Date: 21 Feb 2002 11:42:27 -0600 From: Bob Van Valzah <Bob@Talarian.Com> To: John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.org> Cc: smp@FreeBSD.org Subject: RE: Volunteering: Old fart with old CPUs Message-ID: <1014313347.1397.32.camel@NewStorm.WhiteBarn.Com> In-Reply-To: <XFMail.020220172739.jhb@FreeBSD.org> References: <XFMail.020220172739.jhb@FreeBSD.org>
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John, Thanks for your reply. I was beginning to think that nobody read the SMP alias :-) The box I have available for SMP testing is running -STABLE now, but it has enough space that I can also install -CURRENT (and Linux or whatever). I'm building a -STABLE kernel with config -p now and will take it for a spin tonight so that I'm up-to-speed on what to expect from a profiled kernel. Then I'll try the same on -CURRENT and look for differences. This should help to "quantify" any breakage. Is this the place to report my findings? Could you please suggest something to generate a good system call load for a profiled kernel? Maybe a -j4 buildworld of 4.5-RELEASE? Maybe an Apache build? Lemmie know. Thanks, Bob On Wed, 2002-02-20 at 16:27, John Baldwin wrote: > > On 15-Feb-02 Bob Van Valzah wrote: > > I just got back from BSDCon where I heard several folks working on SMPng > > asking for volunteers. > > > > My "day job" prevents me doing things like writing code or doing serious > > debugging, but I think I might still be able to help the SMPng cause. (I > > actually did one of the early MP Unix implementations on Gould hardware > > back in 1983, but I haven't kept current.) So I guess you could say that > > I understand the problem space and I'm excited about what you're trying > > to do for 5.0, but I'm rusty. > > > > I haven't written a line of kernel code in over 10 years, so I'm > > thinking I might be most helpful on testing, benchmarking, or profiling > > work. I'm able to use ddb to help you figure out what's going on, but I > > probably can't help you figure out how to fix it. I'm not likely to have > > big chunks of time to work on SMPng, but I can probably muster a steady > > stream of small blocks of time. > > > > I have an old dual PII-233 box sitting around and I'd be glad to put it > > to work if that'd help in some way. (My experience in the past has been > > that older, slower machines sometimes shake out latent bugs that you > > don't hit on modern screamers.) > > > > I could probably do something like regular builds from -CURRENT and run > > various benchmarks or torture tests. I'd be happy to run regular > > benchmarks against 3.x, 4.x, other BSDs, Linux or whatever. > > Testing is a big help, yes. :) > > > Also, I think I could do a decent job of SMP "data mining" if that'd > > help. For example, I might be able to cobble together some tools to > > analyze lock counters or other statistics. > > > > I see "profiling is broken" on the known issues list. I might be able to > > tackle that, but don't want to bite off more that I can chew--esp. not > > for my first attempt. How badly broken is it? > > Actually, I'm not exactly sure how broken it really is. If you could figure > out how kernel profiling works and then figure out if it is actually broken or > not, that would be great. :) > > > So I'm leaving myself open for suggestions here. Please let me know > > what'd be most helpful. I'll try to pitch in where I can. > > > > Thanks, > > > > Bob > > -- > > John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.org> <>< http://www.FreeBSD.org/~jhb/ > "Power Users Use the Power to Serve!" - http://www.FreeBSD.org/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-smp" in the body of the message
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