Red Hat Releases x86_64 Technology Preview, GinGin

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Red Hat Releases x86_64 Technology Preview, GinGin

Posted by Hemos on Thursday May 1, 2003 @11:30PM from the trying-it-out-the-new-stuff dept.

HTMLSpinnr writes "Red Hat announced today it's release of GinGin64, a "Technology Preview" (read: not beta) of Red Hat's AMD64 technology. You can grab a copy here or at one of Red Hat's various mirrors. Though the version number listed in the release notes is 8.0.95, inside sources say it's based on Red Hat 9 plus some updates."

30 of 141 comments (clear)

Great by CausticWindow · 2003-05-01 23:34 · Score: 4, Interesting

Anybody know about any (realatively new) versions of Linux for Itanium that one could benchmark this against? Preferably free of charge?

--
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
1. Re:Great by vadim_t · 2003-05-02 00:28 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  How are you going to benchmark it?
  
  The only meaningful benchmark IMO is processing_power/cost. A comparison based on clock speed would be pretty useless since architectures are different, and Itanium is so incredibly expensive. I'm pretty sure that even if x86_64 is slower it's much cheaper to get enough CPUs for your needs than to buy an Itanium.
2. Re:Great by vadim_t · 2003-05-02 02:34 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  No, I meant that the only meaningful way of comparing processors is provided power for the same amount of money. If I need a server can can handle X load, and I can either get a dual AMD machine for $3000, or a single CPU Itanium for $6800, then the AMD one clearly wins, even if the CPU can do less work per second than the Itanium.
  
  Now, I didn't research this much, but my point is that all that matters is the cost of doing X task with AMD processors vs Intel ones. Clock speed is irrelevant when comparing completely different architectures. And the comparison of the fastest AMD CPU with the fastest Intel one is also mostly useless.
3. Re:Great by vadim_t · 2003-05-02 03:18 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  Well, unless your budget is unlimited, or whatever you're working on is not paralellizable, price/performance is still more important than the performance of an individual CPU. I'm pretty sure that eventually we'll have to switch to using multiple CPUs anyway.
MMmm.... by grub · 2003-05-01 23:34 · Score: 5, Funny

GinGin and TonicTonic with a good squeeze of LimeLime.

--
Trolling is a art,
Is it worth it? by AlistairGroves · 2003-05-01 23:36 · Score: 4, Interesting

So how big are the performance gains? And does this make it worth holding out for the Athlon 64 proccessors?
1. Re:Is it worth it? by g4dget · 2003-05-01 23:51 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  64bit is not primarily about raw processor speed, it's about being able to address more than 4G of memory. But, FWIW, the AMD chips seem to be a bit faster than the current crop of 32bit chips as well.
2. Re:Is it worth it? by ShonFerg · 2003-05-02 02:36 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Actually, the biggest speed boost from operating in 64-bit mode comes from the fact that Opteron/Athlon 64 has twice the general purpose and SSE registers, and also is the first AMD processor to support SSE2. The low register count has always been a stumbling point for x86 processors compared to other technologies like the PowerPC, which have many, many more. This is the fastest and most vital memory to any processor so adding more was an awesome decision, but of course they only work in 64-bit mode.
  
  The fact that it's 64-bit will only help you (double the speed, actually) if you're operating on 64-bit variables, which don't come up in general software very much, but are very good for scientific research, simulations, etc.
  
  And yes, you can directly address more than 4GB of memory... in fact each processor has it's own memory controller built in which also adds to the speed a bit and means that in multi-processor systems each processor gets its own bank of DIMMs.
  
  There's a wonderful article over at ArsTechnica which does a great job of explaining all the benefits of the x86-64 technology here.
  
  --Shon
Debian? by g4dget · 2003-05-01 23:49 · Score: 2, Interesting

How is the Debian support for the 64bit AMD chips coming along?
1. Re:Debian? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-05-01 23:58 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Hold on there buddy you're talking new technology + debian better wait about a decade.
2. Re:Debian? by drinkypoo · 2003-05-02 02:30 · Score: 2, Funny
  It's going great! Their plan for x86-64 support is coming along nicely:
  
  Wait for RedHat to implement x86-64 support.
  
  ?
  
  Profit!
  
  Of course, this is how it's done, this is what's so nice about FAOS programs, code reuse between projects. It is in particular what has made Linux the OS with the fastest-growing installed base, though I can't see how that could be true unless you lump all Windows together. Even lumping all NT together shouldn't work what with the 9x -> XP upgraders.
  --
  "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re:Technology Preview??? by Max+Romantschuk · 2003-05-01 23:49 · Score: 3, Informative

Technology Previews instead of plain old Beta??
What next, Mass User Testing instead of Release?

