Hi, >>>>> "Steven" == Steven Chamberlain <steven@pyro.eu.org> writes: > Hi, > On 27/09/13 16:23, Graham Whaley wrote: >> I wish to work with you to remedy some of the listed issues. I've >> started working with MIPS hardware vendors on availability and >> pricing of hardware. > I've wondered if SMP Loongson systems are anywhere to be found: > http://bbs.lemote.com/viewthread.php?tid=43118 There seem to be Loongson-3A motherboards available, according to: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/loongson-dev/loongson$20mini-itx/loongson-dev/twzd5TBz_1k/U6MXpHrEbKAJ > But I don't see Loongson 3A being an option until at the very least > jessie kernels support it and are stable with all cores in use. This > is just my opinion though and I can't speak for DSA. I don't see why the kernel being available with Debian should be important WRT porterboxes. Stability: didn't know that the 3A have stability problems. >> 3) speed. I see 'mips' (but not mipsel in particular) listed as 'too >> slow'. Sure, Can somebody point me at some indication of the minimum >> requirement here (not that I'm particularly aiming at the minimum, I >> just wish to ensure we reach it :-). And, is this just pure >> single-multi-core/thread-machine speed, or is it a solvable problem >> by using multiple machines if necessary ? > On mipsel at least, I recall that libreoffice, openjdk-7, webkit > seemed to have some difficulty building. Each source package is built > on a single machine only, and the current machines are limited to <= 1 > GiB RAM I think so I expect heavy swapping takes place. I wonder whether it's <= or < 1 GB? Do the 1 GB machines really have swapping problems? More than 2 GB userspace virtual memory per process aren't (currently) possible on mips32 AFAIR. If some packages hit that limit during compilation, we're doomed. [..] > I suspect that might refer to this, quoting from OpenBSD[0] : >> Unfortunately, most of the Loongson 2F-based hardware available at >> that time suffers from serious problems in the processor's branch >> prediction logic, causing the system to freeze, for which errata >> information only exists in the Chinese documentation (chapter 15, >> missing from the English translation), the only English language >> information being an e-mail[1] on a toolchain mailing-list. > [0]: http://www.openbsd.org/loongson.html [1]: > https://sourceware.org/ml/binutils/2009-11/msg00387.html AFAIR newer silicon contains fixes for these issues. My Loongson2f still seems to have these bugs, as it deadlocks when run with kernels that don't implement the workarounds. [..] > Maybe the existing boxes were not affected, but it was a concern about > acquiring newer Loongson 2F hardware? Just a single data point: I'm running a Fuloong 6004 with 1GB RAM (upgraded) and 750 GB disk (also upgraded) 24/7 and don't experience more than about 1 deadlock/year. This system is quite busy although I assume a build server will take much more load. The system currently runs Debian Squeeze with a self-compiled kernel, though the kernel from backports should perform comparably. cheers, David -- GnuPG public key: http://dvdkhlng.users.sourceforge.net/dk2.gpg Fingerprint: B63B 6AF2 4EEB F033 46F7 7F1D 935E 6F08 E457 205F
Attachment:
pgpCJiMVbI7wE.pgp
Description: PGP signature