[Beowulf] Athlon64 / Opteron test

[Robert G. Brown]

On Fri, 14 May 2004, Donald Becker wrote:

> 
> [[ The mailing list should now be back up and running for all
> subscribers.  I'll write up the long story of the Beowulf Mailing List
> problems over the weekend, assuming that everything continues running.
>   - DJB]]
> 
> On Fri, 14 May 2004, Greg Lindahl wrote:
> 
> > On Fri, May 14, 2004 at 11:49:34AM -0400, Robert G. Brown wrote:
> >
> > > rgb at s02|B:1003>./Ospin
> > > -bash: ./Ospin: /lib/ld-linux.so.2: bad ELF interpreter: No such file or directory
> > > rgb at s02|B:1004>
> > 
> > Pilot error. You have to install a couple of additional rpms to run
> > 32-bit stuff on an Opteron. The annoying thing about it is that they
> > have the same names as x86_64 packages, grrrr. In this case you need
> > glibc-*.i686.rpm.
> 
> That makes it sound easier than it really is...
> 
> We distribute 32 bit library RPMs with the Scyld Beowulf for AMD64
> distribution.  But those libraries are not just a simple duplication of
> the x86 32 bit RPMs.
> 
> The 32 bit library RPMs must contain only the libraries, not other
> configuration and documentation files.  The libraries must placed
> in the proper directories or otherwise made to have non-conflicting
> names.  Some libraries that exist only as 32 bit versions must be placed
> in the LSB-standard location.  And all of this get extra complicated
> with 3rd party compilers.
> 
> We started out with an ad hoc approach, using the 32 bit RPMs, but
> quickly decided that it had too many exceptions to support for end users.

We just haven't messed with trying to (build and/or) install the
compatibility libraries on our Opterons (yet).  It's not that big a deal
to do a recompile or rebuild to 64 bit code (for cleanly written
applications), and we're currently using all our Opterons as relatively
thin compute nodes so it is typically only one or two strictly numerical
applications that need the recompile.  If/when they start showing up on
the desktop, perhaps this will change.

I haven't looked at the latest version of the fedora64 core to see if
somebody has built and contributed the libraries in a way that will
kickstart/yum (sheer laziness on my part, let's see:

rgb at s02|B:1001>yum list glibc\*
Gathering header information file(s) from server(s)
Server: Fedora Core  1 - x86_64 - base
Server: Physics RHL
Server: Fedora Core  1 - x86_64 - updates
Finding updated packages
Downloading needed headers
Looking in Available Packages:
Name                                Arch   Version                  Repo        
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
glibc                               i686   2.3.2-101.4              base        
glibc-debug                         x86_64 2.3.2-101.4              base        
glibc-devel                         i386   2.3.2-101.4              base        
glibc-profile                       x86_64 2.3.2-101.4              base        
glibc-utils                         x86_64 2.3.2-101.4              base        
 
Looking in Installed Packages:
Name Arch Version Repo        
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
glibc                               x86_64 2.3.2-101.4              db          
glibc-common                        x86_64 2.3.2-101.4              db          
glibc-devel                         x86_64 2.3.2-101.4              db          
glibc-headers                       x86_64 2.3.2-101.4              db          
glibc-kernheaders                   x86_64 2.4-8.36                 db          
 
Hmmm, looks like there is a glibc i686.  I'm home, and not eager to try
a secondary glibc install from here because messing with glibc on a
running system HAS been known to crash systems;-) but perhaps next week
I'll experiment with this some

If this fedora rpm just "works", it should be fairly simple to get it to
install in kickstart (if necessary in the %post), but I'm not sure how
to get it to install in yum.  I'll ask Seth about it -- if this is a
compatibility library rpm, it should probably have a name like
glibc_i686 or glibc_32 to make it easier to install and update.

   rgb

-- 
Robert G. Brown	                       http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/
Duke University Dept. of Physics, Box 90305
Durham, N.C. 27708-0305
Phone: 1-919-660-2567  Fax: 919-660-2525     email:rgb at phy.duke.edu