Phoronix was kind enough to add a deliciously lengthy nine-page compare and contrast between FreeBSD 8 and Ubuntu 9.10 to their arsenal of articles. "Canonical will be releasing Ubuntu 9.10 at the end of next month while the final release of FreeBSD 8.0 is also expected within the next few weeks. With these two popular free software operating systems both having major updates coming out at around the same time, we decided it warranted some early benchmarking as we see how the FreeBSD 8.0 and Ubuntu 9.10 performance compares. For looking more at the FreeBSD performance we also have included test results from FreeBSD 7.2, the current stable release. In this article are mostly the server and workstation oriented benchmarks with the testing being carried out on a dual AMD Opteron quad-core workstation."
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Member since:2006-10-08
Page 1 of the article mentiones: "With FreeBSD 8.0 we were using the AMD64 DVD of the first release candidate using a stock installation."
So what FreeBSD are they using? FreeBSD/AMD64 8.0 RC1. It's the first release candidate. It still contains many debugging information because it's not considered a "ready" release yet.
Furthermore, they are using a "stock installation" which implies that they are using the default GENERIC kernel, as far as it seems. So possible optimization and customization did not take place. You can achieve real improvements by setting your system configuration.
Member since:2009-05-20
Yes you can.
Personally I have deep dissatisfaction with the FreeBSD way of doing certain things, namely buttons here and there; like switching one or two would magically improve anything by a factor.
Ferrari is a Ferrari. You can not make a sport-car by tuning, so to speak.
The other point: while I do not disagree that these "debugging options" would not be useful and a good thing from software engineering perspective, maybe it would be time to turn them off already in the RC phase. I don't know, maybe turn these on prior to the release candidates, but it is nevertheless boring to read the same comment about "massive debugging options" over and over again.
But I won't disagree that those benchmarks that this site keeps pushing are pointless, and done by clueless people. Just like the catalogue-like charts for Windows performance that every consumer hardware review just has to publish.
Member since:
2007-12-16
Testing unstable releases is pointless anyways IMO. Never understood why the guys at Phoronix just can't wait that extra couple of weeks to do a proper performance test.