Subject: Re: NetBSD2.0/sparc not ready for prime time?
To: Johan A.van Zanten <johan@giantfoo.org>
From: Seth Kurtzberg <seth@cql.com>
List: port-sparc64
Date: 02/06/2005 03:19:06
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Adding something I forgot, NetBSD has turned two of my systems into
operational servers without NetBSD. The second machine isn't a sparc
machine, but it still counts.
Johan A.van Zanten wrote:
>Seth Kurtzberg <seth@cql.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>>That is again _not_ to imply that there aren't problems, and that they
>>don't need to be fixed. It is merely to say that you have good people
>>already expending maximum effort, and, in my experience, NetBSD
>>releases, initially, are of much higher quality than other operating
>>systems I've used, including expensive SVR4 releases from Sun or HP.
>>
>>
>
> I want to second this. I began my career as a sysadmin back in
>1991-1992, and the early releases of Solaris were very buggy. I didn't
>put Solaris into production until 1994, and i think that was Solaris 2.4.
>2.0 and 2.1 were just not usable on busy machines -- i know several other
>shops that deployed projects on Alphas instead of Suns (even after they'd
>already bought the Suns), simply because Solaris 2.0 - 2.2 were not stable
>enough. I'm not trying to bash Sun here; it's the same problem. Shipping
>a new version of an OS, especially when it has substantial changes (like
>SMP) is impossible to do without having some bugs, even after months of
>testing with far, far more resources than the NetBSD project has. And the
>painfully irony is that a bug fix is always likely to introduce another
>bug.
>
> I've been happy with 2.0 on sparc (and alpha) so far. My main DNS server,
>KDC and mail relay is now a SPARC-20 (dual 50 Mhz) with about 300 MB of
>RAM. Yesterday, it 55x refused about 35,000 pieces of SPAM, and 45x
>refused another 45,000. (And depressingly, it delivered about 200 pieces
>of mail, some of which were still spam.) It's a busy machine.
>
> The only major problems i've run into on sparc have all been in pkgsrc,
>which is (in my mind) entirely seperate from the OS. I'm not denying that
>there may be problems with 2.0 on sparc. I'm simply saying that what i am
>seeing here on my machines is impressive for a x.0 release with major, new
>functionality in the kernel.
>
> -johan
>
>!DSPAM:42052362150207400181028!
>
>
>
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Adding something I forgot, NetBSD has turned two of my systems into
operational servers without NetBSD. The second machine isn't a sparc
machine, but it still counts.<br>
<br>
Johan A.van Zanten wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid20050205.133304.59464880.johan@giantfoo.org"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Seth Kurtzberg <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:seth@cql.com"><seth@cql.com></a> wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">That is again _not_ to imply that there aren't problems, and that they
don't need to be fixed. It is merely to say that you have good people
already expending maximum effort, and, in my experience, NetBSD
releases, initially, are of much higher quality than other operating
systems I've used, including expensive SVR4 releases from Sun or HP.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->
I want to second this. I began my career as a sysadmin back in
1991-1992, and the early releases of Solaris were very buggy. I didn't
put Solaris into production until 1994, and i think that was Solaris 2.4.
2.0 and 2.1 were just not usable on busy machines -- i know several other
shops that deployed projects on Alphas instead of Suns (even after they'd
already bought the Suns), simply because Solaris 2.0 - 2.2 were not stable
enough. I'm not trying to bash Sun here; it's the same problem. Shipping
a new version of an OS, especially when it has substantial changes (like
SMP) is impossible to do without having some bugs, even after months of
testing with far, far more resources than the NetBSD project has. And the
painfully irony is that a bug fix is always likely to introduce another
bug.
I've been happy with 2.0 on sparc (and alpha) so far. My main DNS server,
KDC and mail relay is now a SPARC-20 (dual 50 Mhz) with about 300 MB of
RAM. Yesterday, it 55x refused about 35,000 pieces of SPAM, and 45x
refused another 45,000. (And depressingly, it delivered about 200 pieces
of mail, some of which were still spam.) It's a busy machine.
The only major problems i've run into on sparc have all been in pkgsrc,
which is (in my mind) entirely seperate from the OS. I'm not denying that
there may be problems with 2.0 on sparc. I'm simply saying that what i am
seeing here on my machines is impressive for a x.0 release with major, new
functionality in the kernel.
-johan
!DSPAM:42052362150207400181028!
</pre>
</blockquote>
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