Tuning A FreeBSD Box For High Performance

flynn_nrg writes: "www.daemonnews.org has an interesting article explaining how to fine tune your FreeBSD for maximum performance. In it's default state, a FreeBSD box is tuned for stability and reliability, but more often that not you want to get the most out of you BSD box, specially web servers. Nice article if you ask me."

Comments

BSD - dead ?

[Anonymous Coward]

BSD might be dead but Nietzsche is more dead.

Re:It's too late at this point, *BSD is dying

[Anonymous Coward]

Your calculations of marketshare based on usenet posting are poor reasoning. It doesn't take kreskin to see that you're 16 years old and haven't learned to fake a decent argument.

She can't even post actual FACTS

[Anonymous Coward]

If you look, the poster claims 'in the latest netcraft survey', yet the latest netcraft data shows nothing of the sort.

Such is the way of the BSD FUDer.....repeat the lie over and over, and hope someone believes it.

Re:She can't even post actual FACTS

[Anonymous Coward]

" Such is the way of the BSD FUDer.....repeat the lie over and over, and hope someone believes it."

Actually, the technique is to repeat the troll over and over again, and then laugh because the breathless BSDers can't resist posting. Oh well, at least posting responses to ridiculous trolls keeps you morons from posting poorly reasoned anti-linux rants.

Re:She can't even post actual FACTS

[Anonymous Coward]

I see. You are probably at this very instant becoming aware of the insecurities and IP stack flaws that plague the GNU/Linux platform as a whole. No doubt you fear the overwhelming superiority of the BSDs and must troll to wreak any kind of meager revenge against your betters you can.

Post on, you will only survive a small while longer until you are entirely drowned out by a chorus of converts, condemning the GNU/Linux abortion, praising the wonders of the BSD.

Re:She can't even post actual FACTS

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not the original troller, I was just highly amused that the irrational BSDer types (which your latest post has proven you to be quite well) keep responding to such a simple troll.

You'd think you'd get it after all this time, and ignore him and/or moderate him down, but you seem to be unable to keep yourself from responding.

I can't help but be reminded of the Atari trolls on USENET in the heyday of Amiga Persecution Syndrome.

Re:She can't even post actual FACTS

[Anonymous Coward]

I just read the thread and was amused. You are aware that the pro-BSD guy actually trolled you and you got tricked, right?

new slashcode and BSD is dying?

[wd123]

Maybe in the next release we can ask them to do:
if (message =~ /kreskin/ && message =~ /bsd is dying/) {
drop_message_into_flaming_pit();
}

the world would be a better place.

Re:new slashcode and BSD is dying?

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot doesn't censor posts, thank you very much. The fact remains that *BSD IS dying, and people should know about it before it's too late.

Re:new slashcode and BSD is dying?

[Anonymous Coward]

the fact is that you're wrong, *BSD is alive and well and will overtake linux in popularity in just a year.

Re:new slashcode and BSD is dying?

[Anonymous Coward]

*Overtake Linux in a year*?!?!?!?
Did I read that right?
Damn, you've been hitting the bath-tub gin again, haven't you? You don't have to be kreskin to see that drinking that shit will make you go blind.

Re:new slashcode and BSD is dying?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you misread it. You mistakenly thought I meant overtake it in terms of quality, which is not necessary as it has already done so long ago. I said that it would overtake it in terms of POPULARITY. Which it will.

man 7 tuning

[wd123]

On modern (4.3+) FreeBSD systems, the tuning(7) manpage is chock-full of fascinating information about system tuning. This brief article seems to have gleamed the most important bits out of it and presented them in an executive summary form, however, if you are a real performance-squeaker, I recommend going through all of tuning(7).

In general, section 7 of the manpages is full of interesting reads. You can get a list of available section 7 pages with:
$ apropos 7 | egrep -v '^.+\([12345689]\)'

Read and enjoy!

why not make it speedy as default?

[lyberth]

If people more often than not want a speedy system than a stable one, why not just tune it for speed? or find a nice in between?

Re:why not make it speedy as default?

[Ded Bob]

I believe some of it is on by default now. For example, I think softupdates is on by default as of 4.3.

