From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Jan 8 17:52:03 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C3E1816A468 for ; Tue, 8 Jan 2008 17:52:03 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from olli@lurza.secnetix.de) Received: from lurza.secnetix.de (unknown [IPv6:2a01:170:102f::2]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5DB9213C469 for ; Tue, 8 Jan 2008 17:52:03 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from olli@lurza.secnetix.de) Received: from lurza.secnetix.de (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by lurza.secnetix.de (8.14.1/8.14.1) with ESMTP id m08HpwbA075926; Tue, 8 Jan 2008 18:52:00 +0100 (CET) (envelope-from oliver.fromme@secnetix.de) Received: (from olli@localhost) by lurza.secnetix.de (8.14.1/8.14.1/Submit) id m08HpwE9075925; Tue, 8 Jan 2008 18:51:58 +0100 (CET) (envelope-from olli) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2008 18:51:58 +0100 (CET) Message-Id: <200801081751.m08HpwE9075925@lurza.secnetix.de> From: Oliver Fromme To: freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG In-Reply-To: <478166B3.5040901@pacific.net.sg> X-Newsgroups: list.freebsd-current User-Agent: tin/1.8.3-20070201 ("Scotasay") (UNIX) (FreeBSD/6.2-STABLE-20070808 (i386)) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Greylist: Sender IP whitelisted, not delayed by milter-greylist-2.1.2 (lurza.secnetix.de [127.0.0.1]); Tue, 08 Jan 2008 18:52:01 +0100 (CET) X-Mailman-Approved-At: Tue, 08 Jan 2008 18:05:33 +0000 Cc: Subject: Re: Should we simply disallow ZFS on FreeBSD/i386? X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 08 Jan 2008 17:52:03 -0000 Erich Dollansky wrote: > Maxim Sobolev wrote: > > Gary Corcoran wrote: > > > > I believe that 95% of hardware today that realistically is capable of > > I do not think so. Actually I think it's less than 95%. Of the seven machines I have at home, only one is 64bit capable -- and that one happens to be a DEC-Alpha which doesn't support ZFS. Of the machines at our office room (dunno the count, must be about a dozen) only one is amd64 capable -- and that one happens to be a workstation that needs to run 32bit i386 because of X11 graphics support (and I don't really need to use ZFS on it). > > running ZFS is also capable of running 64bit code, so that potential ZFS > > All new hardware since Intel started supporting 64 bits on their > Pentiums is. Nope. There's still hardware produced today that's not 64bit-capable. FWIW, my NFS server at home is an EPIA PD-10k board with a VIA C3 processor (32bit only). I chose that one because of the very low power consumption. It works perfectly well for my purposes. > So, just make it a requirement for ZFS to run only on 64 bit upward. I would certainly vote against such nonsense. However, I think it does make sense to print a warning if an admin tries to use ZFS on an i386 machine. It wouldn't hurt anyway. It's quite normal that running certain software requires some tuning so that software will work at all. Typical examples are squid (uses a lot of sysv message queues) and PostgreSQL (semaphores) -- they won't run without tuning, except for trivial setups that don't really do much. The ZFS tuning issues aren't much different. Best regards Oliver -- Oliver Fromme, secnetix GmbH & Co. KG, Marktplatz 29, 85567 Grafing b. M. Handelsregister: Registergericht Muenchen, HRA 74606, Geschäftsfuehrung: secnetix Verwaltungsgesellsch. mbH, Handelsregister: Registergericht Mün- chen, HRB 125758, Geschäftsführer: Maik Bachmann, Olaf Erb, Ralf Gebhart FreeBSD-Dienstleistungen, -Produkte und mehr: http://www.secnetix.de/bsd "That's what I love about GUIs: They make simple tasks easier, and complex tasks impossible." -- John William Chambless