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Intel using FreeBSD
From Wes Peters, via DaemonNews.
Intel's InBusiness
Storage Station is a network file server in-a-box. Intel, despite their investment in Linux companies, is using FreeBSD as their OS of choice, as they are now stating. Of
particular interest is their Mean Time Between Failure, 77,244 hours, or a
shade under 9 years. That's probably a little on the low side, but quite
respectable nonetheless.
I find it hard to believe that they have some 286en sitting around running commodity hard drives, and that they haven't had the cord kicked, or a drive fail, or a fan overheat in nine years.
Don't get me wrong; I use FreeBSD at home, and I love it. I just think this might be a bit exaggerated.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
MTBF does not mean how long can it go for without crashing - it means that in a population of 77,244
one will fail every hour.
Linux and BSD will both continue to have their place in the time to come; it is NOT, in my opinion, constructive to highlight the use of one OS over the other as an issue.
The only thing that interests me in that story is the fact that they chose a FREE OS over a commercial one.
This should be told as yet another solid victory for Open Source!
Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
A year has approximately 9000 hours in it
To get mean uptimes of ~77,000, simply run, for example, 9 computers for a year. One should crash once.
There are a lot more than 9 computers in the world running -BSD, so you could take a sample on the number of computers running -BSD, and the number of times those computers had to reboot in, say a month. In 31 days, there are 744 hours. To get a total uptime of ~77,000 hours, simply run 1000 computers all month.
Given, you'd need more than just this to get an average mean uptime, but you get the idea.
Of course, I could be wrong.
BitPoet
FreeBSD is an exceptionally stable server platform. It generally demands a lot more from the admin than Linux, but in the hands of a competent admin it's solid as a rock. I'm not surprised they're using it. Also worth nothing that the BSD license allows them to take it proprietary, whereas with Linux it would have to stay opensource.
I'd like to see more integration between the FreeBSD and Linux developers. FreeBSD has a purity and focus not found in Linux; whereas Linux has much better documentation and support, and as a result is much easier to use.
It's important to make sure the Unix market doesn't get fragmented. Linux and *BSD developers should co-operate to ensure that they implement common features in a standard way. For example, the high grade NFS stuff (caching, etc.) should be compatible between Linux and *BSD so that you can run a Linux client with a BSD server, or the other way around.
Competition between the different free Unixes is good, so long as it doesn't give MSFT or someone else a wedge to drive between the communities. When two Unixes become incompatible, each loses access to all the developers in the other camp.
Intel, despite their investment in Linux companies, is using FreeBSD as their OS of choice, as they are now stating.
They do not have an "OS of choice". Intel wants is OS agnostic. They don't care which OS you run, as long as it runs on Intel hardware. Intel probably used FreeBSD for this "file server applicance" because of the BSD license, which is favorable to companies that would like to borrow BSD code for closed, commercial products.
their Mean Time Between Failure, 77,244 hours, or a shade under 9 years.
When Intel quotes a MTBF of 9 years, they are talking about the hardware, most likely the hard disks. They are not talking about FreeBSD.
cpeterso
/me picks up dead horse
/me beats hose
Why would INTEL choose FreeBSD when Linux has all of the (deserved or not) hype, momentum, and business interest?
To answer that question, get a room full of lawyers for computer company legal departments together and have them read the GPL.
.. ask them if they'd like their company's product to be involved with the GPL license.
I understand the GPL. You understand the GPL. Maybe 95+% of slashdot readers understand the GPL, but do you think that corporate lawyers for tech companies who make their money from intellectual property protection are eager to get involved with anything that might require disclosure of their intellectual property?
I'm betting that many companies have official policies (enforced or not) against opensource software due in part to fear of the GPL.
so... the decision comes down to linux+gpl_potential_legal_worries or *BSD+100%_FREE_No_strings_attached .
And the legal department chooses which one??
__
Despite how we try to ignore them, facts take their toll.
Nice idea, but before we get "integration" across the Freenix world, shouldn't we please get a bit of integration across *Linux first? Right now, there's a whole long ways to go.
If that's true then:
A list of things likely to fail before FreeBSD
The strange thing is that I bet any 9 year old computers running FreeBSD have Y2K BIOS issues and will fail in what now, less than 2 weeks?
Good thing most of us won't be around to see it, as the Korean, Indian and Pakistani nukes simultaneously launch at 12:00:00 on Jan 1st and wipe us out, turning the survivors into horrible mutant-zombies.
Completely off-topic but (and maybe this would make a good Ask Slashdot) does anybody have any good suggestions for post-apocalyptic type movies to watch over the next couple of weeks? How about video games? For that one I know only of the "Fallout" series.
