[Linux-ia64] New Red Hat Linux Beta Release for IA-64 available

[Linux-ia64] New Red Hat Linux Beta Release for IA-64 available

[Bill Nottingham]

A new Red Hat Linux Beta Release for IA-64 is available.
This release is a port of Red Hat Linux 7. Remember, this
is a beta release  of Red Hat Linux for the IA-64. Not
everything may be working fully yet; remember, if it breaks,
you get to keep both pieces.

You can download it from:

   ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/ia64/

There is a mailing list to discuss the IA-64 release. To
subscribe, send mail to ia64-list-request@redhat.com with

subscribe

in the subject line. You can leave the body empty.

Please report any problems to ia64-list, or through
bugzilla at:

   http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/

This release is based on the new toolchain release, and
glibc-2.2. Because of this:

 This release is INCOMPATIBLE with all previous Red Hat Linux
 development releases. Old binaries will not run. If they
 do, it is almost certainly an accident, and we will not
 support it.
 
It features glibc-2.2, a 2.4.0-test11 based kernel, XFree86-4.0.1a,
and the latest (000717-based) toolchain.

For more info, please see README.ia64 at the top level
of the CD.
 
Bill

[Linux-ia64] New Red Hat Linux Beta release for ia64 available

[Bill Nottingham]

A new Red Hat Linux beta release for ia64 is available - Wolverine.

You can get it from:

ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/linux/beta/wolverine/en/os/ia64/

ISOs are available at:

ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/linux/beta/wolverine/en/iso/ia64/

This release includes the 2.4.3 kernel + 010405 ia64 patch, the
ELILO loader, XFree86 4.0.3 (including DRI support), and other enhancements.

Recommended steppings/firmware:

   B3 or C0 processors
   Build 99 firmware (workstation)
   Build 76 firmware (server)
   
Known bugs/caveats:
    o The following software is known to be broken in this beta release:
        - KDE
        - aspell
    o Support for the following hardware is known to be broken on machines
      with more than 2 GB of memory in the Red Hat Linux Itanium beta:
        - USB
        - Compaq Smart Array 5xxx
        - Compaq Smart/2 RAID Controller
    o Upgrades are not supported.
    
For more notes, see the RELEASE-NOTES file included in the distribution.
Please report bugs/problems via bugzilla, at
   http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/

There is a mailing list you can join for discussion of this Red Hat Linux
release on ia64; to subscribe, send mail to ia64-list-request@redhat.com with

	       subscribe

in the subject line.  You can leave the body empty.

Bill

RE: [Linux-ia64] New Red Hat Linux Beta release for ia64 availabl

[McCaffity, Ray]

Just a lot of little questions here, not really directed at anyone in
particular.

1. I know with all the hub-bub surrounding BogoMips the last few years on
the x86
   platforms, the number doesn't mean a whole lot.  But I still use it as a
"close-enough"
   baseline for some of my servers.  Anyway, the output from cat
/proc/cpuinfo is
   slightly different from the bogoMips in the dmesg.  Which one is more
reliable?

2. For my 733Mhz IA64's, my BogoMips is around 730, which is slower than 1
bogo per
   MHz.  This is a long way from what I get with x86 processors.  Perhaps
it's mostly
   because I haven't been able to optimize my kernel yet, (typically my x86
kernels will
   fit on a floppy pretty easily after recompiling, and then my benchmarks
are sometimes
   as much as 50% faster depending on what I'm trying to do)
         I am finally able to download the new redhat/wolverine as I'm
typing this.
   Hopefully I'll have better luck compiling it.

3. If the strength of the IA64 isn't really speed, I suspect it's power is
in the
   number of multiple threads?  For example, on some of my Solaris servers I
run
   apache bench against a certain file (single URL).  But I can't have more
than
   256 connections to that single file without making some changes to kernel
parameters,
   if I go too far the server starts getting unstable.  What are the number
of
   file handles supported by Linux 2.4.x ?  Is is different for IA64?  I
have been
   able to run over 1000 concurrent connections on my IA64 server and it
doesn't seem
   to slow it down much.

4. I know everything we are talking about here is beta, but another area I
have problems
   with is 32-bit emulation.  I have seen questions about Oracle and JAVA
for IA64 Linux
   on other threads, and who knows when they'll happen.  Has anyone had much
luck trying
   to get these to run under Linux-IA64?

Not really meaning to take up peoples important time with trivial questions.
But
some of this affects plans our IT dept has over the 6 months to a year.

Ray

Re: [Linux-ia64] New Red Hat Linux Beta release for ia64 availabl e

[Bill Nottingham]

McCaffity, Ray (ray.mccaffity@wcg.com) said: 
> 1. I know with all the hub-bub surrounding BogoMips the last few years on
> the x86
>    platforms, the number doesn't mean a whole lot.  But I still use it as a
> "close-enough"
>    baseline for some of my servers.  Anyway, the output from cat
> /proc/cpuinfo is
>    slightly different from the bogoMips in the dmesg.  Which one is more
> reliable?

They should be resonably similar, although they might vary slightly
between processors.

> 2. For my 733Mhz IA64's, my BogoMips is around 730, which is slower than 1
> bogo per
>    MHz.  This is a long way from what I get with x86 processors.

That's irrelevant.

>    if I go too far the server starts getting unstable.  What are the number
> of
>    file handles supported by Linux 2.4.x ?

It's settable in proc. See Documentation/sysctl.

Bill

Re: [Linux-ia64] New Red Hat Linux Beta release for ia64 availabl e

[Don Dugger]

Ray-

Legacy IA32 support is very good.  The IA32 version of Oracle runs on
Itanium (I believe Oracle has an IA64 version available, that would be
a better choice), I use the IA32 Netscape as my browser, all JAVA's
should work now (we just fixed a bug the stopped the IBM JAVA from
running, this will be available in the next 2.4.4 release of the IA64
kernel).  As with all new products there will be bugs (I just got a
report the the IA32 version of RealPlayer doesn't work with the latest
kernel) but in general IA32 support is remarkable good.

It's my goal to make sure that all IA32 programs run on IA64 so if you
run across something that doesn't work just let me know and I'll fix it.

PS:  Don't forget that for seious computing we can also run Quake 3
on the Itanium :-)

On Tue, May 01, 2001 at 02:47:46PM -0500, McCaffity, Ray wrote:
> 
> ...
> 
> 4. I know everything we are talking about here is beta, but another area I
> have problems
>    with is 32-bit emulation.  I have seen questions about Oracle and JAVA
> for IA64 Linux
>    on other threads, and who knows when they'll happen.  Has anyone had much
> luck trying
>    to get these to run under Linux-IA64?
> 

-- 
Don Dugger
"Censeo Toto nos in Kansa esse decisse." - D. Gale
n0ano@valinux.com
Ph: 303/938-9838