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20021213: Anybody have update on linux/*bsd platforms?



>From:  Tom Whittaker <address@hidden>
>Organization:  SSEC
>Keywords:  200212131359.gBDDxE402788 Unidata FreeBSD

Neil, et. al.,

I figured that it was time to throw my 2 cents in...

As Dave Glowacki correctly pointed out, I actively support Unidata
McIDAS on FreeBSD.  I must warn you, however, that FreeBSD is not yet a
fully supported Unidata platform.

We are in the process of bringing up a FreeBSD machine internally as a
development/porting platform (it as actually up and running and being
used sporadically, but it has not been fully integrated into our suite
of test machines).  Our intention is to learn first hand what issues
will be encountered when building/running our applications under
FreeBSD.  So far, we have gained some experience with the LDM mainly by
supporting two of our sites: Plymouth State College and Purdue
University.  I think you have seen from messages to the ldm-users list
that Jim Koermer of Plymouth State is a huge fan of FreeBSD.

My experience with FreeBSD has been that the code modifications needed
to make Unidata McIDAS work were minimal.  My other experience -- and
this is why I have been very interested -- is that applications seem to
run _much_ faster under FreeBSD than Linux on the exact same hardware.
The best example I can give of this is the time needed to build Unidata
McIDAS (which is a combination of SSEC's McIDAS-X and -XCD packages
with a lot of additional applictions thrown in).  The package built in
just about 7 minutes on Jim Koermer's machine (dual 1 Ghz processor
Pentium IV with, I believe, 4 GB of RAM).  This is remarkable given
that it takes over 15 minutes on a comparable Linux box, and upwards of
30-40 minutes on a Sun E450.

The other thing that has me very interested in FreeBSD is that the
BSD kernel is running under MacOS.  One of my pet projects is to get
McIDAS to run under MacOS since I figure that if McIDAS can run there,
just about anything can (begging the Motif issue that GEMPAK has).
This effort has been hindered by time (always a factor) and a
MacOS machine that is somebody's laptop, so it tends to leave the
building at unpredictable times.

In order to get some flavor of the interactions that we have had
with sites (mainly Purdue) in getting the LDM to run, you should
check out the online LDM support archives at:

http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/glimpsedocs/ghldm.html

Use FreeBSD as the glimpse search key.

Cheers,

Tom

>-------- Original Message --------
>Subject: Re: Anybody have update on linux/*bsd platforms?
>Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2002 17:01:52 -0600
>From: Dave Glowacki <address@hidden>
>To: Neil R. Smith <address@hidden>
>CC: Tom Whittaker <address@hidden>
>
>Tom Whittaker forwarded me your message from the Unidata pc_os list.
>Here's my response as a FreeBSD user.
>
>>Neil R. Smith wrote:
>> I'm in full agreement with other's recommendations for bsd/linux on
>> intel/amd regarding price/performance.
>> However I've got real concerns about nfs serving from linux - mainly
>> from its past reputation. I've got to serve all the decoded data to
>> about 35-40 local unix hosts and can't be swatting nfs flies all day.
>> So the free/open/net bsd's seem like an answer to that .. but am I
>> asking for ldm/gempak/mcidas build trouble?
>
>At one point, Tom Yoksas was actively supporting McIDAS on FreeBSD.
>Is this no longer the case?
>
>> They aren't unidata
>> 'supported' OSs. And depending still on rumor, I hear freebsd supports
>> newer hardware than openbsd, but maybe what's supported on openbsd
>> is just fine for a unidata/mcidas server.
>>
>> Some on this list may recall hearing me probe these waters from way
>> back. Well, I'm a little slow moving, but I've gotta take the plunge
>> now. Anyone care to chime in with their experiences and recommendations?
>
>I've run FreeBSD on my home machines since 1993.  I've had periodic
>exposure to Linux and OpenBSD (no NetBSD), so I've got a bit of
>perspective on things.
>
>Linux has the largest number of applications and supported hardware,
>due to the huge userbase and commercial support.
>
>FreeBSD covers nearly all of the common hardware and is probably
>close to Linux in the server hardware realm.  Most open-source
>software which runs on Linux can be compiled and run on FreeBSD.
>As for binary software, FreeBSD has a fairly comprehensive Linux
>emulation mode which runs binaries as fast as they'd run on Linux
>(and sometimes they'll even run faster due to differences in OS
>architecture :-)
>
>As FreeBSD is to Linux, so OpenBSD is to FreeBSD ... smaller
>user/programmer base, less supported hardware (in the x86 realm;
>OpenBSD has more supported architectures, though FreeBSD is
>actively working on that.)  People say that OpenBSD is the most
>secure OS, but since patches circulate among the BSDs, most of
>the holes which OpenBSD finds are fairly quickly closed in the
>other BSDs.
>
>Given the above, it would seem to make sense to run Linux, and I
>tried running both RedHat and Mandrake on my laptop for over a
>year, just because I thought I should.  I finally dumped Linux
>in favor of FreeBSD for one big reason:  FreeBSD stomps all over
>both Linux and OpenBSD in ease of administration.
>
>Since I'm running this on my home machine, I want to spend as
>little time as possible on the OS, because I have better things
>to do with my spare time than install security patches and
>install new versions of the OS.
>
>FreeBSD OS upgrades can be as easy as:
>   cvsup && make world && make kernel && mergemaster && reboot
>which:
>   *) grabs the latest fixes from the FreeBSD CVS machine
>   *) compiles and installs system-level executables and documentation
>   *) builds and installs a new kernel
>   *) merges in any changes to system configuration files
>   *) reboots to use the new system
>
>Rather than the Linux OS model of a kernel bundled with a
>bunch of system tools from different sources, FreeBSD is
>developed as a complete system, so almost all of my upgrades
>have literally been that easy, and have gone without a hitch.
>
>The only exceptions have been the major releases (upgrading
>from 2.x to 3.x and then to 4.x), but since that only happens
>once every couple of years, it's fairly tolerable.  It's also
>generally fairly easy ... you might have to type 'make upgrade'
>instead of 'make world' :-)
>
>As for non-system software, FreeBSD's ports system (which
>corresponds to RPMs on Linux) is acknowledged as one of the
>best package systems in the open source OS world.  With the
>'portupgrade' tool, keeping non-OS software up-to-date can be
>delegated to a cron job.  Ports are kept on your machine in the
>/usr/ports directory tree (which is kept up-to-date with
>'cvsup'.)  Installing a port is as easy as typing something
>like 'portinstall apache-modssl', which will automatically
>install any software dependencies before installing the requested
>package.  All packages are built from source, so you don't need
>to worry about out-of-date or conflicting shared libraries or
>other dependencies.
>
>***
>
>Hmmm ... rereading that, it comes off as a bit of a commercial,
>so I should probably re-emphasize some of FreeBSD's negative
>points.  It's got a smaller developer/user base than Linux, so
>support isn't going to be as good, and support for native
>FreeBSD commercial software is almost non-existent (and companies
>supporting Linux binaries are likely to blame FreeBSD's emulation
>for any problems you experience.)
>
>Having said all that, I'd definitely recommend FreeBSD as an
>NFS server platform, though you may need to tweak things a bit
>if you want it to work with buggy NFS implementations (like Linux :-)
>
>
>-- 
>Tom Whittaker (address@hidden)
>University of Wisconsin-Madison
>Space Science and Engineering Center
>Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies
>Phone/VoiceMail: 608.262.2759
>
--
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* Tom Yoksas                                             UCAR Unidata Program *
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