Re: Linux vs FreeBSD - Mailing list pgsql-general

From Bruce Momjian
Subject Re: Linux vs FreeBSD
Date
Msg-id 20140409202009.GE8686@momjian.us
Whole thread Raw
In response to Re: Linux vs FreeBSD  ("Christofer C. Bell" <christofer.c.bell@gmail.com>)
Responses Re: Linux vs FreeBSD  (François Beausoleil <francois@teksol.info>)
List pgsql-general
On Wed, Apr  9, 2014 at 10:02:07AM -0500, Christofer C. Bell wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 3, 2014 at 11:03 PM, François Beausoleil
> <francois@teksol.info> wrote:
> > Hi all!
> >
> > Does PG perform that much better on FreeBSD? I have some performance issues on a Ubuntu 12.04 which I'd like to
resolve.iowait varies a lot, between 5 and 50%. Does FreeBSD better schedule I/O, which could alleviate some of the
issues,or not at all? I have no experience administering FreeBSD, but I'm willing to learn if I'll get some performance
enhancementsout of the switch. 
> >
> > $ uname -a
> > Linux munn.ca.seevibes.com 3.2.0-58-generic #88-Ubuntu SMP Tue Dec 3 17:37:58 UTC 2013 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64
GNU/Linux
>
> From the research I've done online, this is likely your issue.  Kernel
> 3.2.0 has some issues that directly and severely impact I/O wait times
> for PostgreSQL.  The suggested fixes (that seem to have worked for
> most people reporting in) are to revert the OS to Ubuntu Server 10.04
> or to install one of the HWE (HardWare Enablement) kernels into the
> 12.04 system (this would be one of the kernels from a later release of
> Ubuntu provided in the 12.04 repositories).

This highlights a more fundamental problem of the difference between a
workstation-based on OS like Ubuntu and a server-based one like Debian
or FreeBSD.  I know Ubuntu has a "server" version, but fundamentally
Ubuntu's selection of kernels and feature churn make it less than ideal
for server deployments.

I am sure someone can post that they use Ubuntu just fine for server
deployments, but I continue to feel that Ubuntu is chosen by
administrators because it an OS they are familiar with on workstations,
rather than it being the best choice for servers.

--
  Bruce Momjian  <bruce@momjian.us>        http://momjian.us
  EnterpriseDB                             http://enterprisedb.com

  + Everyone has their own god. +


pgsql-general by date:

Previous
From: Paul Jungwirth
Date:
Subject: Re: Refresh Postgres SSL certs?
Next
From: Martijn van Oosterhout
Date:
Subject: Re: Refresh Postgres SSL certs?