Compaq Helps You "Test Drive" Linux and Unix 129
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!
Re:Speed of EV6? (Score:1)
I compiled kernel 2.2.10 on the Alpha RedHat box, and noticed it took 7 minutes, which I thought was a bit long. I was thinking NFS was slowing it down, but what you posted made perfect sense
delay before login ids work? (Score:1)
-Peter
Re:r00t (Score:2)
Re:anyone got user/pass ? (Score:1)
38029 South Ranch Road 2938
Lurkey TX 78696
Go ahead. Mail never gets here anyway :)
Re:Not geared towards newbies (Score:1)
Ehhh?..streaming video of someone typing?
Go with the SuSE box (Score:2)
The SuSE box allows outgoing network connections (I have an xterm open on it) and even has ssh installed!
By the way, be careful typing those IP addresses... I got the wrong one by mistake and in place of a login I got something like "This is not a public machine. Your attempt to connect has been logged."
OpenVMS Galaxy Test Drive (Score:3)
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 [digital.com]. 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.
Some test results (Score:3)
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 want my toys! (Score:1)
Re:Very cool indeed. (Score:2)
Hey, its a small time operation. I have very little users, and virtually zero load. And I can take my dsl up to 2/3 the speed of a T1, which more than ample for a sizeable number of users. For the bots and small web pages on my box, its more than plenty at the moment.
I have yet to recive a complaint from any user to date.
----------------------------------------------
Talked with root... (Score:3)
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]...
eh? (Score:2)
Eh? How have they been serciving the open source community since 1994?
At any rate... I think this is a rairly good thing. At the very least, it gives average folks at home who may thing that *nix is too complicated a chance to see it. And this may be the only chance for a whole bunch of people, who are afraid to commit to using it, and who don't have access to it anywhere else (work, school, etc.).
--
Matt Singerman
How about more choices? (Score:2)
Bjoern
anyone got user/pass ? (Score:1)
Re:eh? (Score:2)
But, then, it seems like Digital has been helping out since sometime before 1994... Oh well.
Cool! (Score:3)
Re:How about more choices? (Score:3)
Re:Talked with root... (Score:3)
He mentioned that he had had a long day (he'd been in since 7 a.m.) and that once
Compiling was no problem, although admittedly, I only compiled a small program.
Oh yeah, DON'T try to start X. I got majorly chewed out by root for it (thats the reason I got a chance to talk with root
Good for Beowulf shopping. (Score:1)
Re:Cool! (Score:1)
Re:Some test results (Score:1)
Re:Don't forget the toys they give you (Score:2)
Nicer box (Score:1)
FTP to the S.u.S.e. 6.1 Linux on Alpha (Score:1)
Re:Some test results (Score:2)
So ccc generates code about 2.7 times faster than gcc without optimizations. If the speedup with -O2 is really about 100% that you end up with a 40% overhead, which is not great but IMHO an acceptable price for portability.
Re:Speed of EV6? (Score:2)
The benchmark allocates a 1 MB array (256K x 32-bit unsigned int (no, I didn't use "long" on the alpha
ev6@500MHz: 7.23seconds cpu
celeron366: 8.49seconds cpu
pentiumpro: 13.67seconds cpu
The ev6 beat my humble 366c but I'm afraid my friend's 500 MHz Celeron beats it soundly. I don't remember the numbers he told me yesterday, but I remember it beating my 366 by 25% or so.
Re:r00t (Score:1)
Re:64 megabyte benchmark (Score:2)
Celeron366: 17.3 seconds CPU
EV6@500MHz: 19.3 seconds CPU
PentiumPro: 27.0 seconds CPU (200MHz, 256Kcache)
Re:No one remembers axposf.dec.com? (Score:1)
Ah, for the days when gatekeeper.dec.com was *the* place to find things...
I opted not to post this (Score:2)
This is geared twards application developers to get things done, unfortunately its been posted to slashdot now, so I guess every script kiddie and there leet gr00p are hacking away at it right now.
Crap. Now where am I going to compile new kernels at.
Re:Obsolete systems (Score:3)
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!
Slashdot: Jokes for nerds, stuff that's funny (Score:5)
Let's exercise those "insightful" and "informative" buttons once in a while, eh?
Re:Some test results (Score:1)
My fault, I admit. However I tested the same compiled with -O2 and the results were no different.
There was a difference, however not as big as the 100% I get on my home AMD.
I tested it on the alpha too, however they have not provided a gcc there. The DEC C compiler
they had was running just a hint faster than the ccc on x86.
I wouldn't like to comment on whether GCC should be used implicitly (I'm not advertising for that ccc too), but IMHO the tools they have can only improve what we already have.
