Jonathan Stone said:

>A data point: I'm the NetBSD/pmax chief port-slave.  Some colleagues
>here (e.g., CS faculty) have recently asked me about free Unices with
>more solid networking than Linux.  I end up advising them that they
>should use FreeBSD, because NetBSD/i386 just isn't *REAL*, because to
>the best of my knowledge NetBSD/i386 doesn't support more than 16
>Mbytes with ISA cards like an aha1542.  And I end up reassuring these
>people that the two systems aren't really _that_ different, at least
>on x86 hardware.

I don't think that an OS should use kludges to make up for underlying
hardware limits, at least not on cheap, Intel commodity hardware.

>I find this embarrassing for the project.  It's something that has
>given great marketing mileage to (for example).  To the point where
>those who _consider_ alternatives to Linux think FreeBSD is all there
>is.

I take a certain interest in news postings that describe the bounce
buffer support in FreeBSD and Linux as performance killers.

>I think, respectfully, that this needs to be fixed.  Yesterday.
>(Even that  may be too late.)   And it's gone on long enough
>that, IMHO, it's time to ask the relevant portmaster and Core members:
>
>	*Why is this still broken?*

The hardware is broken, not the OS.

The VLB and PCI busses are there for a reason.  A Buslogic VLB controller
costs less than a Adaptec 1542, and is a lot faster in the bargain.
-- 
Rick Kelly	rmk@rmkhome.com	    rmk@tencats.rmkhome.com
                http://tencats.rmkhome.com