For the rest, I have /etc/sysctl.conf. Here is mine:

# Configure logging.
kern.logsigexit=0 # Do not log fatal signal exits (e.g. sig 11)

# Kernel performance tweaks.
kern.ipc.maxsockbuf=1048576
kern.ipc.somaxconn=4096
kern.maxfiles=65536

# Network performance tweaks.
net.inet.tcp.recvspace=65536
net.inet.tcp.sendspace=65536

# File system performance tweaks.
vfs.vmiodirenable=1

As a developer, I do not need to be reminded (kern.logsigexit) of all my programs crashing. ;)

Re:why not make it speedy as default?

[No-op]

Well, while having some speed enhancements isn't bad, I like the fact that it's "stable" out of the box. Considering that I use it on large, beefy boxen, I'd prefer stability over mindboggling speed, only because I like things to always work, vs. having spectacular crashes or the like :)

I think it's better off left for individuals to tweak, since the average joe blow doesn't necessarily know how to and thusly won't hurt themselves with a stock system. FreeBSD is mostly a server class OS, and I like it that way; sometimes you sacrifice some speed for stability.

of course if you can get both, then it's best!

Re:why not make it speedy as default?

[Anonymous Coward]

its just in the generic kernel, you still need to turn it on for the FS. The installer lets you do this on install though

Re:It's too late at this point, *BSD is dying

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't want to start a FreeBSD vs Linux battle. I get enough of that from some of the people I know. But I have to admit that after using several Linux distros and using FreeBSD, the choice (for me) was quite clear. That's not to say I didn't like some of the Linux distros I tried. Not at all. I really liked Storm and I fully intend to install either Debian or Slackware on an IBM I have sitting in the corner. But when it came time to choose a system of the many I tried to run my web-server off of, I had to settle on FreeBSD.

At first I was a little wery about going with something slightly less mainstream than Linux, but good Linux binary compatibility (not to mention the Ports Collection) was a plus that won me over to FreeBSD.

With FreeBSD the first few days were really rough because there were several major annoyances I had, and none of my Linux friends had any useful insight. But I quickly solved most of my problems on my own. I feel I have learned much more this way. Plus, when I needed quick answers, web-searches almost always provided immediate and exact answers because there is only one FreeBSD and many other users have experienced the exact same problems.

It's something of a shame that Storm went the way of the wind, but after I made my choice to run FreeBSD it hasn't mattered too much. As for my soon-to-be Linux system, that just shows that I'm not knocking Linux at all (how could I?) it's just that I made the choice based on my needs and what I like. I personally don't feel I was moving forward fast enough with any of the Linux distros, but I felt comfortable with FreeBSD very quickly.

anti freebsd posts up 75% on slashdot

[JDizzy]

Yup....

As a person who's first love was Linux, I feel qualified to commment on the reasons to migrate away from Linux. I started with Slackware in 97 from a cd in the back of my html book, basically a cheap way to get apache running without having to own an expensive risc machine. Anyways, I've toiled with linux thru the early hacker/academic days, thru the hype-days from 98 to 99, and still every-now-and-then install it for a friend in need. I've probably install Redhat over 100+ times at the Linux Users Group here in Dallas, and have installed Slackware upwards of 50+ times, Deb/suse/others upwards of 20+ each. Inversly, I've probably installed FreeBSD only a few times since I toned-down my OS-install fever. It gets old, really fast installing linux for the install project. Anyways.... as a seasoned Finux vet, I think that FreeBSD is better in many ways, except the userbase, and application base. There are more Finux users, and more Finux developers by several orders of magnitude compared to all the BSD distro's combined.

What I have noticed from this large group of Finux users is the fact that they are overtly insecure about their feelings of "elite-ness". In other words they tend to feel threatened by people who donn't join their band-wagon.... of finux evangelism. In fact, such a large majority of Finux userrs started using Finux simply because they percieve that Microsoft is a Monopoly, and or in some way they have negative feelings about microsoft. Other time sI find that they had feelings of inadiqatcies in their microsoft envrironment, and seeked an area where they are different.... again thsi goes back into the elitism aspect, and the need thereof to be elite, and/or different. In this wway they can justify putting Microsoft users down, by advertising that they are now Finux users.

The above being said, leads this very specific class of Finux users feelings insecure when they hear about an even more elite group of people, a smaller comunity, of more-often ex-finux users..... using something called BSD. The typical reactio is that they are not with us, therefor against us... type reaction... and the hostility, and missunderstandings ensue.

