Subject: Re: NetBSD momentum
To: Hubert Feyrer <hubert@feyrer.de>
From: Andy Ruhl <acruhl@gmail.com>
List: netbsd-advocacy
Date: 12/20/2004 11:10:40
On Mon, 20 Dec 2004 18:46:45 +0100 (CET), Hubert Feyrer
<hubert@feyrer.de> wrote:
> On Mon, 20 Dec 2004, Bruno wrote:
> > Benchmarks presented on visible sites. FreeBSD had bad luck with this release
> > and Dragonfly is not mature yet. It's the perfect time to present NetBSD as
> > an alternative in the "BSD with performance" field. Eventually FreeBSD will
> > recover it's status but meanwhile NetBSD got known as a valid competitor in
> > the server field, not only for it's embedded/exotic/old platform support.
> 
> OK, can you run benchmarks on these sites?
> The FeFe benchmarks are a bit dates, but may be a possible starting point.
> Let us know when you have some numbers/pictures!

This was a popular issue on the mailing list a few months ago or so.
I'm sure we can find it. There were a few performance problems with
NetBSD which apparently were diagnosed and fixed by NetBSD developers
to address this particular test.

I still don't know... It might be worth notice that NetBSD is, and
always has been, a viable option to FreeBSD on i386 and probably the
other platforms that FreeBSD is supporting now.

I was going to make a list of the nice things about FreeBSD that are
the reason I still use it, but I won't for now. There are also
advantages to NetBSD of course, namely the ease at which upgrades can
take place.

I'm guessing most FreeBSD people have fiddled with NetBSD at some
point, and these same people are going to know that NetBSD just put
out a major release that seems to be doing well, and that it's a
viable platform. I honestly don't think there are that many FreeBSD
people who don't know that NetBSD is a good operating system.

It might be useful to point out reasons why NetBSD is able to stand on
more equal ground with FreeBSD though. It sure would be nice if sushi
was a little more advanced and incorporated some aspects of FreeBSD's
sysinstall...

Andy