Re: When would you NOT use OpenBSD?

[Joachim Schipper <j_(_dot_)_schipper_(_at_)_math_(_dot_)_uu_(_dot_)_nl>]

On Mon, Apr 10, 2006 at 07:03:00PM +0200, Hannah Schroeter wrote:
> Hello!
> 
> On Wed, Apr 05, 2006 at 09:23:39PM -0400, Daniel Ouellet wrote:
> >Wijnand Wiersma wrote:
> >>On 4/5/06, Henning Brauer <lists-openbsd_(_at_)_bsws_(_dot_)_de> wrote:
> >>>I'm sick and tired of this "OpenBSD doesn't perform well" FUD. It is
> >>>nothing but FUD or over-generalization.
> 
> >>Well, I don't entirely agree.
> >>At some tasks OpenBSD feels sluggish, X performs much slower for
> >>example then on *sigh* Linux *sigh*.
> 
> >So, why blame OpenBSD for that then. Did they design it?
> 
> If the difference is that the *same* X is more responsive on OS A than
> on OS B, then there must be a difference between A and B responsible for
> it rather than X.
> 
> But then, I feel a general sluggishness not only with X if my box is
> doing much I/O. I.e. even starting little programs like trn feels slower
> while e.g. the backup is running, i.e. X11 isn't even involved, just
> some shell, screen, sshd, and trn.

X being slower could be caused by lack of hardware acceleration, at
least for some combinations of cards, X servers, and so on. Most OSes
ship with blobby acceleration, OpenBSD doesn't but loses out on some
performance[1].

I do agree that, in particular, the disk access scheduler does not seem
optimized for desktop use - I see the same while doing a backup, or even
just untarring/cvs up-ing.

		Joachim

[1] And gains in stability, openness, correctness and security, but
that's not the point.