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Compaq Helps You "Test Drive" Linux and Unix
Ron Rangel writes " This website gives you quick, open, online access to simply run your applications on Linux. Or at least thats what they say." I tried it and it was kind of fun. You sign up (moderately intrusive questions), then Telnet (no ssh) into servers running several flavors of Unix and several Linux distros on different (Compaq) hardware platforms. Want to play with SuSE Linux on an Alpha (or whatever)? Here's your chance!
This is the newest encarnation of the world-beating clustering technology that everybody is trying to copy. Shared everything, multiple OS instances in the same box, dynamically reassignable memory/CPU between instances, seemless clustering. Read the Galaxy overview here. VMS has been doing clustering since 1985 better than any Unix does it today and it's improved a lot since then. Yet somehow, OpenVMS gets the rap as being outmoded.
Disclosure statement: Yes, I am a Compaq employee. No, I'm not speaking for Compaq.
I was playing along with a small encryption program I have written (Idea implementation) which takes suitable amount of time on my home machine.
./encrypt_cc ./encrypt_ccc
:)
The results are fascinating:
Encrypting a file named "data" without any compiler optimization switches took:
[ph2ph@spe85 ~]$ ls -la data
-rw-r--r-- 1 ph2ph nis 76592295 Sep 24 21:46 data
[ph2ph@spe85 ~]$ time
72.125u 1.414s 4:31.80 27.0% 0+0k 0+0io 76pf+0w
[ph2ph@spe85 ~]$ time
26.203u 1.169s 0:42.64 64.1% 0+0k 0+0io 78pf+0w
As you can see, things are pretty freaky.. 42 seconds with ccc (*their* compiler) versus 4.31 minutes with gcc. I could've compiled with -02 however that optimizes code about 2 times only...
Anyone have a comment on that? Hmm.. btw this happened on the RedHat machine. I'm still to test on the Tru64
I was there a few weeks ago, on the dual DS-20 Redhat machine, and even ended up in a talk session with the root user there for well over an hour (wish I could find his email so I could get his name...).
When I first talked with him, I mentioned that I was surprised Slashdot hadn't caught wind of it, though Freshmeat had. I then got to read the root user begging me not to post it here, as he wasn't nearly prepared for it =) Due to the results I'll mention in following, I quickly lost interest in it.
The machine was fairly impressive, but had obvious problems. Compiling was practically impossible as it crashed errors reminicent of a severely overheated CPU. Either that, or they had some major code problems. I only tried out gcc compiling kernels, and never did try out Compaq's compiler.
For years now, the Alpha's have reigned supreme as the absolute best CPU around, despite it's age. If only Compaq or one of the licensee companies, such as Samsung (I believe Intel and a few others have rights to produce the chips as well) would just pump out the chips and eat the losses for a year or so, the x86 architecture would be obsolete in probably 2-4 years. According to the man I spoke to, Compaq was about to start doing exactly that with the less expensive DS-10 chips.
Also, he said they would have a contest soon to win a free DS-10 based machine. I know Compaq has done some publicity on it, but basically it's a contest to write software to best demonstrate the abilities of an Alpha processor versus an x86. Or, at least, that was that I was told a few weeks ago.
Still dreaming of having a quad-81364/2Ghz machine on my desk in a couple years.... [drool]...
New Linux cracking contest. Do I get to keep it if I win?
I talk'd with one of the Compaq techs who was online (he was logged in as root, I assume it was one of the techs :), and he said they will have "BSD" on Intel and Alpha "early next week." Which "BSD" they would have he didn't seem to know (I'm assuming FreeBSD, but who knows)
My journal has hot
What??? Obsolete compiler? Obsolete kernel? What are you talking about?
While these are not the absolute latest version, they are fairly recent (RH6 uses 2.2.5 and egcs-1.1.2). Have you checked the uptime on these boxes? (I don't have access...). 2.2.11 and 2.2.12 came out only in the last couple of months or so. It is highly likely that the boxes haven't been restarted since then...(why should they be?)
AFAIK, there are no distros that come with SMP compiled into it out of the box. So, someone HAD to compile this SMP kernel. This was not a corporate maintained computer! Someone took the time to install the kernel.
The compiler is a fairly standard one (not the latest and great, but still it is within 3-4 months old). gcc-2.95 is out, but the differences are not groundbreaking. There are still tons of people using gcc 2.6 and lower out there. A lot of the changes have to do with Intel optimizations, not Alpha optimizations...
This is not supposed to be a development box, but rather a test box to showcase the hardware and a guide to help port some of the code to run on these screamers.
The X clients are disabled for security reasons. You do not need X in order to test compilation and porting. The X libraries have already been ported to Alpha and work rather well. This should not be the focus of any porting effort. The X libraries are just that - the provide a standard API to which to code.
It goes without mention why they can not see any box outside of dec.com. Duh. Security 101 will tell you why...
BTW, a dual Celeron will die in comparison to a duel Alpha. This is of course assuming an optimized compiler and code on both sides. The Alpha is 64-bit with tons of cache. The Celeron is a 32-bit processor with hardly any cache. There isn't a chance in hell that the crippled Celeron can keep up.
Crawl back from whence you came!
Justin
P.S. I know this is pure flamebait, but this person is a complete yutz!
Mu. P.S. The address you see is real. =)
Ok, moderator types... the top-ranked comment on just about every story I've read today has been pumped up on "funny." And most of it's not that funny.
:)
Let's exercise those "insightful" and "informative" buttons once in a while, eh?
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
After you play with it a while. (actually i think the idea is that you are suppose to upload, build/port and run your own software). Anyway when you are done, fill out the questionare and they will send you a Linux license plate (way cool), a redhat cap (red), and a little toy compaq car (gave to my kid :)).
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
login: icepick
;)
Password:
Welcome to RedHat Alpha Linux 6.0 Land!
This is a Dual AlphaServer 1200
Please do not run any "RC5/SETI type" processes
If you do I will dis-user your account
That's too bad.
By selling cheap hardware of course! :P
Daniel
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
When I first checked this out it was my feeling that this was intended for corporations who are evaluating possibilities to port their software to a different platform.
Say they've got an awesome app on Unixware. But they heard that a 64bit platform will greatly enhance performance? How do they know how hard it will be to port the app, and then whether there'll be any benefit? They'd have to buy the hardware and tools, and everything just for a chance to evaluate what the platform will do for them. A lot of people are obviously turned away by the inherent risks. This takes that risk away by providing the tools for free, and even providing "contracts" to get your app ported.
I don't think their intent was for 50,000 /.'ers to get a free account to "mess" around in :-) I surely doubt this was for newbies either, hopefully if they are experienced enough to have software to run on it, they've passwd the newbie stage.
-Brent--