4 ms·

> Depending on the hardware and on the application, either Linux or FreeBSD can be faster, but in the majority of the cases the winner is Linux. Do you have an

> Depending on the hardware and on the application, either Linux or FreeBSD can be faster, but in the majority of the cases the winner is Linux. Do you have any data to back that up? Everything I've seen recently and my own experience tells me this isn't the case but I also don't have any data to back up my position. Would love to find some good data on this either way.

adrian_b 4y ago
I have been using continuously both FreeBSD and Linux since around 1995, since FreeBSD 2.0 and some Slackware Linux distribution. In the early years, I have run many benchmarks between them, in order to choose the one that was the best suited for certain applications. However, during the last decade, I did not bother to compare them any more, because now the main reasons why I choose one or the other do not include the speed. Even if I have right now, besides me, several computers with FreeBSD and several with Linux, it would not be easy for me to run any benchmark, because they have very different hardware, which would influence the results much more than the OS. For all the applications where I use FreeBSD (for various networking and storage services), its performance is adequate, and I use it instead of Linux for other reasons, not depending on whether it might be faster or slower. In the applications where computational performance is important, I use Linux, but that is not due to some benchmark results, but because some commercial software is available only for Linux, e.g. CUDA libraries or FPGA design programs. Many benchmark results comparing FreeBSD and Linux may be influenced more by the file systems used than by the OS kernel. I have seen recently some benchmark comparing FreeBSD and Linux for a database application dominated by SSD I/O, but I cannot remember a link to it. The only file system shared by Linux and FreeBSD is ZFS. With ZFS, the benchmark results were similar for Linux and FreeBSD. However, FreeBSD was faster when using UFS and Linux was much faster, when using either XFS or EXT4 (BTRFS was much slower than ZFS). Such a benchmark was much more influenced by the file system than by the operating system. In conclusion, it is very hard to make a good comparison between FreeBSD and Linux, because you need identical hardware, which must be restricted to the shorter list that is well supported by FreeBSD, and you need to run some micro-benchmark testing some kernel system calls. Otherwise, the result may depend more on the supported software, hardware or file systems, than on the OS kernel.
- jedberg 4y ago
  Right exactly which is why it's hard to find data. But I'd love to see someone who has tried to limit variables to just the network stack to figure out if one network stack is better than the other. But you're right, in the end you just have to set up both for your particular use case with the best optimizations each has to offer and see which performs better.
  - bit-perfect 4y ago
    [dead]
Thaxll 4y ago
The web run on Linux like most FANG servers do, so it makes sense with the $$$ / people / R&D that this OS is faster. A conservative number would be that 99.9% of the web runs on Linux and it's probably much higher. At the scale of Google / MS / Amazon / Apple if servers would run faster of BSD* they would use it. We're talking about 10's millions of servers here. https://www.phoronix.com/review/bsd-linux-eo2021/7 https://www.phoronix.com/review/bsd-linux-eo2021/7 It gives you a pretty clear picture.
- jedberg 4y ago
  Based on that logic, Windows is the superior operating system and always has been, because it's always been used by more people on their desktop than anything else. There are a lot more factors involved in OS choice that could drive popularity other than the speed of the network stack. And BTW, Hotmail runs on BSD. MacOS is a fork of BSD. And Yahoo ran on BSD (and may still).
  - Thaxll 4y ago
    I did not even mention all the Android phones 1B+ running Linux. Also all the top 500 HPC runs Linux: https://www.top500.org/statistics/details/osfam/1/ https://www.top500.org/statistics/details/osfam/1/ Hotmail running BSD is dead, I doubt MS is using BSD at all, they're using the same stuff as outlook.com which is not BSD. I'm not saying Linux is better, just it is overall faster because an order of magnitude more $$$ and contribution.
- Gud 4y ago
  Netflix distributes a fairly large chunk of the internet traffic and they do it using FreeBSD. I suspect most system administrators and engineers use Linux because that's what everyone else is using.
- bit-perfect 4y ago
  [dead]

adrian_b 4y ago

I have been using continuously both FreeBSD and Linux since around 1995, since FreeBSD 2.0 and some Slackware Linux distribution. In the early years, I have run many benchmarks between them, in order to choose the one that was the best suited for certain applications. However, during the last decade, I did not bother to compare them any more, because now the main reasons why I choose one or the other do not include the speed. Even if I have right now, besides me, several computers with FreeBSD and several with Linux, it would not be easy for me to run any benchmark, because they have very different hardware, which would influence the results much more than the OS. For all the applications where I use FreeBSD (for various networking and storage services), its performance is adequate, and I use it instead of Linux for other reasons, not depending on whether it might be faster or slower. In the applications where computational performance is important, I use Linux, but that is not due to some benchmark results, but because some commercial software is available only for Linux, e.g. CUDA libraries or FPGA design programs. Many benchmark results comparing FreeBSD and Linux may be influenced more by the file systems used than by the OS kernel. I have seen recently some benchmark comparing FreeBSD and Linux for a database application dominated by SSD I/O, but I cannot remember a link to it. The only file system shared by Linux and FreeBSD is ZFS. With ZFS, the benchmark results were similar for Linux and FreeBSD. However, FreeBSD was faster when using UFS and Linux was much faster, when using either XFS or EXT4 (BTRFS was much slower than ZFS). Such a benchmark was much more influenced by the file system than by the operating system. In conclusion, it is very hard to make a good comparison between FreeBSD and Linux, because you need identical hardware, which must be restricted to the shorter list that is well supported by FreeBSD, and you need to run some micro-benchmark testing some kernel system calls. Otherwise, the result may depend more on the supported software, hardware or file systems, than on the OS kernel.

jedberg 4y ago
Right exactly which is why it's hard to find data. But I'd love to see someone who has tried to limit variables to just the network stack to figure out if one network stack is better than the other. But you're right, in the end you just have to set up both for your particular use case with the best optimizations each has to offer and see which performs better.
- bit-perfect 4y ago
  [dead]

Thaxll 4y ago

The web run on Linux like most FANG servers do, so it makes sense with the $$$ / people / R&D that this OS is faster. A conservative number would be that 99.9% of the web runs on Linux and it's probably much higher. At the scale of Google / MS / Amazon / Apple if servers would run faster of BSD* they would use it. We're talking about 10's millions of servers here. https://www.phoronix.com/review/bsd-linux-eo2021/7 https://www.phoronix.com/review/bsd-linux-eo2021/7 It gives you a pretty clear picture.

jedberg 4y ago
Based on that logic, Windows is the superior operating system and always has been, because it's always been used by more people on their desktop than anything else. There are a lot more factors involved in OS choice that could drive popularity other than the speed of the network stack. And BTW, Hotmail runs on BSD. MacOS is a fork of BSD. And Yahoo ran on BSD (and may still).
- Thaxll 4y ago
  I did not even mention all the Android phones 1B+ running Linux. Also all the top 500 HPC runs Linux: https://www.top500.org/statistics/details/osfam/1/ https://www.top500.org/statistics/details/osfam/1/ Hotmail running BSD is dead, I doubt MS is using BSD at all, they're using the same stuff as outlook.com which is not BSD. I'm not saying Linux is better, just it is overall faster because an order of magnitude more $$$ and contribution.
Gud 4y ago
Netflix distributes a fairly large chunk of the internet traffic and they do it using FreeBSD. I suspect most system administrators and engineers use Linux because that's what everyone else is using.
bit-perfect 4y ago
[dead]