Most anti-BSD rehtoric posted on Slashdot is from the narrow minded Group of finux users taht simply feel threatened by something they simply don't understand. My Favorite argument to shootdown first is the hords of Finux folks, and windows folks that say Unix is 20 years old! Ha... 20 years ago unix was entirly different, and FreeBSD, compared to some old Unix systems of the 80's is like HUGE in all the different ways. Most of the time people have read this in some website, from an un-educated reporter. In reality, unix has had many huge changes over the years, as have os design and implementation over the years.... a direct result of CS students striving to push the limits. The word micro-kernel comes to mind, yes.. we now have modulare kernels too.... oh my... and don't forget about ever popular virtual memory idea... geeze... Unix sure is darn different that it was 20 years ago.

The fact is, and I can do a google search I find the Linus quote of how he would nto have ever created the Linux kernel if he had know about the Berkly System Dist. He was only aware of the Car-mellon like Minux system. Yup, he has said it, and you can find the quote on google, and past /. articles. Anyways.....

I find taht most of the FreeBSD folsk are people tired of all the Linux hype.... I mean... we have tried all the distro's, played with all the various package systems, recompiled the finux kernel a time or two... doen some programming, etc, etc, etc..... Then, its liek FreeBSd is sitting right there, simple, eligant, beutiful. The first thing that most linux converts claim got them is the FreeBSD ports system. Really it is such a simple idea that we are suprised it hasn't caught on in the Finux world originally. Basically you have a cvs tree of all the software taht has been ported to the FreeBSD OS. To get updated versions of software, it is simple to just cvsup the entire ports collections, and then travel to the the software you want...say apache, and run "make install". Simpel as that... the latest, greated Apache with all the freebsd patches, and optimisatiosn are applied. No toiling with rpms, and the dreaded hunt for dependencies. The porsts systems checks for dependencies, downloading the latest version of Gmake if needed, or whatnot.

Other nice fetures about FreeBSD, and the other bsd's is taht the stability is paramount... a recent comparison of Unixes on sys admin magazine ranked FreeBSD the lowest of "out-of-the-box" installs for performance. Thsi is nto suprising since FreeBSD is build for stability (out-of the box), and many Finux distro's are optimised at the time of burnign the distro to CDROm, is highly optimised, and unstable.... so little tweaks are needed out of the box to make the system unstable... in other worlds the Finux systsm typically are more prone to instability under heavy loads that freeBSD. I won't bore you with teh technical details, as the lay-man won't get the jist of what I'm sayigng.

That being said... I'd advise the person who wrote the high-performance tuning guide, linked inthe article, to tone down a bit his kernel conf. It appeas to lean on the unstable side, especially with the extreamly high buffs lines under the useers line in the kern conf. oh well... it will push things to the extream limit.

Re:anti freebsd posts up 75% on slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm waiting on decent SMP and multithreaded TCP/IP, but hey, 5.0 might deliver!

Re:anti freebsd posts up 75% on slashdot

[Arandir]

Hmmm, I started Freenix (my name for any free Unix-like implementation) with Slackware-96, so I've got you beat by one year :-)

But I learned computing on 4.1BSD UNIX. Using FreeBSD is like coming back home. It's simple, elegant but still complete and packed to the brim with everything you could possibly want.

p.s. Linus did now about 386BSD, and was interested in it (like most hackers a decade ago). Unfortunately that was during the time of the AT&T lawsuit, which was why Linus stayed away. No one new if it was going to be around the following week. Timing is everything in this business.

Re:anti freebsd posts up 75% on slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

actually, the smp is fairly good already (getting better in 5.0) and the IP stack was multithreaded before linux. learn some stuff before you post.

Re:anti freebsd posts up 75% on slashdot

[duffbeer703]

You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict the future of *BSD-is-dead posts. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD-is-dead posts face a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD-is-dead posts because *BSD-is-dead posts are dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD-is-dead posts. As many of us are already aware, *BSD-is-dead posts continues to lose posting share. Red ink flows like a river of blood. FreeBSD-is-dead is the most endangered of them all.

Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

*BSD-is-dead leader Anonymous Coward states that there are 50 posters of HotGritsDownMyPants. How many posters of PortmanPetrifiedAndNaked are there? Let's see. The number of HotGritsDownMyPants posts versus PortmanPetrifiedAndNaked posts on Slashdork is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 50/5 = 10 PortmanPetrifiedAndNaked posts. A recent article put *BSD-is-dead at about 80 percent of the troll market. Therefore there are (50+10)*4 = 240 *BSD-is-dead-posters. This is consistent with the number of *BSD-is-dead posts.