To find out what Mean Time Between Failure really means, try this Adaptec Whitepaper for an informative look as to how an MTBF can be calculated.
Joseph Elwell.
MTBF is indeed misleading because one of the
factors that goes into it is "design life".
For example, if you have a hard drive with
a MTBF of 150,000 hrs (== 17yrs) that does
not mean that it will fail in 17 years, or
that 150,000 of them would produce one failiure
every hour.
It means that if you replace each drive before
the end of it's design life (5yrs) you will
have a failiure on average every 150,000 hrs.
If you use a device beyond it's design life it
will almost certainly fail.
Having spent 3 days in NYC answering questions...
.1 micron widths, (18 atoms wide!) you have faster migration of the chip chemistry out of where you want, to where you don't want. Even with old TTL, the projected life is 50 years. The newer chips will have less life. (I don't remember the projected life of the newest .18 micron chips)
"Can BSD run this or that?"
The BSDs have support for GNU/Linux binaries. If the program doesn't require a special version of GNU/Linux, or exists as source, it can be made to run on BSD. FreeBSD has some 2,500 different applications. Goto ftp.freebsd.org and look in the packages/INDEX or ports/INDEX and see if your favorite app is listed. If not, port it! (If its hard to port, as the authors to write portable UNIX code, not code for Linux boxes. A foot to the groin, or sticks to the head may help the developers realize that OpenSource is about more than Linux)
"Does BSD preform better than Linux?"
BSD can run Linux binaries. Various studies done via various methods show BSD having a 20% better preformance under high load. If you arn't using your machine alot, you won't notice a difference. If you really care, benchmark it and pick what works for you. Most people have spare CPU cycles, so speed ratings are rather silly.
"Why should I use BSD over Linux?"
If you are in the business of producing software, or producing embedded 'things' (set-top boxes, routers, cameras, controllers, etc la) the BSD licence is simple and easy to understand. The GPL is written to help foster the goal of source code release. If you have no desire to release your code, a BSD licenced base does not have the GPL source code release issues. As a user, BSD can run BSD *AND* Linux shrink-wrapped binaries, whereas Linux can not run BSD. Therefore BSD has a wider base of possible software that can run on it.
As for a 100 year up-time..
As your tempature rises (every 10 degrees increases the reaction rate 2x times), and we approach
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
At the N(BSD BOF)YC (thats BSD birds of a feather at the bazaar in NYC) GNOME was singled out as an example of code that is written with Linux in mind, and not code portability. GNOME is (alledgedly, *I* don't know personally) riddled with Linux-specific assumptions. Even though the code SHOULD be able to work on any X/Unix box, the authors have chosen to make moving the code off of Linux painful.
Add to this, people who push GNU/Linux say LINUX when they should be saying OpenSource or OpenSource OSes only help fuel the belief there is a rift, as opposed to the offending party being just clueless/un-educated. Cluelessness/lack of education is cureable, OS zelotry is not cureable with modern medical technology. This story on Linuxtoday shows a reporter corrected in a case of using the term Linux when the term OpenSource was a better fit.
It boils down to, do you want a rising tide to float ALL boats, or are you only giving a damn about your linux or BSD digny?
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
What software can you run on linux but not freebsd?
I bet you you can't name 5 programs very fast, unless you have been training for this.
Between the compatiblity and just being able to compile it natively, I don't think that is an issue.
I'm using linux-netscape, linux-realplayer, and even a _linux X server_ (XFCom_Rage128)
VMWare works now too.
As for device compatiblity, that is more of a rumor that is becoming less and less true every day. What kind of support for USB does Linux have?
(snippet from LINT, the list of kernel options)
# General USB code (mandatory for USB)
controller usb0
#
# Generic USB device driver
device ugen0
# Human Interface Device (anything with buttons and dials)
device uhid0
# USB keyboard
device ukbd0
# USB printer
device ulpt0
# USB Iomega Zip 100 Drive
controller umass0
# USB mouse
device ums0
That's a good amount of support.. and most of it has been there for awhile.
Even MCA is supported in -CURRENT now, and I don't know anyone who uses MCA equipment still. (Well, I lie, I know one)
-bugg
Also worth nothing that the BSD license allows them to take it proprietary, whereas with Linux it would have to stay opensource.
Since this is in fact a proprietary product it is obvious why BSD was selected. It was all about the license.
Personally I don't like the idea of a company taking code I write, and then selling it without me getting a piece of the action.
By the way, does anyone have mirror of the article? Daemon News is slashdotted.