Then again I am still sticking with gcc no matter what -- I simply don't want to *buy* a C compiler
Ragards: F2F
Re:Cool! (Score:1)
They've got some auditing going on, but if some doofus wanted to crack them it wouldn't be hard.
*I* wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole, but there are lots of folks who would.
Re:eh? (Score:2)
Having the average person who knows nothing about unix telnet into one of those unix boxes and presenting him or her with an obscure command prompt will only reconfirm the perception that unix is too difficult to use. As a means of selling unix to a new user, it's difficult to think of a worse way of presenting unix.
Re:Some test results (Score:1)
I was in awe of the Tru64 compiler. Of course, it's got a preprocessor macro expansion bug. (I guess I should report that
Compaq is Digital is Compaq (Score:1)
I know it might seem strange but that is the way it is. Think of it this way, there are more Digital "Heritage" people at Compaq than non Digital "Heritage" people. So, I wouldn't call it taking credit for Dec's work.
Not for the first time (Score:2)
According to the HBS Press 1996 book " The Internet Strategy Handbook [harvard.edu] ", DEC (now owned by Compaq) was doing something similar already in late 1992 with their Alpha "Test Drive" program.
I'm not sure if they had anything similar after that, but it is nice to see them feature Linux this way.
--
Re:RedHat 6.0 has a default SMP kernel (Score:1)
Re:eh? (Score:1)
It was Digital who sent Linus an alpha some years ago to port linux to it. They even shipped to him on vacation in Australia of all places. (or so the story goes.)
Re:Don't forget the toys they give you (Score:1)
Re:Damn! No RC5 (Score:1)
FWIW, sparc processors (ultra's esp.) are the same way. Makes me wonder why everyone is so quick to throw Sun enterprise servers out as web servers (esp. https:// servers.)
Now, if we can get Oracle to push out an Alpha/Linux database server, we'd be cookin' with nitro!
Re:Who said they didnt support *BSD? (Score:1)
Re:delay before login ids work? (Score:1)
yes, but (Score:1)
Mine was instantaneous (Score:1)
Re:Cool! (Score:1)
Probably none of the 3 who did moderate it up in that time knew they would be raising it above 2 either.
Not bad... (Score:1)
228.208u 71.400s 3:52.57 128.8% 0+0k 0+0io 280784pf+0w
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
Oop, spoke too soon. (Score:1)
206.880u 15.570s 1:57.35 189.5% 0+0k 0+0io -1562994900pf+0w
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
Machines are firewalled to hell and back. (Score:3)
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
Re:64 megabyte benchmark (Score:1)
Byte-manipulation isn't one of Alpha's strong points, especially if you're compiling with GCC. (One reason why using an Alpha as a web server is probably a waste of money.)
If you want a real idea of memory bandwidth, use a benchmark designed for the purpose, like STREAM [virginia.edu]. Or, even better, benchmark using the applications and data that are important to you.
In any case, it's irresponsible to post benchmark results without making the benchmark available. Show us the code! I strongly suspect that what you are measuring isn't memory bandwidth at all.
Re:eh? (Score:1)
By not sueing anyone involved with Linux or Open Source.
Re:r00t (Score:1)
Re:Speed of EV6? (Score:1)
This proves nothing until you profile the code. It could be that your random number generator eats more CPU time on alpha for whatever reason... You also neglected to mention what compiler you were using -- gcc on alpha is not terribly efficient.
Re:Here's the C code for Benchmark ;) (Score:2)
Sorry... I should have said "memory copying" since I use memcpy(). As for Byte-manipulation not being a strong point of Alpha, well, isn't the point of a general-purpose CPU/memory subsystem benchmark to uncover these kind of things?
"If you want a real idea of memory bandwidth... use...Stream..."
Nope, I wasn't trying to assess memory bandwidth. By "memory access speed" I was referring to memory latency, a critical variable to system performance.
"...benchmark using the applications and data that are important to you."
heheh. Yeah, sure. The reason synthetic benchmarks and "application conglomeration" benchmarks exist is largely because of: 1) It's frequently damned hard to benchmark systems using the real application, complete with users, data, and all that. 2) Some computers are used in a very general purpose way. I do all manner of work on my little linux boxes, for example, and that pales in comparison to the wide-ranging use of some of the larger systems where I work.
"...it's irresponsible to post benchmark results without making the benchmark available...".
Dang. You've got me there. I wonder if we can get the Imark benchmarks from Intel, btw, to see how they've been biasing them toward the newer instructions as they introduce extended instruction sets...
Anyway, my page [tfn.net] contains a link to the code [tfn.net] for the 1 megabyte version of the benchmark in question.
daul alpha? (Score:1)
gee, that shows off their server real well!