All major surveys show that *BSD-is-dead posts have steadily declined in market share. *BSD-is-dead posters are very sick and their long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD-is-dead posters are to survive at all it will be by remaining the anonymous cowards that they are. *BSD-is-dead posters continue to decay. Their teeth are falling out. They fail to bathe. Nothing short of a miracle could get them laid at this point in time. They do not contribute to the gene pool. For all practical purposes, *BSD-is-dead posters are dead.

Re:anti freebsd posts up 75% on slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

A book written for newbies on how to install FreeBSD makes no sense because the policy of FreeBSD's developers is not to cater to newbies. Linux and FreeBSD are targetted towards different segments of users, why can't we just accept that? Take a look at a typical posting from a Linux user on the freebsd-newbies list. We're talking two different worlds here.
I am relatively young to the scene myself, but let's take a walk down memory lane say six years ago. Back in those days the Linux Howto's, especially the Installation Howto, were essentially Slackware Howto's. (The book I used to figure out how to install Linux was essentially the Howto's printed out.) My PC's BIOS from that era did not support booting from an ATAPI CD Rom drive. Hard drives were much smaller but the EIDE ones were coming up against a succession of limits, limits in where a kernel could be located and still be seen by a bootloader. For Linux there was a well-defined path introducing newbies: you installed and created a custom bootdisk. Linux installation instructions also told how to edit the kernel for the bootdisk floppy to change the root partition location.

From my newbie perspective, this was installation Nirvana! I didn't have to worry about LILO if I didn't want to. From the perspective of other people sharing the PC I used, other than taking up hard drive space, they didn't have to know Linux existed. And Linux could be installed in an extended partition not just a primary partition. Keep in mind that hard drives were a lot smaller then, so for dual-boot setups it was nice to be able to dedicate some more room for the Windows C: drive. And not only that but since everyone did the custom bootdisk compiling as a rite of passage, people could compile bootdisks to help others if the default floppy didn't have the right drivers.

Now from what I have read of the FreeBSD community's thoughts, they couldn't care less about such concerns. The ISP I used back then was hosted on a collection of FreeBSD boxes, abandoning a more monolothic solution with an SGI server, because the ISP's lead technical person knew how to do it. FreeBSD is more like an industrial consortium as far as the core developers go, and at least at that time there was a huge emphasis on stuff related to running ISPs. From their perspective it was laughable to devote much effort to support the most unreliable medium of all, a floppy, for custom booting a machine. And someone like an ISP wouldn't be using EIDE, they'd be using SCSI. 528MB limit, "get some real hardware, kid" I'd imagine they'd think. And they'd have their internal network and their own procedures for mass replicating setups to many machines.

Six years later I think we can see everyone got what they wanted. The Linux community developed critical mass and got wildly popular with newbies. The FreeBSD community was left alone by the newbies they didn't want to deal with.

Re:anti freebsd posts up 75% on slashdot

[JDizzy]

I would agree with most these comments. :)

Linux has more advertisment to the "new-to-unix" crowd.

Linux also has more anti-windows type folks of any other group, having displaced Macintosh users in this area by a country mile.

I belive that most BSD folks neither hate windows, nor any other Unix..... FOr the most part they just love Unix. Another issues is the BSD community is very much a clique, most noticable in the OpenBSD group's out-spoken leader: Theo.

On a side note.... if anyone wants to Tunes their Freebsd box, I'd advise looking at the man pages for this, or the FreeBSd handbook, as opposed to the link mentioned in this article.

Re:anti freebsd posts up 75% on slashdot

[JDizzy]

Me too....... the smp support needs some work beforte it can scale from 32 to 127 processors, and yes... the 5.0 branch is going to deliver on this... at least that is the rumor. The new 2.4 Finux kernel did a nice job of cleaning the ip-stack. Poor Donald B*, his code is all gone. :(, at least for the most part.

Re:anti freebsd posts up 75% on slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

I just want a FreeBSD kernel that can scale to 2 CPUs reasonably. 5.0 is looking good there. As for 5.0 scaling to 32 CPUs, much less 127, you're smoking crack.

Re:anti freebsd posts up 75% on slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

SMP in 4.x is one big ass lock, meaning only one process can be in the kernel at a time. Unless you have two tasks which are 100% compute bound, this pretty much wastes your second CPU.

Its similar to Linux 2.0's SMP support. 5.0 will help a lot here.

