We used a Sparc Ultra 10 for a Authentication server in 2000, it supports concurrent 100K users without any issue, obviously you need to write your own software, but the server is super stable. And yes, we use cheap x86 + Linux for all sorts of thing from 1996 and it was quite faster but you can not trust it the same way as a Sparc.
We even went through a phase of email on OpenBSD before being bought by a company that insisted on Exchange.
Linux didn’t seem to pull decisively ahead of the BSDs until multicore x86 became mainstream. Up until then it always seemed flaky.
For a brief moment before epoll came along it looked like Linux would get /dev/poll.[1] In fact, IIRC, epoll started as a /dev/poll implementation. I don't think Sun's /dev/poll ever saw much uptake because, aside from the limitations mentioned the kqueue paper, the pace of software development was much more rapid and dynamic in the FOSS and web worlds, and the center of gravity had already shifted to BSD and Linux.
For better and worse, Linux developers seemed more inclined toward adopting extensions from SysV and SunOS/Solaris than from the contemporary BSDs.
[1] See, e.g., https://lwn.net/2001/0712/a/devpoll.php3
It certainly was from 2011 to 2019: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K_computer
> obviously you need to write your own software
Kerberos ran fine for me on cast-off SPARCstation 10(?) which was well obsolete at the time.
I have plenty of fond memories about the stability of Spark Stations but none as fun as that.
Thanks for sharing.
I did once have a Bullfrog TSS that survived a literal explosion. They certainly don’t build hardware like they used to.