On Mon, Jan 08, 2001 at 11:22:49PM +1100, Crossfire` wrote:
> > Out of interest (and I'm not trying to start a flame war here), why do you
> > choose to run Linux on the Ultra, rather than Solaris?
>
> Because Solaris earn't its nickname "Slowaris" for a reason. On a
> single processor machine, linux tends to outrun Solaris.
Solaris earnt that nickname about Solaris 2.1, and lost it around 2.4
or 2.5.1. From the tests I've see, Linux will outperform Solaris on
some operations, and Solaris will outperform Linux on others.
> Certainly, Solaris' UFS implementation is slow compared to Linux's
> implementation of ext2. (compare the time it takes to build a zmailer
> hash2 directory on Solaris vs Linux. Linux takes seconds. Solaris
> takes minutes)
Fixed about 3 (4?) years ago, with the introduction of logging in
Solaris 7. Creating 10,000 files, each containing "test" just took me
5.5 seconds on a machine with roughly the same grunt as an Ultra 10
(Single proc E420R). Deleteing them took 4.8 seconds.
I don't have a similar spec linux machine to compare this to, but I'm
guessing it's in the same ballpark.
(There are good reasons for the reason Solaris's UFS is so slow without
logging, but thats another thread for another day on a different list).
Like I said, I'm not trying to start a war, just stating that people
should at least consider using Solaris if they're using modern Sun
hardware - and dispelling a few myths along the way :)
Older hardware if a different story. I installed Redhat on an old IPX
with 32 megs about 6 months ago, and it was definitely faster than Solaris
on it. Upping the memory to 64 megs reduced the speed different, but Linux
was still faster.
Scott.
(Currently running RedHat, Slackware, Solaris, Irix, Win95, WinME, and
XKernel (basically SunOS 4.1.3) on my home machines :)
--
SLUG - Sydney Linux User Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/
More Info: http://slug.org.au/lists/listinfo/slug
