Who is selling Opteron 4-way or 8-way SMP boards?

[Tony Hill]

On Fri, 15 Aug 2003 04:29:42 GMT, Hugh <ghsong@nospam.com> wrote:Please recommend.

Sorry, but at the moment nobody is selling a 4 or 8-way SMP board for
the Opteron at the retail level (such boards are rare even for mature
processors, let alone a brand-new one). One company does make a 4-way
board (probably Arima, they made the first dual Opteron board), but it
is not sold at the retail level. Closest that you could come is
probably a bare-bones server from one of the server manufacturer's
that AMD has listed on their website.

Note: this is going to set you back a pretty penny. A 4 or 8-way
Opteron system requires the use of Opteron 8xx series chips, which are
roughly 3 times as expensive as the Opteron 2xx chips. Eunix
(www.eunix.com) will sell you a pretty bare-bones 4-way server, 4U
rackmount case, 4 x Opteron 840 chips (1.4GHz) and 512MB of memory for
$11,534. Going up to the 4 x Opteron 844 chips (1.8GHz) bumps the
price up to $21,534 (all prices in US dollars).
Also, which linux distribution would you recommend fora DIY job?My favorite for i32 has been SuSE.

SuSE is probably a good choice. They worked closely with AMD in
getting a Linux distribution for AMD64 to market. Their distribution
is the most mature and probably most functional of the AMD64 Linux
distributions at this point in time, so if you already prefer their
IA-32 distribution, then they are pretty much a no-brainer for getting
an AMD64 distribution.

-------------
Tony Hill
hilla <underscore> 20 <at> yahoo <dot> ca

[Rob Stow]

Never anonymous Bud wrote:
Separating himself from Baghdad Bob, Tony Hill <hilla_nospam_20@yahoo.ca> whined:One company does make a 4-way board (probably Arima, Arima shows only a 2xOpteron MB on their website, and on pricewatch.com.

1.) Have you checked out the Opteron "partners" listed at AMD's site ?

2.) There used to be details about a 4-way board at the NewiSys site shortly
after the Opteron launch - no idea if it is still there. (No idea if the
NewiSys web site is still there.)

3.) There are 4-way Opteron vs. Xeon and Itanic benchmarks at AMD. Find
those and then look for a link to the details about the tested systems -
perhaps that link will tell you what mobo was used.

[Yousuf Khan]

"Tony Hill" <hilla_nospam_20@yahoo.ca> wrote in message
news:d15506e169f9bdeae9ce04a049633706@news.1usenet.com...Also, which linux distribution would you recommend fora DIY job?My favorite for i32 has been SuSE. SuSE is probably a good choice. They worked closely with AMD in getting a Linux distribution for AMD64 to market. Their distribution is the most mature and probably most functional of the AMD64 Linux distributions at this point in time, so if you already prefer their IA-32 distribution, then they are pretty much a no-brainer for getting an AMD64 distribution.

It seems to me that Linux developments are now being done by the
distributors more than the independent developers. Does Suse have an
exclusive on the AMD64 kernel for a short period of time, or if not, then
why aren't the other distributors simply using the Suse source code for
AMD64?

Yousuf Khan

[Tony Hill]

On Wed, 20 Aug 2003 01:45:55 GMT, "Yousuf Khan"
<bbbl67.spam@yahoo.com.nospam> wrote:"Tony Hill" <hilla_nospam_20@yahoo.ca> wrote in messagenews:d15506e169f9bdeae9ce04a049633706@news.1usenet.com... SuSE is probably a good choice. They worked closely with AMD in getting a Linux distribution for AMD64 to market. Their distribution is the most mature and probably most functional of the AMD64 Linux distributions at this point in time, so if you already prefer their IA-32 distribution, then they are pretty much a no-brainer for getting an AMD64 distribution.It seems to me that Linux developments are now being done by thedistributors more than the independent developers. Does Suse have anexclusive on the AMD64 kernel for a short period of time, or if not, thenwhy aren't the other distributors simply using the Suse source code forAMD64?

The problem isn't the kernel, that's been able to support AMD64 for a
year or more now, long before the hardware was readily available.

The real trick is with the libraries and package dependencies. See,
AMD64 presents a rather tricky problem, it's actually two
architectures in one. Typically Linux is designed for just a single
architecture, ie you compile your kernel using one of the 'arch/'
directories and than all the applications you ever want or need are
compiled for that same architecture. However, with AMD64, you compile
your kernel with 'arch/x86-64', but you can execute code for either
x86-64 or i386 architectures. The kernel can handle this with no
troubles, and statically linked applications aren't a problem either.
The trick is with dynamically linked applications.

First off, you need to recompile all your libraries for x86-64 in
order to support x86-64 binaries. Ideally this should just be a
straight recompile (and indeed it is for most of the more common
ones), but not all libraries are 64-bit safe. The fact is that most
Linux development work is focused exclusively for the IA-32 platform,
so occasionally some slightly assumptions are made which are not true
for other platforms. After that, when you finally do get your
libraries compiled for x86-64, you need to also have some 32-bit
libraries installed so that i386 code can link to those.