Actually, a Technology Preview usually signifies an Alpha. It's more like "We have something working" than "Please test this nearly-finished-product for us".

Not that I'm saying there's no hidden agenda, who knows? ;)

--
.: Max Romantschuk :: http://max.romantschuk.fi/
Re:Technology Preview??? by Timesprout · 2003-05-01 23:49 · Score: 3, Insightful

I think previews are a good idea as a measn of guaging customer response before commiting to a full release schedule of functionality and dates. Let potential customers play with it for a while and get their feedback without everyone wondering when it will be released, are dates slipping, will features be dropped rtc ad nauseum. It gives people a chance to properly evaluate and provide meaningful feedback

--
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Re:Yes but... by d^2b · 2003-05-01 23:53 · Score: 3, Informative

I saw opteron 242 processors on www.ncix.com
(a canadian company) for about euro 290 for
the retail box.

(For you norteamericanos, that is CAD 468)
Re:On what will it function? by vesamies · 2003-05-01 23:57 · Score: 5, Funny

I don't think it will. You know, AMD64 technology is only 64 bits, whereas Commondore 64 is 64K bytes, which according to my calculations is 524288 bits. Keep your C64 in a closet for a while longer...
More Details by Laven · 2003-05-02 00:18 · Score: 4, Informative

The RELEASE-NOTES of this technology preview appears to be almost exactly that of Red Hat Linux 9. Check out the discussion on AMD64-list for more details of what this Linux is capable of. Or rather, read the List Archives.
I personally ordered two Opteron servers this week. I plan on building an e-mail server and K12LTSP server using modified Red Hat Linux. My findings of success/failure when I figure out AMD64 Linux quirks will be posted to AMDMB.com in the coming weeks. (Also check out our Athlon Linux forum.)
From the AMD64-list discussion so far, there are only a few details:
* Kernel and all applications 64-bit compiled. This includes support for the larger memory address space and 16 registers. (SPEED!)
* AMD64 Linux *can* run 32-bit applications, unfortunately you would need 32-bit shared libraries that were not included in this technology preview. They said that they will be included in a possible future shipping distribution. I personally will try to research how to find/build these 32-bit shared libraries for myself, although I suspect it will show up on amd64-list soon enough.
* Existing 32-bit closed source programs like Macromedia Flash plugin 6.0 for Linux may work with 32-bit shared libraries, but not while running within 64-bit compiled Mozilla. You would need 32-bit compiled Mozilla. Bummer.
recompile by dpilot · 2003-05-02 00:23 · Score: 3, Interesting

But how good would a recompile for Itanium with gcc really be? I've been under the impression that the only really decent compiler for IA64 came from Intel/HP. It's a tough target to compile for.

--
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
ROTFL by Fefe · 2003-05-02 00:55 · Score: 2, Interesting

Yeah, right, like you log in to a public free Itanic server to run some benchmark and expect to be a) the only user of that machine and b) that nobody logs in and skews your numbers while the benchmark runs.

Besides, Itanic is a horrible performer in day to day tasks. I compiled my libc project on a 900 MHz Itanic II and it was outperformed by a factor of four by my 900 MHz Pentium 2 notebook.

I'm talking about the compilation speed here. Transcoding MPEG-2 to MPEG-4 is also a lot slower, a German university group did some Itanic assembly optimizations to learn about the architecture, and their code was still much slower than an Athlon XP+ 2000.

In short: forget about Itanic. The architecture is doomed.
Impossible! by gillbates · 2003-05-02 00:57 · Score: 5, Funny

So you mean to tell me that Linux is available on a 64 bit architecture before Windows?! Does Steve "Mr. Innovation" Balmer know about this?

We all know this is a hoax. It's not possible for open source software to "innovate"...

--
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Re:Is everything ready or will it take some while? by jjp5421 · 2003-05-02 01:24 · Score: 2, Informative

You forget that the Pentium (1) MMX processors doubled the L1 cache in the chip (16K to 32K I think), so even without MMX instructions in the software there was a good performance gain. As for the heat, they were still cooler than the Cyrix and AMD chips (only PowerPC's were running "cool" that year).
Hardly news..... by jocks · 2003-05-02 01:42 · Score: 2, Informative

I am surprised that this actually counts as news when SuSE repleased their 64bit version a couple of weeks ago.
Re:Technology Preview??? by _|()|\| · 2003-05-02 01:43 · Score: 2, Informative