Congratulations, your OS got endorsed by Intel's OEM. They'll go on to make lots of cash without thanking you or giving anything back to FreeBSD. Meanwhile, Intel will go on supporting Linux.
Is this really good news? Or is it an argument in favour of the GPL?
Ya know how FreeBSD pages most idle processes out of real core and in to swap? Does OpenBSD do this also? This really makes a big diffrence on older PCs with small amounts of ram.
I have to return some videotapes...
Take Redhat/Linux, for example (please :-). Most of what Redhat ships is undocumented, and that which exists is severely underpowered compared with BSD.
For example, let's suppose you'd like to learn about the interface to the system's terminal drivers. That's in tty(4).
That's a huge difference. As you can plainly see, the amount of info on just one device in BSD is much better than on Linux. And if you look at the overall device coverage, the same theme carries through.And that's just part of it. Here's a bug list on Redhat docs that I've submitted, along with programs to automatically detect these problems. You should really read those over to start to get a feel for how bad it is.
I'd like to make clear that redhat has done a very great job at fielding these bugs and trying to do something about them. I am completely happy with their customer service. I'm not trying to knock that.
Some of the tools I used for this are:
- cfman - make sure manpages have accurate SEE ALSOs
- no3man - identify which library calls aren't mannable
- noman - identify which commands are installed without manpages
- scatman - find turds in mantrees
So not only is the documentation exceptionally scarce in Linux, it's very, very buggy. You wouldn't believe how nasty the situation truly is. Run those on your own systems and you'll see what I mean. And yes, I checked this on Debian/Linux and SuSE/Linux as well as Redhat/Linux. It was all nasty. I also checked on OpenBSD, FreeBSD, and Solaris. You'll see that there's a world of difference here. Find yourself a Redhat system and an OpenBSD system, for example, and start poking around. You'll see.My point of view is that it isn't fair to the user of your system for you to ever include something that isn't documented. When I have been part of releases, either the old Unix releases from years ago or even the new Perl releases today, the rule was simple: if it isn't documented, it isn't shipped. No excuses.
I strongly believe that the Linuces should do the same. Let no program or library be shipped which is undocumented. It's the very least a systems integrator can do. That's just part of what we mean when we say that BSD distributions are more "solid" than Linux distributions. The commercial Unices and the free BSDs take this kind of thing seriously. The Linuces, so far, do not. I have hope that this will change, and Redhat has a truly positive attitude about all this, but right now, you just can't compare them.
...to manage the FreeBSD systems used by Hotmail (who were, I suspect, using FreeBSD and Solaris before being bought by Microsoft).
...on a machine that, according to some posts here, comes from another company.
Neither of those are sufficient evidence (except to the excessively suggestible) that this is in any way part of some Grand Plan by Microsoft and Intel to implement a future version of Windows atop FreeBSD (Windows NT, at least, *already* contains "BSD technology" - the FTP client is based on the BSD one - although I've seen no supporting evidence for the claim that NT's Internet protocol stack is based on the BSD one).
The implication seems to be that FreeBSD, out of the box, isn't "optimized specifically for file serving"; neither are, as far as I know, Linux, Solaris, HP-UX, Digital UNIX, Windows NT, .... This doesn't ipso facto mean that their performance is "not very good(!!)", it just means that they're at least intended to be reasonably good, out of the box, at a variety of functions, even if this might be at the expense of performance for any particular application.
The NFS stuff should be written as implementations of the NFS v2 and v3 protocols, so that you can run an XXX client with a YYY server, or the other way around. If the Linux server can't work with non-Linux clients, or the Linux client can't work with non-Linux servers, or a BSD server can't work with clients not running that BSD, or a BSD client can't work with servers not running that BSD, that's a bug, and should be fixed. Some day, that client or server may find itself talking to Solaris, or HP-UX, or IRIX, or Digital UNIX, or AIX, or....
If there is some interoperatiblity problem with Linux and other systems, or some BSD and other systems, please let the developers know, so that they can fix it. (Is there, in fact, some interoperability problem to which you're alluding? Or, by the "caching, etc." stuff, are you referring to protocols such as NQNFS, which, as the name suggests, is Not Quite NFS, but is, instead, an NFS-derived protocol with additions above and beyond what's in NFS?)
I don't know about any difficulties in porting GNOME, but it wouldn't surprise me a bit if GNOME was Linux specific.
The GNOME builders are pretty much GPL advocates. Note the similarity between the names GNU and GNOME?
I find it interesting that someone who appears to support a software license that allows the closing off of modifications to "OpenSource" software seems to have an issue with others not writing their software in a form that is optimally available to them.
