5 ms·

Sorry if I sound mean, but this is just a long apologist post about how things are just so hard. Really? Why? Why can't Linux match BSD's performance? Also, 10

by scurvy 11y ago

Sorry if I sound mean, but this is just a long apologist post about how things are just so hard. Really? Why? Why can't Linux match BSD's performance? Also, 10gb servers are not rare by any means. Take a look around the next time you walk in a colo. 10 gb servers everywhere.

justincormack 11y ago
Well the BSDs have issues too. FreeBSD/Netflix has been doing in kernel SSL to try to fix some issues, and there is Netmap available for packet processing in userspace. So they are running into similar issues as Linux.
- gonzo 11y ago
  Netflix is doing in-kernel SSL so they don't have to hit the web server to encrypt the disk blocks for their streaming movies. That doesn't mean it's a (Free)BSD issue, just that Netflix chose a particular architecture and are doing the work to make it go fast. Netmap is in FreeBSD, and available for linux. I think it might be in Dragonfly at this point as well.
tedunangst 11y ago
I'm not certain if "apologist post" refers to the article or the comment you replied to, but neither mentions BSD. ?
acdha 11y ago
> Sorry if I sound mean, but this is just a long apologist post about how things are just so hard. Really? Why? Why can't Linux match BSD's performance? Mostly I just wish you'd read it again: you appear to have missed the part where I said that this is a real problem which needed working on. The point I was making is that it's not a problem for most Linux users. Linux includes millions of devices attached to sub-100Mb networks but even if you want to look solely at things in modern data centers ask yourself how many of them are running network-limited applications or are providing services to internet users over an uplink which is actually fast enough to stress modern hardware. For all but the most demanding users the Linux vs. BSD decision will be made on other factors.
- scurvy 11y ago
  Those millions of sub-100Mb network devices aren't pushing Linux forward though. Sure, they're using Linux, but they're not the ones pushing it forward. It's colo and datacenter use cases that are. A basic MySQL OLTP load with SSD's and a modicum of compute power will easily saturate a 10gig NIC. It does start to die shortly after that due to network/kernel stuff. I'd really like to get a lot more out of my existing hardware if i could.
  - acdha 11y ago
    You mean “pushing it forward in this particular direction”. Again, it's great to have people working on this and better if the companies using Linux support developers working on the problem but it's only a deal-breaker for a much smaller number of people. Just to use an example which you see a lot today: how many of the developers jumping on Docker care that much about network performance at this level? I would argue that continued development of the container system has done more to boost Linux usage than low-level networking performance, even though both are entirely legitimate and worthwhile concerns worth developer sponsorship. (ZFS has pulled in the opposite direction for people who care about storage) From the other direction, imagine if *BSD had gotten serious about package management by the mid-to-late 90s when it was obvious how much better the experience was on Debian so that a generation of developers wasn't trained to favor Linux to avoid getting sucked into dependency management. That doesn't have anything to do with the kernel but it mattered more for many, many people. This would have been really interesting if kfreebsd had hit critical mass and made the cost of switching that much lower.
betaby 11y ago
> Why can't Linux match BSD's performance? You do sound both mean and factless. Meaningful apple to apple BSD to Linux comparison needed.
- scurvy 11y ago
  LMGTFY: http://bsdrp.net/documentation/technical_docs/performance http://bsdrp.net/documentation/technical_docs/performance BSD numbers > Linux numbers.
  - betaby 11y ago
    Except there is no Linux presence on any graph on this link.
    - scurvy 11y ago
      The data are in the original post. Are you just trolling comments or have you actually read the Cloudflare articles?

by scurvy 11y ago

justincormack 11y ago

Well the BSDs have issues too. FreeBSD/Netflix has been doing in kernel SSL to try to fix some issues, and there is Netmap available for packet processing in userspace. So they are running into similar issues as Linux.

gonzo 11y ago
Netflix is doing in-kernel SSL so they don't have to hit the web server to encrypt the disk blocks for their streaming movies. That doesn't mean it's a (Free)BSD issue, just that Netflix chose a particular architecture and are doing the work to make it go fast. Netmap is in FreeBSD, and available for linux. I think it might be in Dragonfly at this point as well.

tedunangst 11y ago

I'm not certain if "apologist post" refers to the article or the comment you replied to, but neither mentions BSD. ?

acdha 11y ago

> Sorry if I sound mean, but this is just a long apologist post about how things are just so hard. Really? Why? Why can't Linux match BSD's performance? Mostly I just wish you'd read it again: you appear to have missed the part where I said that this is a real problem which needed working on. The point I was making is that it's not a problem for most Linux users. Linux includes millions of devices attached to sub-100Mb networks but even if you want to look solely at things in modern data centers ask yourself how many of them are running network-limited applications or are providing services to internet users over an uplink which is actually fast enough to stress modern hardware. For all but the most demanding users the Linux vs. BSD decision will be made on other factors.

scurvy 11y ago
Those millions of sub-100Mb network devices aren't pushing Linux forward though. Sure, they're using Linux, but they're not the ones pushing it forward. It's colo and datacenter use cases that are. A basic MySQL OLTP load with SSD's and a modicum of compute power will easily saturate a 10gig NIC. It does start to die shortly after that due to network/kernel stuff. I'd really like to get a lot more out of my existing hardware if i could.
- acdha 11y ago
  You mean “pushing it forward in this particular direction”. Again, it's great to have people working on this and better if the companies using Linux support developers working on the problem but it's only a deal-breaker for a much smaller number of people. Just to use an example which you see a lot today: how many of the developers jumping on Docker care that much about network performance at this level? I would argue that continued development of the container system has done more to boost Linux usage than low-level networking performance, even though both are entirely legitimate and worthwhile concerns worth developer sponsorship. (ZFS has pulled in the opposite direction for people who care about storage) From the other direction, imagine if *BSD had gotten serious about package management by the mid-to-late 90s when it was obvious how much better the experience was on Debian so that a generation of developers wasn't trained to favor Linux to avoid getting sucked into dependency management. That doesn't have anything to do with the kernel but it mattered more for many, many people. This would have been really interesting if kfreebsd had hit critical mass and made the cost of switching that much lower.

betaby 11y ago

> Why can't Linux match BSD's performance? You do sound both mean and factless. Meaningful apple to apple BSD to Linux comparison needed.

scurvy 11y ago
LMGTFY: http://bsdrp.net/documentation/technical_docs/performance http://bsdrp.net/documentation/technical_docs/performance BSD numbers > Linux numbers.
- betaby 11y ago
  Except there is no Linux presence on any graph on this link.
  - scurvy 11y ago
    The data are in the original post. Are you just trolling comments or have you actually read the Cloudflare articles?