Linux's TCP/IP stack became "multithreaded" (misnomer, you really mean fine-grain-locked) in the 2.3 development series about two years ago. FreeBSD's is still not today.

Check your facts next time before posting.

Re:anti freebsd posts up 75% on slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, BSD's IP stack is multithreaded.
Moron.

Re:anti freebsd posts up 75% on slashdot

[JDizzy]

Don't be so crude...

2 processors seem to work well for me right now.... I guess that crack is getting too me. :)

FreeBSD already scales well on an 8-way box... but I wouldn't trust it beyond eight, even though it is possible to go beyond. The little birds tell me 5.0 will go beyond 32 proc's to a limit of 127.

Have you tried the cvs-current??

BTW - for those who are interested, we are about to release the next version of FreeBSD within a week or so if everything goes as plannned. 4.4-Release

The 5.0 branch should follow in another 4 monthhs.

Re:anti freebsd posts up 75% on slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

My introduction to Linux was Slackware 2.2.0 with kernel 1.2.1 -- So I have you beat by a year. I didn't learn computing on 4.1BSD though, so you are still cooler than me.

I am using Slackware 7.1 now, and NetBSD when I want to have a taste of good old '95 again...

Speedy depend on machine and application

[Anonymous Coward]

What is speedy on a low end box is not using the hardware on a beffy box. What works well on a box with lots of RAM and modern fast CPU probably would'nt boot on a 386 with 8MB.

An optimization that works on 95% of the hardware out there can mean that it isw impossible to install the system on the remaining 5%.

The demands on the system is very different if you want to run a shellbox, a database server, news, mail or http server or a firewall. So how should the install program know what you want to do with your new machine?

The power of UNIX is that it does not believe in one-size-fits-all but instead lets the sysadmin tune the system so it is optimal for every situation.

NO FAGGET! Linux is DYING!

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux faces a bleak future. In fact there may be no future at all for Linux because Linux is dying. Things are looking very bad for Linux. As many of us are already aware, Linux continues to lose market share; red ink flows like a river of blood. Slackware Linux is perhaps the most in endangered. Let's look at the numbers.
MandrakeSoft's CEO Henri Poole states that there are 70000 users of Linux-Mandrake. How many users of Debian GNU/Linux are there? Let's see. The number of Linux-Mandrake versus GNU/Linux posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. The refore there are about 70000/5 = 14000 GNU/Linux users. Slackware posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of GNU/Linux posts. Therefore there are about 7000 users of Slackware. A recent article put RedHat Linux at about 80 percent of the Linux market. Therefore there are (70000+14000+7000)*4 = 364000 RedHat Linux users. This is consistent with the number of RedHat Linux Usenet posts.

Now Linux companies are consolidating, overhauling their business plans, laying off staff, scaling back expansion plans and pushing back profitability schedules. "It would seem there are too many distributions for the market to bear," said Gartner analyst Tom Henkel. (http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,269 5638,00.html)

Red Hat, Inc., the leader in developing deploying and managing open source linux solutions, announced on a reported basis, a net loss of $24.2 million. (http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2001-0 3-22-010-20-PS)

Turbolinux, based in Brisbane, Calif., a Linux-based software provider has withdrawn a $60 million initial public offering "in light of current market conditions." (http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/010320/n20215287_2.html) (http://cnnfn.cnn.com/2001/03/20/deals/ipo/)

Clayton-based Linuxgruven.com, a Linux training and service company with 106 employees, laid off 100 employees (http://stlouis.bcentral.com/stlouis/stories/2001/ 03/05/daily41.html)

Lineo withdrew its initial public offering in January. Caldera Systems delayed the acquisition of Santa Cruz Operations' Unix software by a quarter. Linuxcare laid off dozens in February, with Linuxcare co-founders Dave Sifry and Dave LaDuke are among those departing. VA Linux Systems cut 114 people in February and delayed its expected profitability by nine months. (http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,269 5638,00.html)

Due to the troubles of Corel, abysmal sales and so on, Corel Linux is going out of business and was nearly taken over by Microsoft who sell another troubled OS. Owing to the GPL, SuSE is laying off almost all of its US staff. Major marketing surveys show that Linux has steadily declined in market share. Even LinuxWorld.com shut down "because of the economy and everything else" (http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=01/03/13/ 1720254&mode=nocomment)

Linux is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If Linux is to survive at all it will be among OS hobbyists (i.e. those who dabble with Minix, Xinu, etc). Linux continues to falter. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, Linux is dead.

