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Subject: Re: TCP latency
From: torvalds@linux.cs.Helsinki.FI (Linus Torvalds)
Date: Jul 14 1996
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.networking,comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,

In article <>,
John S. Dyson <> wrote:
>Larry McVoy wrote:
>> It's kind of fun to contrast this with the Linux crowd:
>> BSD guys:  "your benchmark sucks!  your numbers are wrong!  you mislead the
>>             world!  you suck!  whine!"
>> Linux guys: "Hey Larry, the null syscall benchmark is busted because we can
>>              do a null syscall in about 1 usec.  You need to change it so
>>              it times in nanoseconds".
>I think that was a kind-of cute situation.  We decided NOT
>to special case the syscall that Larry uses for the
>null-syscall case.

John, John, John, calm down.

You are suggesting above that YOU did not special case the system call
that Larry uses in lmbench, and by implication you are claiming Linux
does. Very subtly done, but


Check out the facts before you post. Linux simply _is_ that fast. If we
beat you on system call latency (and I have to admit that I haven't even
looked at the FreeBSD numbers, so I'm just assuming that from your post
above), it's simply because Linux is faster. Not because we "special
case" anything at all. Why can't you accept simple facts?

As to _why_ Linux is that fast, the reason is simply that Linux has a
better interface to the kernel than any other UNIX I know about. 
Instead of messing around with "u_area" etc crap, Linux does it _right_,
and saves all the state on the stack (and saves _minimal_ state).

You're almost as bad as MS in spreading FUD and misinformation. Why the
hell can't you just accept that somebody else is better at something? Or
are you claiming that your system call latency is better than Linux
under load?

John, instead of attacking people when you find out they are faster at
something, and claiming the benchmark is bogus, how about you try to
tell the world about what YOU are good at instead? Instead of being so
damn negative about this all, why don't you try to find the POSITIVE
stuff? Don't spread FUD and misinformation - try to spread the word
about the things FreeBSD is better at, ok?


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