Date: Sat, 12 Oct 2002 00:26:19 -0700 From: Wes Peters <wes@softweyr.com> To: Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> Cc: Nate Lawson <nate@root.org>, "Vladimir B. Grebenschikov" <vova@sw.ru>, arch@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: using mem above 4Gb was: swapon some regular file Message-ID: <3DA7CE9B.97BD3989@softweyr.com> References: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0210081209010.11243-100000@root.org> <3DA35D58.B1B5D78D@mindspring.com> <3DA4C2F1.74450081@softweyr.com> <3DA4C7EC.F749B803@mindspring.com>
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Terry Lambert wrote:
>
> Wes Peters wrote:
> > Terry Lambert wrote:
> > > IMO, if you want a larger linear address space, instead of pretending
> > > you have one, buy yourself an IA64 instead.
> >
> > Or an Alpha, or a SPARC64, or a MIPS64, etc. But they all seem to cost
> > more than a PIII solution, except perhaps a Netra and you can't cram enough
> > RAM in that to make a difference.
>
> People always say this, but... the Alpha is unsuitable, because
> FreeBSD on the Alpha doesn't support more than 2G of physical
> RAM, because the drivers choke. The MIPS is not an option,
> because though there is a FreeBSD port, as reported at last
> year's "developer summit" at Usenix, it was never integrated into
> the source tree. The SPARC64 isn't a mainstream port yet (I know
> this because my patch to kdenetwork3 was adulterated to be "if Alpha",
> when it should have been adulterated to "if !32_bit_x86", if at all,
> because the SPARC64 and IA64 GOT will go over 64K, as well... the
> problem is the 64bit vs. 32bit values, not symbol names, etc., that
> causes the table size to be bigger there).
>
> Right now, IA64 is about the only supported 64 bit architecture
> that gives you the real benefit of a 64 bit address space; I guess
> you can mmap a lot of stuff on the Alpha, too, up to your KVA
> mapping limit, but that's not a win for this application.
There aren't any architectural issues on the SPARC64 itself that
prevent it from being a fully 64 bit system. It will take a while
before FreeBSD developers catch up with the idea of 64-bitness. If
you want to help, find a way to get more 64 bit systems into developers
hands. Got a secret cache of Netras hiding somewhere you just have to
get rid of? ;^)
At least you can buy a brand-new, supported SPARC64 machine from Sun
for < $1000 (in the USA). Two, in fact: the Sun Blade V100, and the
Netra, nee Sun Fire V100.
--
"Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?"
Wes Peters Softweyr LLC
wes@softweyr.com http://softweyr.com/
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