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23 Second Kernel Compiles

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the get-yer-lust-on dept.

b-side.org writes "As a fine testament to how quickly linux is absorbing technology formerly available only to the computing elite, an LKML member posted a 23 second kernel compile time to the list this morning as a result of building a 16-way NUMA cluster. The NUMA technology comes gifted from IBM and SGI. Just one year ago, a Sequent NUMA-Q would have cost you about USD $100,000. These days, you can probably build a 16-way Xeon (4X 4-way SMP) system off of ebay for two grand, and the NUMA comes free of charge!"

3 of 222 comments (clear)

  1. ok this is NOT a troll by autopr0n · · Score: 4, Interesting

    But, does anyone know how NUMA compares with, say, a beowulf cluster? Does NUMA allow you to 'bind' multiple systems into one, so that I wouldn't need to rewrite my software? Did these guys use a stock GCC or something special? I know you would need to use MPI or similar for beowulf. Is NUMA as scalable as Beowulf in terms of building huge-ass machines (of course if I was going to expend the effort to do that, I might as well want to write custom software).

    If this type of system would allow 'supercomputer' performance on regular programs... well... that would be really nice. How much work is it to setup?

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    autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
  2. Re:Who would have guessed... by BitwizeGHC · · Score: 4, Interesting

    No, this is a case of free software and cheap hardware making technologies available now to many people for whom it wasn't available (i.e., outside the realm of affordability because it was only sold by expensive proprietary vendors) just a short time ago. That is a more significant change than the endless treadmill of Moore's Law to which we had become accustomed.

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    N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
  3. Re:Tempting... by castlan · · Score: 4, Interesting

    A Beowolf cluster of these? That's so 2 years ago... I'd love to see a NUMA-linked cluster of these! And I wonder how long it would take that cluster running GNOME under XFree86 to have Mozilla render this page nested at -1!

    Seriously, I wonder how long it takes to boot. Every NUMA machine I've ever used took more than its fair share of time to boot... much more than a standard Unix server. It would be pretty funny if compiling the kernel turned out to be trivial compared to booting!