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Old 5th April 2009
Graaf_van_Vlaanderen Graaf_van_Vlaanderen is offline
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Default DragonFly BSD evaluation

I successfully installed DragonFly BSD on a Tyan S2892. There are however several issues:

1. The kernel only sees 3GB of the 4GB of memory. I think this is a typical i86 desease, which also exists in FreeBSD. I guess to solve this a kernel recompile is required...or the AMD64 version if it would be available in DragonFly BSD

2. The DragonFly BSD kernel apparently only sees one core of the total 4 CPU cores available: two dual core Operon 275 CPUs or the CPU load spreading is simply wrong.

Here is a test that proves this, by running a GNU Octave script (see below) that measures the calculation time.
In the first test I just ran one script, the second time the script was run two times at the same time.

Elapsed time for a 100X100 matrix:

Single run in FreeBSD (AMD64): 74s
Single run in DragonFlyBSD: 66s

Two concurrent runs in FreeBSD (AMD64): 74s for each run
Two concurrent runs in DragonFlyBSD: 132s for each run

FreeBSD is doing what you expect, spread the load, while DragonFlyBSD seems to put to different processes in one core.

Any thoughts?

Code:
clear all
runs=3;
% (5)
cumulate = 0; p = 0; vt = 0; vr = 0; vrt = 0; rvt = 0; RV = 0; j = 0; k = 0;
x2 = 0; R = 0; Rxx = 0; Ryy = 0; Rxy = 0; Ryx = 0; Rvmax = 0; f = 0;
for i = 1:runs
  x = abs(randn(100,100));
  tic;
    % Calculation of Escoufier's equivalent vectors
    p = size(x, 2);
    vt = [1:p];                                % Variables to test
    vr = [];                                   % Result: ordered variables
    RV = [1:p];                                % Result: correlations
    for j = 1:p                                % loop on the variable number
      Rvmax = 0;
      for k = 1:(p-j+1)                        % loop on the variables
        if j == 1
          x2 = [x, x(:, vt(k))];
        else
          x2 = [x, x(:, vr), x(:, vt(k))];     % New table to test
        end
        R = corrcoef(x2);                      % Correlations table
        Ryy = R(1:p, 1:p);
        Rxx = R(p+1:p+j, p+1:p+j);
        Rxy = R(p+1:p+j, 1:p);
        Ryx = Rxy';
        rvt = trace(Ryx*Rxy)/((trace(Ryy^2)*trace(Rxx^2))^0.5); % RV calculation
        if rvt > Rvmax
          Rvmax = rvt;                         % test of RV
          vrt(j) = vt(k);                      % temporary held variable
        end
      end
      vr(j) = vrt(j);                          % Result: variable
      RV(j) = Rvmax;                           % Result: correlation
      f = find(vt~=vr(j));                     % identify the held variable
      vt = vt(f);                              % reidentify variables to test
      
    end
  timing = toc;
  cumulate = cumulate + timing;
 
end
times(5, 3) = timing;
disp(['Escoufier''s method on a 100x100 matrix (mixed)________ (sec): ' num2str(timing)])
clear x; clear p; clear vt; clear vr; clear vrt; clear rvt; clear RV; clear j; clear k;
clear x2; clear R; clear Rxx; clear Ryy; clear Rxy; clear Ryx; clear Rvmax; clear f;
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Old 6th April 2009
mwatkins mwatkins is offline
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Quote:
3GB of the 4GB of memory.
Almost off topic, but can someone confirm ifmore recent versions of FreeBSD make visible the remaining 1GB? Or is this a hardware architecture problem that has no work around? (I have an older P-III dual cpu machine with 4GB taunting me as 3GB)
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Old 6th April 2009
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This is today's 640KB limit. A 32-bit processor uses one 32 bit word for each pointer. This limits memory size to 4GB (2^32=4G). As you have 4GB + your graphics memory, you cannot see all your memory.

I think that more recent ones do not write off the top GB to make space for the video ram, but I am not sure. It may be that you do have access to 4GB total space, but it is not displayed correctly.

You cannot see all your memory unless you switch to amd64.

Edit: I did, of course, forget about PAE, which is discussed below. Think about it as the 'himem.sys' of the 4GB limit. That's if you don't have to use it. If you have to use it, try not to think too much about it. It's better that way.
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Last edited by robbak; 6th April 2009 at 12:21 PM.
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Old 6th April 2009
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To get the most out of your memory - see AMD64; or refer to 'PAE' on Wikipedia. Not all flaviours of BSD may support it.

I think I would take an amd64 build over an i386 PAE build anyday (note: amd64 like i386 is just an old name for the arch; not the chip required!)
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Old 6th April 2009
mwatkins mwatkins is offline
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I see. Interesting. I recall running across this some years ago during the 5.x release and realizing that my processor wasn't supported (it still isn't - it doesn't support the EM64 mode).

http://www.freebsd.org/releases/7.1R...tml#PROC-AMD64

Something to keep in mind when I go shopping for another server or lease.
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Old 6th April 2009
Graaf_van_Vlaanderen Graaf_van_Vlaanderen is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mwatkins View Post
Almost off topic, but can someone confirm ifmore recent versions of FreeBSD make visible the remaining 1GB? Or is this a hardware architecture problem that has no work around? (I have an older P-III dual cpu machine with 4GB taunting me as 3GB)
Perhaps this thread on the all FreeBSD forum might be of interest for
you:

http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=3064

Normally a 32-bit system should be able to access up to 64GB of memory with a kernel adjustment. The drawback is that the system will be somewhat slower.
I used to work with a compute server with 32GB of memory running a
32-bit Red Hat kernel.
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Old 7th April 2009
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A 32-bit kernel can only access 4 GB of RAM. A 32-bit process can only access 4 GB of RAM (actually less due to the way kernel memory is separated from user memory, usually in a 2/2 split, but some OSes can use 1 GB kernel/3 GB user).

A 32-bit kernel using PAE can access 64 GB of RAM, although most systems seem to be limited to less (BIOS? chipset? CPU?). A 32-bit process cannot access more than 4 GB of RAM. The only benefit to PAE is that it enables you to run multiple 32-bit processes, each accessing their own separate 4 GB.

A 64-bit kernel can access (currently) 2^48 bytes of RAM (limited by the width of the physical address bus, or whatever it's called), and a 64-bit process can also access the whole 2^48 bytes of RAM (or does that use the full 2^64 logical memory space? this physical limitation always confuses me). Eventually, the hardware/memory/address (whatever it's called) bus will be widened out to the complete 2^64 bytes of RAM.

Hence the "rule of thumb" that if you need to access/use more than 4 GB of RAM (more than 3 GB actually), you should use a 64-bit system.
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