Re:r00t (Score:1)
Re:Not geared towards newbies (Score:2)
Re:OpenVMS Galaxy Test Drive (Score:1)
It's ironic to hear an opinion like this on Slashdot. If the application is Open Source or Java, it runs on OpenVMS just fine.
There is often some porting effort required with Open Sources onto OpenVMS, but it's not bad and it's getting better all the time. DEC/Compaq have greatly improved the C compiler and libraries such that most Unix C sources just compile and run. Configuration scripts in sh or bash can be a problem, but someone has ported bash to run on OpenVMS now, so maybe that will be less of a problem in the future.
Perl builds out-of-the-box (latest.tar.gz) on OpenVMS, so there's the ever-increasing catalog of Perl applications available.
Apache was recently ported. There are also a number of excellent 'native' web servers to choose from on OpenVMS. The most popular is the OSU (Ohio State University) HTTPD. It's been running multi-threaded (Posix Threads) since 1994. At one time, it was probably the most popular multi-threaded web server in the world, although that honor probably goes to multi-threaded Apache or IIS now.
There's a Python port that I believe is pretty up-to-date, but I don't know much about this.
Compaq has the first (and only today?) 64-bit implementations of Java, for Tru64 Unix and OpenVMS. See here [compaq.com] for information. So, the Java catalog of apps will be available with world-beating Alpha performance.
There's a team forming now to port the server part of Star Office to OpenVMS. So, OpenVMS may be a fine platform for Office apps soon.
Oracle runs on OpenVMS. So, if you need that world-beating clustering for a DB Server, you can run Oracle.
I apologize to Slashdot readers for filling up this discussion with what seems like OpenVMS marketing. Although I do work for Compaq, I'm far from holding any marketing position. I'm just a happy user and consultant on OpenVMS systems.
I suspect that this 'Anonymous Coward' is someone who works for one of the Unix vendors that seem to want to spread FUD about OpenVMS in good Holloween Document style.
Read the Holloween Documents. One of Microsoft's concerns is that they can't attack Linux with FUD regarding the future of it as a platform, as they can any other vendor's products. Standard FUD from Microsoft is to make people believe that only MS products will survive in the long term and have good application support. I've seen a number of examples of people who work for a certain Unix vendor who have been trying to spread the same kind of FUD against OpenVMS lately. This particular FUD is just not true and in the Open Source or thin-client world of the future, it's largely irrelevant anyway.
Disclaimer: Yes, I work for Compaq. No, I don't speak for Compaq.
Re:Speed of EV6? (Score:2)
Yes, you're right on this one. I compiled with the Compaq compiler with -O and got much better results: 2.2 seconds CPU time.
Looks like the lowly Celeron is soundly beaten, after all.
BTW, the code is posted on my web page, listed in a comment above.
Re:Speed of Intel 450? (Score:2)
Code link is on page listed in above comment.
Re:r00t (Score:1)
Re:Is this still too complex for newbies? (Score:1)
passwd? As in "You have to be at least this experienced or we won't let you log in"?
Fascinating.
some info (Score:2)
Talked to root too and got some additional info:
Re:anyone got user/pass ? (Score:1)
Not geared towards newbies (Score:2)
r00t (Score:2)
Seriously - I hope they firewalled those boxes so they can't be used as springboards to attack other sites. This could quickly turn into a publicity-stunt-gone-bad.
--
Nice box (Score:2)
cpu : Alpha
cpu model : EV56
cpu variation : 7
cpu revision : 0
cpu serial number :
system type : Rawhide
system variation : Tincup
system revision : 0
system serial number : NI82904549
cycle frequency [Hz] : 531914893
timer frequency [Hz] : 1200.00
page size [bytes] : 8192
phys. address bits : 40
max. addr. space # : 127
BogoMIPS : 671.08
kernel unaligned acc : 0 (pc=0,va=0)
user unaligned acc : 75 (pc=120002aa0,va=120106134)
platform string : AlphaServer 1200 5/533 4MB
CPUs probed 2 active 2 map 0x3 IPIs 3509024
Re:r00t (Score:1)
Great Service (Score:2)
I've been using this little cluster for a while to port appliations to the various flavors they offer.
They get to show off their hardware, which is rather nice, and I get ported apps.
These aren't very loaded machines tho, If you want to do anything more then porting or benchmarking, on them look elsewhere.
Don't forget the toys they give you (Score:4)
Damn! No RC5 (Score:3)
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.
finally (Score:2)
-earl
RedHat 6.0 has a default SMP kernel (Score:2)
Sometime during the installation, it sees if you have more then one CPU or not, and installs what kernel it needs to.
I just assumed that other distos had SMP default kernels too. Or is Red Hat 6.0 the only one?
Re:Cool! (Score:1)
I applaude Compaq/Digital for doing this. As for the would be jack***es that will ruin this for everyone, do the world a favor and commit suicide.
