Re: [SQL] linux vs freebsd as postgres server

Clayton Cottingham writes:
> a while back
>
> tom lane, i think ,
> mentioned something about
> freebsd being the best in terms of file system performance
>
> based on the fact linux 's ext2 has some sort of paging /memory handling
> issues?
>
> i was wondering if anyone has any numbers on this sort of thing?

FreeBSD has always supported files larger than 2G. Last I saw with
Linux it was still a matter of "pick your favorite patch set, each has
its strengths and weaknesses." I used to deal with a lot of files
larger than 2G.

> and what about scsi/eide/raid?

If performance (other than $/GB) is an issue, xIDE is eliminated. Altho
FreeBSD does handle IDE HD's, and UDMA IDE. And offers at least two
ways to combine multiple drives into a larger filesystem. RAID5 was
recently added to the CVS archive (not sure if it made its way into
this week's FreeBSD 3.3 release.)

FreeBSD's Adaptec driver is probably the premier example of what
Adaptec's hardware can do. Last I heard FreeBSD's Adaptec driver is
ported to Linux and is the default Adaptec driver in most (or all?)
Linux distributions. This may be diverging as FreeBSD has changed its
storage device paradigm to CAM, and the FreeBSD SCSI drivers were the
first to be changed/re-written.

The FreeBSD NCR/Symbios SCSI driver appears to be developed elsewhere
(Linux? NetBSD? OpenBSD) and ported back into FreeBSD.

I have found FreeBSD to be a superior alternative to Linux. FreeBSD
lacks the hype and political agenda of Linux. FreeBSD is slower to
support every oddball Windows gee-gaw than Linux. FreeBSD's "ports"
system is simple, elegant, works, and is stable, unlike RPM.

Having a mirror of the FreeBSD CVS archive has been quite useful too. It
makes monitoring the changes to FreeBSD (including ports and
documentation) possible.

The specific question was about PostgreSQL under FreeBSD. I've never
stressed PostgreSQL under FreeBSD so I can't specifically answer that
question. But I have stressed FreeBSD in other ways where it held its
head up high with Sun and SGI machines, and Linux didn't. YMMV.

Speaking of ports, in my previous employment, I found FreeBSD's
/usr/ports/ collection of 2000+ utilities to be the best source to
search for utilities and applications for the Sun and SGI systems. I
could find something that looks useful, painlessly download and try it,
and if it passed muster I already had the source code to move to the
other systems. And already had a working version under FreeBSD to
compare the ported Sun and SGI versions. This is where I discovered
PostgreSQL.

--
David Kelly N4HHE, dkelly(at)nospam(dot)hiwaay(dot)net
=====================================================================
The human mind ordinarily operates at only ten percent of its
capacity -- the rest is overhead for the operating system.