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Date:      Sun, 19 Feb 2012 00:15:24 -0500
From:      Super Bisquit <superbisquit@gmail.com>
To:        "Kevin H. Patterson" <kpatterson.home@gmail.com>
Cc:        freebsd-ppc@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: FreeBSD 9.0-RELEASE on PowerMac Dual G5
Message-ID:  <CA%2BWntOtKvc6HMDoMNQj6AQtiA5kOXGrZqcnFcssuGs6nv_EimQ@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <3934AD65-E01C-4DDD-8BDC-F52C6AE3655F@khptech.com>
References:  <3934AD65-E01C-4DDD-8BDC-F52C6AE3655F@khptech.com>

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http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/url.cgi?ports/benchmarks/ubench/pkg-descr

Notice that the description uses the word "senseless" more than once.

Try compiling a program or a set of programs.  On a low end B&W, I was
able to compile firefox plus a few other applications. POWER/PowerPC
is known for performance.
The architecture is used in gaming systems for reason that it can pass
instructions through once they are "learned." This may be a simplistic
explanation of load-store but it is one you should be aware of.

Both the Power and Power64 releases are Tier 2 and are worked on by a
small group within the FreeBSD community.

You can change the flags of make in /etc/make.conf if you wish.

On 2/18/12, Kevin H. Patterson <kpatterson.home@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I've taken an interest lately in running FreeBSD on the powerpc64
> architecture. I have access to a dual 2.5 GHz PowerMac G5, and I've
> successfully got FreeBSD 9.0-RELEASE up and running on it.
>
> Only one thing seems amiss so far... it feels *very* SLOW. I realize this is
> an older machine, but it feels much too slow for a dual G5. Compiling seems
> to take forever, and top shows ~50% or more "system" CPU usage when doing
> almost anything other than sitting idle. Furthermore, the system fans never
> speed up, but run at the lowest speed even when the system is under full
> load. I have tried both enabling and disabling powerd support, with no
> effect.
>
> For a quick sanity check, I installed ubench (0.32) from ports. The numbers
> were quite disappointing: 109870 CPU / 50527 MEM multiprocessor, and 55433
> CPU / 30863 MEM single-processor.
>
> For comparison, I ran ubench (0.32 from MacPorts) under Mac OS X 10.5.8 on
> the same machine. This time, the fans do ramp up, and the numbers are *WAY*
> better: 277207 CPU / 317119 MEM multi-processor, and 141021 CPU / 284113 MEM
> single-processor.
>
> As you can see, all is not well. I am wondering what is slowing FreeBSD down
> on this machine. I have tried both GENERIC and my own kernel config. It
> feels like the CPU and or bus speed is clocked down perhaps to the most
> energy-saving level. Maybe this is where openfirmware leaves it after boot?
> Also interesting is to note the drastic *single-processor* ubench difference
> between macosx and freebsd. To me this looks like a low clock-speed smoking
> gun.
>
> I also noticed that the kernel build includes flags like -msoft-float and
> -mno-altivec...
>
> I am interested in any build or config tweaks that might be in order. I am
> also more than happy to debug and get to the bottom of this. Any ideas?
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Kevin H. Patterson
> KHPtech
>
> kevpatt@khptech.com
>
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