
Ten years with DragonFly BSD network stack [pdf] - alecsx6
https://leaf.dragonflybsd.org/~sephe/AsiaBSDCon%20-%20Dfly.pdf
======
paws
If anyone could summarize what makes DragonFly's stack different I'd be
obliged.

I understand FreeBSD's networking stack has been well-regarded since the
90s[1] and has shipped in many environments and consumer devices. Now that
it's 2017, it's interesting to see what else is out there.

[1]
[https://people.freebsd.org/~andre/tcpoptimization.html](https://people.freebsd.org/~andre/tcpoptimization.html)

~~~
f2f
Literally the entire section 2 of the linked to file discusses exactly what
you're interested to know. It details the evolution of the DragonFlyBSD's
network stack, which started as the FreeBSD network stack.

~~~
paws
I saw that, cheers.

I'm more interested in the higher level takeaway. Why should developers use
Dragonfly?

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the ability to peruse the kernel
implementation narrative in the first place. As I'm not a kernel developer I'm
left wondering what it means.

e.g. better multicore performance?

~~~
sigzero
I would look here:

[https://www.dragonflybsd.org/features/](https://www.dragonflybsd.org/features/)

and here:

[https://www.dragonflybsd.org/performance/](https://www.dragonflybsd.org/performance/)

------
jandrese

      3. The parts of the DragonFlyBSD’s net-work stack that can really enjoy help hands.
      ...
      - The IPv6 stack; though I am making progress, the progress is slow.
    

Ouch. I'm guessing this means IPv6 is just slow and not that it doesn't work
at all, but it seems like something that's going to be a problem in a couple
of years.

~~~
ceratopisan
You are confusing developer bandwidth with network bandwidth.

He's not saying IPv6 network performance is slow, he's saying he doesn't have
as much time as he'd like to work on it.

~~~
jandrese
He's saying it is in a poor state and development is slow. My supposition is
that this means there are missing features and a lack of performance
optimization. Presumably the DFlyBSD network stack is now different enough
that they can't just pull in the FreeBSD IPv6 stack and drop it in.

~~~
ceratopisan
More people using IPv6 on DragonFly would help tease out issues... but then
again more people using IPv6 in general would help, too.

------
jontro
This post shows some interesting benchmarks between dragonfly, freebsd and
linux

[http://lists.dragonflybsd.org/pipermail/users/2017-March/313...](http://lists.dragonflybsd.org/pipermail/users/2017-March/313254.html)

Submitted it a couple of weeks ago but it never reached the frontpage

------
gigatexal
I was a diehard FreeBSD user around the time of the fork. Everything is just
so well documented, the layout of things is sane, there was just so much order
for a newbie like me. Eventually I moved to Linux but am still fond of *BSDs.

~~~
apotheon
Why did you move to Linux?

~~~
gigatexal
To gain experience on the platform for potential jobs. Honestly though I'm not
sure. I guess I toyed with fedora and liked it well enough. I might move back
and give trueOS a try.

