From owner-freebsd-smp Thu May 30 10:28:47 1996 Return-Path: owner-smp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id KAA00656 for smp-outgoing; Thu, 30 May 1996 10:28:47 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail.barrnet.net (mail.barrnet.net [131.119.246.7]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id KAA00649 for ; Thu, 30 May 1996 10:28:44 -0700 (PDT) From: erich@uruk.org Received: from uruk.org (uruk.org [198.145.95.253]) by mail.barrnet.net (8.7.5/MAIL-RELAY-LEN) with ESMTP id KAA07018 for ; Thu, 30 May 1996 10:28:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: from loopback (loopback [127.0.0.1]) by uruk.org (8.7.4/8.7.3) with SMTP id KAA07610; Thu, 30 May 1996 10:27:10 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199605301727.KAA07610@uruk.org> X-Authentication-Warning: uruk.org: Host loopback [127.0.0.1] didn't use HELO protocol To: Poul-Henning Kamp cc: freebsd-smp@freebsd.org Subject: Re: How do you get the SMP code In-reply-to: Your message of "Thu, 30 May 1996 15:27:51 -0000." <451.833470071@critter.tfs.com> Date: Thu, 30 May 1996 10:27:10 -0700 Sender: owner-smp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Poul-Henning Kamp writes: ...[description of picking up the source tree deleted]... I got the sources last week, but my main problem (still) has been setting up a partition to do development on. I haven't generally kept up with -current, and the build environment changes so often I can't just compile it on my server running FreeBSD. (I also couldn't install a newer version until I made the PCI probe fix recently... my SMP test box has LOTS of funky PCI devices and bridges in it, and crashes on all the install distributions to date). I'm also about to make a public release of the new bootloader I've been working on. That has consumed a lot of time as well. Anyway, excuses aside :-) ... this weekend I'll be able to go through the whole process and get it working, as I'll have enough time in one place to take down my server and install a recent distribution on the disk for my SMP test box. > then you check out the sys tree from it, compile a kernel with > options SMP > options "NCPU=2" > > Boot the kernel singleuser and then > sysctl -w kern.smp_active=2 > > Tell us how it works out :-) I will. I had re-written the probe and startup code for Linux-SMP, and am willing to do so for FreeBSD (given that I don't mortally insult anyone :-). Do you guys have any particular preference for how it's done in FreeBSD ? I already have part of a probe/activation sequence I was going to use in Mach4, and it could be adapted pretty easily, I think. It turns out that the whole "NCPU" thing in Linux was (and is, as I have to submit patches because people are constantly breaking it) a pain in the ass. At the very least, it should be changed to "MAXCPU", with dynamic activation of CPUs up to the maximum (this is what Linux does, though they still call it NCPU). Ideally (this is what I'm going to do for Utah's Mach4 distribution), it should just be "options SMP" and dynamically allocate CPU structures as necessary... and if it doesn't find other an MPS configuration, it will still function without getting confused by the possible lack of a local APIC on the CPU. -- Erich Stefan Boleyn \_ E-mail (preferred): Mad Genius wanna-be, CyberMuffin \__ (finger me for other stats) Web: http://www.uruk.org/~erich/ Motto: "I'll live forever or die trying" This is my home system, so I'm speaking only for myself, not for Intel.