Maybe some of you will remember axp.pa.dec.com. Years ago, digital had two Alphas set aside for people to test their software -- completely unrestricted (those testdrive boxes are very closed) -- with accounts that didn't expire in 30 days. As long as you kept using it, digital would leave the account active.
Would you go out and buy a top-of-the-line VAX if you had no experience with one -- and zero experience with VMS?
To answer your question... NO. Compaq will simply put the machine(s) back in their internal testing group and never again offer free access to their hardware to the general public.
For the record, I do own an Alpha Server. It runs Linux (or tries to
Re:Don't forget the toys they give you (Score:1)
If you ate too much drive space for too long, you'd get a nasty-gram from an admin
Lynx support? (Score:1)
This is a very nice gest from Compaq, but I'd prefer if they supported Lynx (which is pretty common on Linux/Unix) as well
/* Steinar */
Re:Cool! (Score:1)
I don't think anybody was seriously suggesting hacking these boxes ought to be done.
I, for one, was intending to complain about the lack of security (which isn't a total lack, but they're leaving out some elementary precautions) precisely BECAUSE I don't want to see some pack of script kiddies screw up a cool deal like this.
Re:Some test results (Score:1)
Re:Talked with root... (Score:2)
I used to have to lock boxes down to avoid that in the ISP biz; ticked me off that I had to waste the time. Then the customers would bitch when "startx" wasn't available, like that was a bad thing.
Export your freakin' display and run xterm, guys; you're not at the console.
Who said they didnt support *BSD? (Score:1)
FreeBSD 3.2 on Intel Coming soon telnet to 192.233.54.xxx
FreeBSD 3.2 on Alpha Coming soon telnet to 192.233.54.xxx
(which means they would setup freebsd boxes for us to check) Ayway I see this as a great thing. Enjoy.
--
Re:RedHat 6.0 has a default SMP kernel (Score:1)
Re:Slashdot: Jokes for nerds, stuff that's funny (Score:1)
Re:Some test results (Score:1)
GCC is designed to be portable more than optimal. I've never seen a commercial compiler that did not do a measurablly better job than a GNU compiler. This is because the compiler is designed specifically for that hardware and OS by people who get paid large sums of money to do things correctly, intellegently, and optimially.
If you're talking C++, then the GNU compiler is out of the question. If you write C++, buy a real [expletive] compiler.
Compaq, Linux, FASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSTTTT (Score:1)
Re:Some test results (Score:1)
Re:Talked with root... (Score:1)
Re:r00t and slash-dot the rest of Compaq (Score:1)
Re:How about more choices? (Score:1)
Re:eh? (Score:3)
Daniel
Re:Cool! (Score:1)
Very cool indeed. (Score:1)
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Re:Is this still too complex for newbies? (Score:4)
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--
Re:Damn! No RC5 (Score:1)
---------------------------
Digital UNIX (unixserv.mro-x.dec.com) (ttyp3)
login:
Password:
Digital UNIX V4.0D (Rev. 878); Mon Dec 29 20:10:32 EST 1997
Welcome to the Java Testdrive Tru64 system
This is an ALphaServer 1200 dual cpu
Please do run any "RC5/SETI type" processes
If you do, I will dis-user your account
Re:Speed of EV6? (Score:2)
between different architectures. It's only a good
indicator within the same OS, architecture, and
compiler version.
An Alpha is a RISC CPU, and requires a lot more
intelligence from the compiler, especially in
areas like instruction reordering, than a CISC
CPU such as the ia32 family (i.e. your K6).
Also, GCC has been running much longer on ia32
than it has on Alpha, and therefore the speed
of the compiler itself has been better optimized.
The degree of optimization, simplification,
instruction analysis, and instruction reordering
needed on Alpha (versus x86) explains the long
compilation times.
Awesome! (Score:2)
Re:r00t (Score:2)
I used to have a few OSF/1 accounts back in school when I was going for a CS and remember those to be some mighty good accounts. I would find out that hacking away would ring bells on the operator's console along with a printout of my userid. My experience was that those who used DEC (now Compaq) computers took security *very* seriously.
READ THE WEB PAGE (Score:1)
Good start, but... (Score:2)
That's just super, the idea is there, and a really good idea it is, but only allowing 30 days to use this kind of defeats the purpose. I don't have anything I want to test right this minute, but I know in the future I might, deffinetly would be a plus if this was some form of permanent account.
Even if they were to say, "accounts that are inactive for 30 days are deleted" that would be fine, but to provide only a 30 day usability period is not exactly the greatest.
Re:Great Service (Score:2)
Can you re-register after the 30 days, however? It'd sure be nice to keep those Alpha binaries up to date....