The whole point of the GPL is that all "boats" that ride on the tide created by it will rise evenly, or at least you can choose how much of the tide you wish to take advantage of. With BSD style licenses, some of the boats can suddenly become sea planes. These craft can benefit from the rising tide, if they chose, but can travel apart from the tide. GPL advocates feel that someone who benefits from their tide should contribute back innovations that allow new technological advances. Seems fair to me.
The GPL is about fairness, not freedom in the sense of "free beer". It's more like you can come enjoy the "free beer", but you're required to share any beer you brew.
The GPL recognizes the reality that left on it's own, software tends to become closed and militates agains this trend.
GPL advocates definitely are generally against having the rising tide floating ALL boats. For example, most GPL advocates are not in favor of floating Microsoft's boat.
Sheesh, to reestablish my reputation as a recovering Karma Junkie, I'll probably have to make several offtopic or "first posts" now. *SIGH*
-Jordan Henderson
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/arch-storage/part2/sectio n-151.html (Very thorough and careful)
http://www.westerndigital.com/products/drives/driv ers-ed/mtbf.html (What Western Digital has to say about MTBF)
http://www.storage.ibm.com/storage/oem/tech/mtbf.h tm (What IBM has to say about MTBF)
--------------------
As an aside, this is an interesting example of the breakdown of moderation on Slashdot. Several people are posting fairly coherent and, at least, pseudo-technical explanations about the calculation of MTBF, but I wasn't able to resolve who was right. The moderation points did not help me either, because they are being assigned by random people I can't trust. I thought, "It is unlikely that very many people on Slashdot actually know how how MTBF is done," and, "It is unlikely that those who actually do know MTBF have the moderation points."
> The GPL recognizes the reality that left on it's own, software tends to become closed and militates agains this trend.
Right, just look at what happened to BSD, Apache, and X11. Can't get the source for any of those any more. Thank god for that GPL, eh?
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
Gee, according to your GPL, other people aren't allowed to sell your stuff at all anyway. Of course, they could sell "copies" instead, launch an IPO, and make billions, but you still don't get your beloved "cut".
Freedom is not fairness. If more "fair" the FSF tries to make the GPL, the less free it becomes. After all, if all you want is a "cut" of the profits, stick with a proprietary license that demands it.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Who Wrote Ispell?
--
Not to slam OpenBSD, but it hasn't been very stable from a configuration point of view. Last month I installed OpenBSD 2.5 from CD, onto a machine that was supposed to be a firewall. It has two network cards (Intel EEPro 100 PCI). These devices are fxp0 (1.1.1.1) and fxp1 (2.2.2.2).
Adding a host route like the following is allowed (although not very useful; this was a typo on my part):
route add 1.1.1.1 1.1.1.1
No problem, I thought, I would simply delete this route like:
route delete 1.1.1.1
But then I got a kernel panic and a kernel debugger prompt. I put FreeBSD 3.2 STABLE on there instead, but it fails to correctly keep state on IP Filter'ed ports every 6 or 7 days, and requires a reboot.
I've never had Linux (1) give me a kernel panic from any network operation or (2) just stop doing network filtering correctly. If Linux had the IP Filter package (so I could do stateful packet inspection) that firewall would be running Linux.
--
I would like to clarify one point, and then ask one question. The clarification is that "Freenix" isn't just an alternate spelling of "FreeBSD", but rather more of a contraction for "Free Unix". The term "Freenix" has come to comprise all free Unix-ish operating systems, including all the free BSDs, all the free Linuces, and anything else Unixy enough that's reasonably free that has in the past or shall in the future come along.
Now, the question is: what motivated you to select NetBSD over OpenBSD?
I'm completely agnostic here, and am just trying to learn. Any BSD makes me feel happy and comfortable and at home, probably because it was the first operating system I learned that was fun to play with. My priors of EXEC8, RT/11, MVS, and RSX didn't count, and the jury is still out on RSTS/E. :-) My own experiences are with just about any BSD except for NetBSD, starting from 2BSD on PDP-11s and then 4BSD on Vaxen, and working up through the various commercial BSDs like SunOS, Ultrix, and ConvexOS, as well as the more recent BSD/OS (marginal), MacOS X (marginal), OpenBSD (a fair bit), and FreeBSD (somewhat).
But not NetBSD. So I'm just curious: What made you make that choice?
"Personally I don't like the idea of a company taking code I write, and then selling it without me getting a piece of the action."
The solution is simple, don't make it free! Otherwise you'll get into the situation I was in last month.
