Re: InfoWorld web server shootout

Philippe Strauss (philou@lili.urbanet.ch)
Tue, 8 Jul 1997 21:43:30 +0200


On Jul 8, Erik Troan wrote
> On Tue, 8 Jul 1997, Alan Cox wrote:
>
> > Anyway I cannot duplicate their lockup. My ethernet spent the entire
> > night jammed serving pages off apache 1.1.3 with no keepalives doing
> > as many requests in parallel as will fit.
>
> The InfoWorld machine was getting hit at 100mbits on three DE500 cards,
> simultaneously. They wanted to use four, but they couldn't get a kernel
> to recognize all four (though we had it working w/ four before the machine
> left).
>
> One of the big problems with this review was the SMP problems. In hindsight,
> it was a *big* mistake for us to send them an SMP machine. That caused them
> to have to reinstall the machine, and configure everything themselves. When
> they did this, they lost the fourth ethernet card.
>
> The people who did this review were *not* Linux hackers. I'm actually pretty
> pleased with the review, as it did focus on the working machine. They could
> have complained about the numerous hardware and software problems they had,
> but they really did focus on the positives.
>
> I do apologize for this grey-eye for Linux (calling it a black eye seems a
> bit harsh); we at Red Hat should have been more agressive in working with
> InfoWorld on this. I'd be happy to address any specific questions on the
> machine or testing methodology, though I may not know all of the answers.
> Please ask them in private email however, as I don't often read this list.

Just a wild guess: Did they put a "mem=256M" kernel parameter and was
the box used able to cache more than 64M of RAM ? It may sound foolish, but
who knows..

>
> Erik
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> | "Psychopaths kill for no reason: I kill for money." -- Grosse Pointe Blank |
> | |
> | Erik Troan = ewt@redhat.com = ewt@sunsite.unc.edu |

-- 
Philippe Strauss <philou@lili.urbanet.ch>
Urbanet SA, Vallombreuse 51, 1004 Lausanne -- 021 / 625.28.14

Homepage & PGP key: http://lili.urbanet.ch

Never insult an alligator until you've crossed the river.

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