and nappies
> > changing before it was grown-up enough to go near the 'net.
>  
> Now, how does the performance of OpenBSD or NetBSD compare to linux on
> such "slow" machines?

They are, in reality, about equal, in my hands.  I prefer to use the
BSD's because they are always more stable in my hands, for server use.
My experiences would suggest a rating of OpenBSD, NetBSD, Linux,
Solaris, SunOS (4.1.3 BSDish).  On sparc hardware I trust OpenBSD
more than any of the others.  It just always works, and works well.
NetBSD usually works well, but there are some gotchas on really old
hardware.  Linux seems to get hit around here more than anything else
on the networks, but it is getting better.  On really old or wierd
hardare it mostly sucks bigtime, IMHO.  Solaris is good if patched,
but slow.  SunOS is fairly fast, but you don't want it on the open net.
It is great with the right set of tools on the home network.  But,
keeping a modern set of tooks up to date on SunOS is getting more
and more difficult, as time goes by.  For the past couple of years
I ran a teaching web server on an SS1 with OpenBSD, and you could
not tell the difference vs the departmental NT server.  The network
turned out to be the bottleneck, not the machine speed.  It was
recently replaced with an SS10 server on OpenBSD, and although the
machine is much faster, the network is still the bottleneck.
So machine speeds are often not so important, on the net.

My rule of thumb is, ``If it is Sparc, stick OpenBSD on it first.''
That has always worked for me.  Everyone else's mileage may vary.....

Good Luck.....(:+}}....

Bob

For the sake of discussion, anyone care to comment on the recent
Caldera takeover of UNIX?  Caldera is a big Linux house, too.
I sense a marriage of the two, which could affect a lot of UNIX
down the road, if I am reading things correctly.