You see, Mrs. McGillicuddy told me I was free to pick apples out of her apple tree. This was very generous, I though prematurely. So I picked a quarter bushel of apples and made a bunch of pies. One of these pies I took to the church bake sale. The court date is next week.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
I'm interested in this for various reasons.
I've seen one on Apache/Perl/Mod_Perl on BSD and Linux, and the performance on each. I'd love to see more.
Last night I tried to recompile Enlightenment, only to find that someone had come into my home and stolen it off of my hard drive. Lousy bastards!
p.s. Anyone else wonder why Gnome started dumping all of Rasterman's stuff the second he quit Redhat?
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
The OpenBSD GNATS DB already has a case open on my problem. I cannot comprehend a "serious firewall" operating system that would completely fall over when given a perfectly valid route to remove from its table. "Experienced security professionals" type "route" an awful lot, and if wishes to remove one, cycling the power on the box should not be the last step of that process.
I'd like to know why you wouldn't consider anything but OpenBSD for a "serious firewall." A "serious firewall" sits in a physically secure location, runs no network services (and firewalls these ports to itself), allows no remote logins, and logs everything to a local device (serial connection to log host, line printer, etc.). Linux can do this perfectly well, just as FreeBSD and OpenBSD can. When it came down to it, I needed routing capabilities Linux did not have, so I chose from the other two. To my knowledge, NetBSD does not support IP Filter.
--
Well, since Gnome claims it works on all X11 boxes, it up to Gnome to back it up. After all, GTK/Gnome works on more platforms than Qt/KDE...wait...it doesn't?...aaargh...they lied to me... again!
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
That is why we should be happy that Microsoft had made good use from BSD code.
Merry Christmas.
AFAIK, linux is the only "unix" that can actually mount an smb share. otherwise its smbclient, which is similar to ftp. not nearly as nice as just mounting a share.
DAVE is a commercial product. this may be a concern to some potential users.
the cobalt cube also does appletalk and nfs. of course, so can freebsd but for some reason intel chose not to enable either.
in the case of appletalk i dont blame them. it has to be the most inefficent file sharing ive ever seen. (stupid packets the just get sent along for no reason (keepalive?) bogging down the rest of that subnet)
anyway, i dont know the price/performance etc of these devices let alone how they compare, but for a small department, the cube seems like a much better buy.
i dont work for cobalt or even use thier product, just making an observation. i did just set up a freebsd file server / gateway / firewall (and then converted it to openbsd because freebsd is still using the broken rsaref and i need to ssh in.) so i found the article interesting.
> But, the best forks tend to be closed off.
Am I the only one that doesn't see inherent evil in this? Let's see, if I work 80-hour weeks dedicating myself to a project, eat, sleep, and breathe the project so it can be the best... You're damn straight I'm going to maximize the return from it. Your sense of what's The Right Thing To Do with the software simply isn't a factor if you didn't create it. Your future contributions to the software simply don't substitute as an adequate exchange for my efforts -- at some point I want to cash in and enjoy some other part of life unrelated to the software. I work hard on something, I expect payment. I don't work for love alone.
That said, I would have to recognize that this fork was a value-add and not a wholly original work, and give credit where it's due -- the BSD license still requires that, though no longer in every bit of advertising. But the same applies even more to wholly original works.
The GPL is a perfectly valid choice of the creator to require that value-adds are available under the same free terms. The BSD license is a perfectly valid choice of the creator to enable those creating value adds to dictate the terms of what is an acceptable exchange for their additions. If I care about the program more than the future exchange value for its contributors, I'll choose GPL.
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
I never said anything about evil, never.
What I did say was that it was odd that someone who favors a license that allows forks to become closed off is complaining that developers who clearly had a GPL bent (the GNOME developers) were not going out of their way to support a non-GPL'd operating system.
I then went on to point out the differences between GPL and other licenses and why people of a GPL bent may not be interested in "floating all boats". My argument is not with mr, it's with the guy who said that Linux and *BSD should make sure to have better integration.
Now, maybe I'm picking a fight here. The way this thread has gone is someone suggested that we "should make sure that we *BSD and Linux compatibility" and mr said "hey, I'm willing, it's these Linux guys". I pointed out that there are people who develop under the GPL with a purpose, and that purpose does not include floating other boats.
I do personally believe that the GPL will, as intended, eventually develop such a large code base that it will be more economical in most cases to use (and extend) GPL'd code than it will be to use other licenses.
Software reuse has always been something of a chimera. The GPL breaks down one of the great barriers to software reuse.
So, I guess you can count me as someone who thinks the GPL does very positive things, in general. That's not to say that I think closing software is "inherently evil". I write closed software when under the employ of various entities and I don't find it "evil".
-Jordan Henderson