Linux distributives for Opteron

[Donald Becker]

On Thu, 20 Mar 103, Mikhail Kuzminsky wrote:

> Subject: Linux distributives for Opteron
> 
>     By RedHat it was declared that x86-64 support will be realized
> in the frames of RH Linux Advanced Server distributive.
> But what is known about much more cheap RH Linux professional (according
> our experience, it is enough for building beowulf clusters w/2-cpu's
> nodes) ? According my data, x86-64 support in RH may be realized
> just at summer.

As I have hinted in my postings (and at our SC02 demo), we have been
working on Opteron support.  Although I don't see any race to be first
with a no-cost, full-support release.

The x86-64 backwards-compatible approach means that there are several
different levels that can be supported:

  Fixing the few minor issues with running entirely in 32 bit mode.
  (Easily done.  Our distribution and I believe most others have already
  made the changes.)

  A release with a 64 bit kernel, both 32 and 64 bit libraries and
  compiler chain, using 32 bit utilities and applications.  This
  involves tracking down some obscure library bugs(*), but most
  everything works.  With a few days work you can do this at home.
  It took a few weeks of work for our system.

  A 64 bit kernel, with a mix of tools compiled for 32 and 64 bits as
  needed.

  A 64 bit release, with all tools recompiled and 32 bit libraries only
  used by third party applications.

  A release with a 64 bit kernel, dynamically supporting both 32 and 64
  bit compute nodes.  That means
    detecting and providing the correct kernel to the compute nodes,
    limiting x86-64 applications to nodes that can support them
    controlling application processes on either 32 or 64 compute nodes


*1 How can 'sleep' dump core?  Oh, when it's GNU sleep that has support for
  converting from extra-planetary time units and then calling
  nanosleep().  Grrrr...

-- 
Donald Becker				becker at scyld.com
Scyld Computing Corporation		http://www.scyld.com
410 Severn Ave. Suite 210		Scyld Beowulf cluster system
Annapolis MD 21403			410-990-9993