All in all, it just takes time for a distribution to put everything
all together. The code is all out there (or is being rapidly
developed), but it takes time/money to packaged it all up. Since most
Linux distributions operate are rather thin profit margins to begin
with, they all have to decide how much emphasis to place on this
project. SuSE was contracted by AMD to do some work, putting them at
a bit of an advantage. They also had a certain marketing interest in
being the #1 operating system supplier for the Opteron. Mandrake now
has a version of their "Corporate Server" distribution available for
the Opteron, and I believe a beta for their desktop distribution
(their server currently seems to be getting DOSed or something, it's
slow as hell). Redhat has beta versions available as well.

Note that these issues also affect, for example, the new Apple
PowerMac G5's, as well as other PPC64 based systems. Sun and SGI also
had to deal with this on their own versions of Unix. It can be made
to work just fine eventually, just takes a bit of time.

-------------
Tony Hill
hilla <underscore> 20 <at> yahoo <dot> ca

[Yousuf Khan]

"Douglas Bollinger" <dcb@pa.nospam.net> wrote in message
news:pan.2003.08.20.18.41.08.151721@pa.nospam.net... On Wed, 20 Aug 2003 01:45:55 +0000, Yousuf Khan wrote: It seems to me that Linux developments are now being done by the distributors more than the independent developers. Does Suse have an exclusive on the AMD64 kernel for a short period of time, or if not,
then why aren't the other distributors simply using the Suse source code for AMD64? How would Suse have a "lock" on the AMD64 kernel with the GPL? This is Linux, remember.

Yeah, I know, but don't you have the ability to hold back source code while
you're debugging it?

Yousuf Khan

[Joe Pfeiffer]

"Yousuf Khan" <bbbl67.spam@yahoo.com.nospam> writes: How would Suse have a "lock" on the AMD64 kernel with the GPL? This is Linux, remember. Yeah, I know, but don't you have the ability to hold back source code while you're debugging it?

No. While many people have done just that, under the terms of the
license as soon as you release binary you need to release
corresponding source.
--
Joseph J. Pfeiffer, Jr., Ph.D. Phone -- (505) 646-1605
Department of Computer Science FAX -- (505) 646-1002
New Mexico State University http://www.cs.nmsu.edu/~pfeiffer
Southwestern NM Regional Science and Engr Fair: http://www.nmsu.edu/~scifair

[Tony Hill]

On Wed, 20 Aug 2003 23:44:06 GMT, "Yousuf Khan"
<bbbl67.spam@yahoo.com.nospam> wrote:"Douglas Bollinger" <dcb@pa.nospam.net> wrote in messagenews:pan.2003.08.20.18.41.08.151721@pa.nospam.net... On Wed, 20 Aug 2003 01:45:55 +0000, Yousuf Khan wrote: How would Suse have a "lock" on the AMD64 kernel with the GPL? This is Linux, remember.Yeah, I know, but don't you have the ability to hold back source code whileyou're debugging it?

You could, but it's rather pointless. Regardless, the issue is not
with the kernel at all, but with the libraries. The kernel has been
all set to support AMD64 for quite a while before the hardware was
available. Of course, the upcoming 2.6.x series of kernels will
perhaps improve support somewhat, and lots of work is still going on
to support more chipsets and other Opteron hardware.

Interestingly enough, while reading up on Opteron support in the 2.6.x
kernel, the general consensus was that the NUMA optimizations did
absolutely nothing for the Opteron (due to it's 1 processor to 1 node
setup apparently). I don't know if this is necessarily a bad thing or
not (AMD always said that NUMA optimizations weren't needed with the
Opteron), but I know some people were expecting some sort of
performance boost for the chip when a NUMA-aware OS was made
available.

-------------
Tony Hill
hilla <underscore> 20 <at> yahoo <dot> ca

[Douglas Bollinger]

On Wed, 20 Aug 2003 01:45:55 +0000, Yousuf Khan wrote:
It seems to me that Linux developments are now being done by the distributors more than the independent developers. Does Suse have an exclusive on the AMD64 kernel for a short period of time, or if not, then why aren't the other distributors simply using the Suse source code for AMD64?

How would Suse have a "lock" on the AMD64 kernel with the GPL? This is
Linux, remember.

Anyway, it's just that no one else has bothered with it yet. As the
Opteron becomes more popular, I'm sure you will see the other distros put
out a Opteron version. Remember, for a distro, it's more that just copying
Suse's work on the kernel, you have to support it as well. ($$$).

And no, more of the Linux developments are still from independent
developers. Right now, few people have Opteron boxes so you won't see much
work on that yet.

--
Who goeth a-borrowing goeth a-sorrowing.
-- Thomas Tusser