*BSD is not dying

[duffbeer703]

BSD is NOT dying!

Mr. Praline : 'Ello. I wish to register a complaint.

(The owner has his back to the register and does not respond.)

Mr. Praline : 'Ello, Miss?

Owner : (turning around, very angry) What do you mean, "miss"?

Mr. Praline : I'm sorry, I have a cold.

(The owner nods, understanding.)

Mr. Praline : I wish to make a complaint!

Owner : (hurriedly) Sorry, we're closin' for lunch...!

Mr. Praline : Never mind that, my lad. I wish to complain about this OS, what I purchased not half an hour ago from this very boutique.

Owner : Oh yes, the, ah, the FreeBSD... What's, ah... W-what's wrong with it?

Mr. Praline : I'll tell you what's wrong with it, my lad. It's dead, that's what's wrong with it.

Owner : No, no, 'e's ah... he's resting.

Mr. Praline : Look, matey, I know a dead OS when I see one, and I'm looking at one right now.

Owner : No no, h-he's not dead, he's, he's restin'!

Mr. Praline : Restin'?

Owner : Y-yeah, restin.' Remarkable OS, the FreeBSD, isn't it, eh? Beautiful command line!

Mr. Praline : The command line don't enter into it. It's stone dead!

Owner : Nononono, no, no! 'E's resting!

Mr. Praline : All right then, if he's resting, I'll wake him up!

(shouting at the system tower)

'Ello, Demon! Mister Demon OS! I've got a lovely fresh OC-3 for you if you wake up, Mr. Demon OS...

(owner hits the monitor)

Owner : There, he moved!

Mr. Praline : No, he didn't, that was you pushing the monitor!

Owner : I never!!

Mr. Praline : Yes, you did!

Owner : I never, never....

(He pulls the hard disk out of the box and screams into it.)

Mr. Praline : 'ELLO DEEEEEEMMMOOONN BEEE-ESSSSS-DEEEEE! DEMON OS! WAKE UP!

(He bangs the disk against the store counter, horribly hard.)

TESTIIIING! TESTIIIING! THIS IS YOUR NINE-O' CLOCK ALARM CALL!

(He does it again, harder.)

BEEE-ESSSSS-DEEEEE!

(He tosses it up in the air and watches it plummet to the floor. Longish pause.)

Now that's what I call a dead OS.

Owner : No, no.... No, he's stunned.

Mr. Praline : STUNNED?

Owner : Yeah! You stunned him, just as he was wakin' up! FreeBSDs stun easily, major.

Mr. Praline : Look my lad, I've had just about enough of this. That OS is definitely deceased, and when I bought it not half an hour ago, you assured me that its total lack of market share was due to it being tired and shagged out after a long download.

Owner : Well, he's... he's, ah... probably pining for the fjords.

(Praline looks angrily back and forth, stuttering.)

Mr. Praline : PININ' for the FJORDS? What kind of talk is that? Look, why did he fall flat on his back the moment I got 'im home?

Owner : The FreeBSD prefers kippin' on its back! Remarkable OS, isn't it, guv, eh? Lovely command line!

Mr. Praline : (coldly) Look, I took the liberty of examining that OS when I got it home, and I discovered the only reason that it had been sitting on the hard disk in the first place was that it had been WRITE PROTECTED there.

(pause)

Owner : Well, of course it was write protected there! If I hadn't write protected that OS down, it would have nuzzled up to the ethernet card, hacked its way out with its little trident, and VOOM!

Mr. Praline : "VOOM?"

(Praline puts the system down and take the hard disk into his hands.)

Mr. Praline : Look matey, this OS wouldn't "voom" if you put four thousand volts through it! It's bleedin' demised!

Owner : It's not! I-It's pining!

Mr. Praline : It's not pinin,' it's passed on! This OS is no more! It has ceased to be! It's expired and gone to meet its maker! This is a late OS! It's a stiff! Bereft of life, it rests in peace! If you hadn't write protected him to the disk he would be pushing up the daisies! Its active processes are of interest only to historians! It's hopped the twig! It's shuffled off this mortal coil! It's run down the curtain and joined the choir invisible! This.... is an EX-OS!

(pause)

Owner : Well, I'd better replace it, then.

-------------

Sorry folks. Couldn't resist! ;)