Technology Previews instead of plain old Beta??
Matt Wilson explained this in the linked thread:
This isn't a beta for a product - it's a Technology Preview. Unlike a beta, it doesn't reflect what will be included in any planned future product. The next release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux ... will support the AMD64 platform in both 32 and 64 modes.
They're doing this to gain experience with the platform. This preview is based on RHL 9, whereas their first actual x86-64 product will probably be part of the next version of RHEL.
Overheard at Intel... by Glock27 · 2003-05-02 01:56 · Score: 5, Informative

"This thing is a steaming pile of crap, and we've spent almost ten years and billions of dollars!"
OK, it wasn't overheard at Intel. But it should have been.
SPEC2000 scores:
Itanic2/1 GHz.: 810/1174 int/fp
Opteron: 1202/1170 int/fp
The integer score is important for many general-purpose computing tasks, like web serving and database.
Gee, Opteron is MUCH less expensive, performs better, runs up to 8-way with off the shelf components and runs your 32-bit x86 code twice as fast and absolutely compatibly. Let me think about this... ;-)

--
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
1. Re:Overheard at Intel... by pmz · 2003-05-02 02:26 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  echo "I think all the current 64-bit CPU producers are thinking about this, too, and saying \"oh\" and \"um\" quite a bit trying to figure out there marketing plans." | sed -e "s/there/their/g"
  
  --
  Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
2. Re:Overheard at Intel... by Glock27 · 2003-05-02 02:47 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  To those who chimed in with "Overrated" mods...don't shoot the messenger. As someone said "To moderate is human, to reply divine". Let's see your rebuttal.
  BTW, I'm sorry about your Intel stock, especially regarding what's about to happen to it. ;-)
  
  --
  Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
  Score: -1 100% Flamebait
3. Re:Overheard at Intel... by Rob+Riggs · 2003-05-02 03:12 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  the OS kernel would need to know how to best schedule and allocate processes to [limit] CPUs from accessing other CPUs' memories
  
  And this technology must be Unix proprietary technology owned by SCO, because, god knows, no one else could come up with ccNUMA...
  
  --
  the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause
4. Re:Overheard at Intel... by Penguin's+Advocate · 2003-05-02 04:29 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Dude, Hypertransport + X-bar, processors accessing each other's memory isn't a problem at all (hence the reason bandwidth effectively doubles with doubling of processors)
  
  --
  Frag 'em all...
5. Re:Overheard at Intel... by Glock27 · 2003-05-02 08:20 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Clearly, with its low cost, comparable performance, and ease of porting 32-bit programs, AMD's Opteron is going to cut into Intel's Itanium sales.
  The real question is: what Itanium sales?
  Sure, Itanium sales are quite low right now. However, the whole idea of Itanium was to make a cheaper, faster, enterprise class server CPU that would kill SPARC, Alpha, PA-RISC and Power. It killed both HP architectures with marketing muscle alone. ;-) However, Itanic has decidely not lived up to the hype and the future isn't much brighter, IMO. Power is looking pretty good by comparison lately.
  I assume that AMD isn't just positioning the Opteron as an alternative to the Itanium, but also as a "power user" chip, aimed at a slightly more general audience (e.g. video editing, CAD, scientific applications).
  AMD has positioned Opteron as a general purpose workstation and server CPU.
  Opteron looks like it has best of breed performance, at a much lower system cost. I think there'll be quite a shift in the marketplace. AMD's recent alliance with IBM looks particularly promising. It looks like the main threats from Intel are monopolistic behavior and marketing. Intel technology isn't looking so hot...
  We'll see how it goes... I can't wait to get my hands on a dual Opteron workstation. :-)
  
  --
  Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
  Score: -1 100% Flamebait
Look what I found in the sources! by jeeryg_flashaccess · 2003-05-02 05:30 · Score: 2, Funny

"..inside sources say it's based on Red Hat 9 plus some updates."
...inside sources also say:

forward 50
right 90
forward 50
right 90
forward 50
right 90
forward 50
right 90

Mmmm Hmmmm.

--
Life is like pants... fit in or you don't fit in.
Re:There is a non-monetary cost of 64-bit, too. by g4dget · 2003-05-03 20:00 · Score: 2, Interesting

Breaking the 4G of memory does come at a cost, though. If your code uses a whole lot of pointers (many CAD & EDA packages do), then because the pointers take up twice the space they used to, you'll need up to 8G of physical memory to do the same task you could do with 4G on a 32-bit system. And twice the cache, and twice the memory bandwidth, too. It's a pretty steep cost!
That may be true for your average, poorly written desktop software, but it is false for well-written scientific or engineering software.
Such software usually uses arrays and indexes that are determined by problem size, as opposed to making everything a pointer. Many such programs may use 8 bit or 16 bit indexes for most of their data. Going to a 64 bit processor often will not affect the memory footprint of such programs significantly.