7.1-RELEASE AMD64 SMP kernel???

[Randux]

Hi,

I may be hallucinating but I was sure FreeBSD shows each of the CPUs in top. I just installed 7.1-RELEASE from the AMD64 DVD and only one CPU is showing. I can't find a kernel package on the disk.

Isn't the default kernel SMP-enabled? Does anybody know anything about this?

Thanks,
Rand

Edit: more info: I do see "CPU 1 LAUNCHED!" on the startup so presumably the kernel is SMP-enabled.

[Oliver_H]

>Isn't the default kernel SMP-enabled?

Yes: http://svn.freebsd.org/viewvc/base/r...60&view=markup

>I may be hallucinating but I was sure FreeBSD shows each of the CPUs in top.

No, as far as I know there is a UNIX top in beta since some months. Htop uses a new extension to the Linuxulator and shows both of the cpus.

[Randux]

That's odd, both OpenBSD and NetBSD show each CPU separately. top does show CPU assignments in the work listing however. At one point I saw different tasks running under CPU0 and CPU1.

[phoenix]

When top is run on an SMP kernel, you get an extra column labelled C that shows which CPU a process is running on. Top in FreeBSD has always shown a single line in the summary that shows the usage % across all CPUs (unlike Linux top which shows either a single line, or separate lines for each CPU).

[Randux]

Thank you.

[phoenix]

FreeBSD 7.1 includes a new top with a -P option that shows separate per-CPU stats lines. I thought this was an 8-CURRENT-only feature, but the release notes show it is in 7.1.

[Randux]

Thanks, I'll try it. I'm going back to 7.1-i386 on my Core 2 Duo box today to try to install VMWare. It goes a long time in ports before finally spitting out a message that it doesn't build on AMD64 (groan).

[Oko]

Originally Posted by Randux

Thanks, I'll try it. I'm going back to 7.1-i386 on my Core 2 Duo box today to try to install VMWare. It goes a long time in ports before finally spitting out a message that it doesn't build on AMD64 (groan).

Back to your original question.

systat

should show you two separate processors and load on each of them.
I am not sure that VMWare is building on FreeBSD period. That might be
one of many stale ports which needs to be pruned. Could you please post your experience with VMWare on FreeBSD.

[Randux]

Originally Posted by phoenix

FreeBSD 7.1 includes a new top with a -P option that shows separate per-CPU stats lines. I thought this was an 8-CURRENT-only feature, but the release notes show it is in 7.1.

Yeah, it's exactly what I wanted. Thanks!

[Randux]

Originally Posted by Oko

Back to your original question.

systat

should show you two separate processors and load on each of them.
I am not sure that VMWare is building on FreeBSD period. That might be
one of many stale ports which needs to be pruned. Could you please post your experience with VMWare on FreeBSD.

I tried to build it on 7.1-RELEASE-AMD64. It downloads a lot of stuff and wastes a lot of time and then gives a message that the port is not valid on AMD64.

I just installed 7.1-RELEASE-i386 and spent a few hours getting myself situated. I built vmware3 again from ports. It built ok but it does not come up. I am getting a message that says "could not open /dev/vmmon: No such file or directory. Please make sure that the kernel module 'vmmon' is loaded."

kldstat doesn't show vmmon but I also don't know where to find it. The documentation I found isn't helpful, it's old and apparently the port maintainer doesn't give a sh$t about this port. Not sure why, since no other reasonable (production ready) virtualization is available in ports.

I have done some searching and a few people reported this problem and nobody answered them. If I can't get this to work soon I will dump my i386 install and try openSUSE next, of all things. OMG somebody help me. openSUSE is officially "supported" by VirtualBox. Maybe it will work.

[Oko]

Originally Posted by Randux

If I can't get this to work soon I will dump my i386 install and try openSUSE next, of all things. OMG somebody help me. openSUSE is officially "supported" by VirtualBox. Maybe it will work.

If you want virtualization on BSD the way to go is NetBSD and Xen.
If I had to use Linux for anything serious IMHO the way to go is CentOS(RedHat).

[Randux]

Have you used NetBSD and Xen?

I have a serious Linux, it's called SLACKWARE.

BTW Xen is turn-key on openSUSE 11.1. It works like magic. openSUSE is a super nice commercial, kitchen-sink distro. But Heaven help you if anything ever goes wrong...it's all smoke and mirrors.