Subject: Re: NetBSD 1.6 & i386 SMP, ACPI, mly
To: Conrad T. Pino <Conrad@pino.com>
From: Brett Lymn <blymn@baesystems.com.au>
List: tech-smp
Date: 01/17/2003 14:30:26
On Thu, Jan 16, 2003 at 05:57:42PM -0800, Conrad T. Pino wrote:
> 
> Single data points like yours are probably useful to established community
> members but leave newbies like myself wondering how to use the data
> point.
>

What it tells you is that NetBSD SMP works well for some people.
This, at least, gives you hope that you can get something working.
Whether or not it will work well for you is something that you will
probably need to find out yourself by trying it.

Just as another datapoint, I am running SMP on my main machine at
home.  I have had a couple of panics (one while doing a large copy
over the network to another machine, another when I was trying to feed
part /usr/src/sys into Coda), the last panic seemed to be fixed by
updating my kernel sources and booting a new kernel.  I _am_ happy
with the SMP work, it rocks.  But there are lurking bugs there which
would give me pause recommending it for production.  Over time these
bugs are being found and fixed, people running SMP and feeding back
the crashes is the best way to accelerate the process of making NetBSD
SMP production ready.  So, run SMP where it won't hurt you but play
conservative when your arse is on the line :-)

> This is why Brett's comment resonated with me.  I want a STABLE platform to
> run Oracle 8i Linux edition and Tomcat 4 and I don't have the experience
> with NetBSD to make that judgment on my own.
> 

I agree with Thor on this, NetBSD is probably not going to be a good
fit for that application much as it pains me to say so.  Perhaps you
should investigate hardening your base Linux platform so that it is
not so easily hacked.

-- 
Brett Lymn