Netflix folks repeatedly stated that in their benchmarks Linux simply couldn’t push data fast enough.
Jonathan Looney, Engineering Manager at Netflix, claiming their primary reason for choosing FreeBSD was GPL avoidance and that subsequent performance testing (which was not the basis for their choice) is not exactly fair because they did not do the same amount of engineering work for Linux as they did for FreeBSD.
But I don’t think it’s the case as they’ve put a lot of work into hiring some of the brightest minds in OS development, including Brendan Gregg
Or alternatively they just did not put the time in. No defaults cover all use cases, almost all software I have ever used in high load applications needed some tuning, this includes Solaris, MySQL and MongoDB among others.
> But I don’t think it’s the case as they’ve put a lot of work into hiring some of the brightest minds in OS development, including Brendan Gregg
AFAIK Netflix has used FreeBSD since 2012[1] and Brendan Gregg only started working at FreeBSD in 2014[2]. So not sure this really shows they knew what they were doing when they made the choice to go with FreeBSD. It could be they did but I still would like to something more than just Netflix's choice to back the claim up. Many more companies choose Linux.
[1]: https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/2012-June...
https://people.freebsd.org/~scottl/Netflix-BSDCan-20130515.p...
Seems GPL already ruled Linux out.
As a long time BSD fan (since 1998) who has had to accept the fact that Linux won out in the end, I can vouch that by far the biggest pain point on Linux is its networking stack. Whenever I have to do anything other than set an IP address I throw up in my mouth a little bit. Linux has/had its benefits (packaging, install base), but IPTables or its routing configuration isn't one of them. High performance is certainly achievable, but it has a lot of quirks.
BSD's networking stack has always been more robust. Anybody who's worked heavily with both will tell you that. It did not surprise me one bit that the primary reason they chose FreeBSD over Linux for their CDN was networking. Juniper came to the same conclusion, on top of licensing reasons.
And I would still like to see some evidence.
> Whenever I have to do anything other than set an IP address I throw up in my mouth a little bit.
Very compelling case you make there.
There are plenty of talks, papers, etc from both Juniper, Netflix, etc on why they made their choices, but your response is merely "could also be they did not understand how to configure Linux" without any evidence. We're not going to do your googling for you.
> Very compelling case you make there.
Here are the only sources I could find that gave some reasons for Netflix's choice:
- https://people.freebsd.org/~scottl/Netflix-BSDCan-20130515.p...
- https://youtu.be/KP_bKvXkoC4?t=732
Neither of them suggest FreeBSD was faster than Linux in their tests.
From both of those sources I would say avoiding GPL was the primary consideration.
If there is something to back your claim up, link to it. If you cannot link to it then how the heck do you expect me to find it. I'm not the person claiming it exists.
Also, I never said it's "faster". Most modern OS's on modern hardware can saturate most networking links. I said robust. There's a difference in how much CPU will be uses as well has how stable and consistent it can be.
I'm also not claiming FreeBSD is a magical solution to everything. I've long switched to Linux for various practical reasons, but there are some areas it still shines.
At the timestamp I shared up to the next slide no comparison is made between Linux and FreeBSD.
And the thread we were in is about someone claiming the reasons why Netflix chose FreeBSD was performance and not licensing. In fact, here is a direct debunk of that claim:
https://youtu.be/vcyQBup-Gto?t=2739
Jonathan Looney, Engineering Manager at Netflix, claiming their primary reason for choosing FreeBSD was GPL avoidance and that subsequent performance testing (which was not the basis for their choice) is not exactly fair because they did not do the same amount of engineering work for Linux as they did for FreeBSD.
> I said robust.
And I said "And I would still like to see some evidence."
... that is more robust than your anecdotal reports of nausea, which I'm not sure really I can translate meaningfully to a measure of robustness.
To which you suggested I should do your work for you like I'm your slave or something. If you can't back claims you make, don't make them, simple.
They hired Brendan Gregg [0] so I think they know what's going on.
[1]: https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/2012-June... [2]: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendangregg/
- https://people.freebsd.org/~scottl/Netflix-BSDCan-20130515.p...
- https://youtu.be/KP_bKvXkoC4?t=732
Seems GPL was a problem for them.
EDIT: another source suggesting GPL avoidance was the primary reason for choosing FreeBSD over Linux: https://youtu.be/vcyQBup-Gto?t=2731 - and the presenter also says that the performance comparisons they have done between Linux and FreeBSD is not exactly fair because they did not do all the engineering work on Linux that they did on FreeBSD.