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BSD Operating Systems

FreeBSD Boots on x86-64 42

Posted by michael from the future-is-now dept.
craig2787 writes "FreeBSD developer Peter Wemm has successfully booted FreeBSD on a real AMD ClawHammer CPU, in both 64- and 32-bit modes. Original posting to the -current mailing list is here."
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FreeBSD Boots on x86-64 More

FreeBSD Boots on x86-64

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  • Em-Hache-Zed (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Xunker ( 6905 ) on Wednesday April 09, 2003 @12:08PM (#5693852) Homepage Journal
    "CPU: AMD ClawHammer(tm) (3.14-MHz Hammer-class CPU)"

    3 Megahertz? Whoohoo, looks like AMD is giving the Intel a run for it's money... and MOS, too.

    Seriously, though, I'd eventually like to see some real world performance specs of Hammer running in 32 bit mode, just to see if it's going to suffer from the same 32-bit-on-64-bit problems that Itanic has been having. If they figured out a way around that, they could totally own the market because Itanium 1 is dead and all cursory tests on Itanium 2 show it sucks the glands of a large braying animal when it comes to 32 bit code.

    • Re:Em-Hache-Zed (Score:5, Insightful)

      by shlong ( 121504 ) on Wednesday April 09, 2003 @01:03PM (#5694180) Homepage
      Seriously, though, I'd eventually like to see some real world performance specs of Hammer running in 32 bit mode [...]

      Benchmarks will come in time. Right now everyone that has a Hammer system is under NDA from AMD. Think about it, if everyone was posting performance numbers months before Hammer was ready for introduction, that would give Intel plenty of time to come up with some sort of response. When April 23 comes and the chip is officially released, I suspect that a ton of performance numbers will be released within a few seconds.

      As for the 32-bit-on-64-bit problem, remember that the amd64 architecture is just an extension on ia32, much like ia32 was an extension of the 16-bit stuff. Code either uses the wider registers or it doesn't. The real fear is that 64-bit code won't perform as fast as 32-bit code, since 64-bit pointers/integers/etc means less efficient cache usage.

    • Re:Em-Hache-Zed (Score:3, Interesting)

      by MBCook ( 132727 )
      Well, either the frequency reporting is wrong (possible) or the runs he showed are under an emulator (bochs type thing). He said it runs on real hardware, so it's most likely the first option. I agree though, I would really like to see some benchmarks. We'll have to wait untill the 22nd to see 'em though.

      • Re:Em-Hache-Zed (Score:5, Informative)

        by DarkHelmet433 ( 467596 ) on Wednesday April 09, 2003 @01:25PM (#5694329)
        It was a joke, I changed the clock speed strings to 'pi'. This is a 10 month old pre-pre-pre-production A0-step silicon machine. I'm not allowed to talk about the speed of this particular machine. But I can say that I'm rather impressed given this particular machine's early production state. It does run very nicely in 32 bit mode. It is faster than my home desktop machine, and is faster than my work desktop (in single processor mode).

        Also, note this is a Clawhammer cpu, not the Sledgehammer/Opteron that is coming up for release on April 23.

        • Re:Em-Hache-Zed (Score:2, Funny)

          by Xunker ( 6905 )
          I was pretty sure that's what it was, either that or just a typo (gHz/mHz). Of course, if you *really* wanted to get the geek humour going you'd do "([Sideways-Eight]mHz Hammer-Class CPU)" or something equally nerdy.

          What can you talk about about the machine? Do you know if the Opteron and Hammer are gonna share the same Chipsets?

          Maybe I should ask something about BSD too to even things out... Uhm, In a Texas-style cage match between Tux, Beastie and that damn Mysql Dolphin, who'd win?

    • Re:Em-Hache-Zed (Score:5, Informative)

      by kylef ( 196302 ) on Wednesday April 09, 2003 @01:13PM (#5694255)

      According to reports I've read, the new Opteron actually outperforms the current Athlon clock-for-clock in 32-bit Legacy mode (32-bit OS running 32-bit code) because at base, the decode paths and functional unit pipelines are similar to the present generation processor. There are some additional tricks they have pulled to get some more speed, like a "smart" TLB that only flushes its cache of page table entries when truly necessary (not at every context switch).

      In 64-bit Mode (where a 64-bit OS runs 64-bit code), average instruction length has increased because of the addition of a preface byte to every 64-bit instruction, but overall code size has DECREASED because 8 additional general purpose registers have been added (reducing compiler generated load/store code). This decrease in code size compensates for the larger average instruction length and enables performance to remain on-par with 32-bit.

      However, I will feel much better about these claims once I have seen some true performance comparisons at an independent reviewer's site! :)

      • There are some additional tricks they have pulled to get some more speed, like a "smart" TLB


        Don't forget about the on-die memory controller. That also pumps up the performance in legacy mode.

    • Yeah, Intel is gonna pay for their radical approach. Btw, NetBSD has had x86-64 some time back. Free is just catching up, it seems. I like both, just never used Open.

      • FreeBSD / NetBSD (Score:3, Insightful)

        by edhall ( 10025 )

        Btw, NetBSD has had x86-64 some time back. Free is just catching up, it seems.

        FreeBSD has focused on Itanium up until now, given that production hardware has been available for a while. There are people who already have them in their datacenters and who want to run FreeBSD on them. It's part of the pragmatism that is at the base of FreeBSD's philosophy.

        NetBSD has more of a research-focused, "climb the mountain because it's there" philosophy. Compare mottos: "FreeBSD -- The Power To Serve" vs. "Of Cou

        • I agree with the FreeBSD principle. I started with NetBSD because FreeBSD had a bug for my setup about 1-2 years back. It couldn't handle a Master-slave HDD relationship, used to freeze with "Probing devices please wait" on a i386.

          And I find FreeBSD's documentation to be the best amongst the three.

          Thanks for the clarification.
    • "CPU: AMD ClawHammer(tm) (3.14-MHz Hammer-class CPU)"

      Since this is a pre-aplha machine, AMD does not want people to talk about specs. But, on the other hand they can talk about pi (3.14). To guard himself, this guy looks like he has put pi as the value of the MHz speed.

  • So, (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    if FreeBSD is dying, it's dying in style? ;-)
  • I think I know what computer I'm saving up for next.
  • Looks like OSS and AMD will be leading the cheap power realm for time to come...

  • Great News (Score:2, Insightful)

    by vga_init ( 589198 )
    Even though they say that BSD is a dying operating system, I've had the pleasure of being able to use it quite often in the past, and it really is a fine operating system.

    You've definitely got to hand it to BSD; it seems to be able boot on just about anything. One look at NetBSD's home page makes this obvious. :)

    This added compatability is not only good news for BSD users, but also for the whole open source community, which doesn't seem to have any trouble keeping up with new technology.

    • I run FreeBSD on my firewall/NAT system, and I don't recall ever rebooting it except in the case of a power failure. The *BSD systems are quite secure out of the "box". I don't know why anyone would really say they are dying.

  • Imagine.... (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by trezor ( 555230 )

    ...that actually no-one has made that mandatory "Imagine a Beowulf-cluster of these"-remark yet...

    Because you can cluster BSD as well, can't you?
    *unsure and confused since there arent any cluster-remarks*

  • Ooh (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by 21mhz ( 443080 )
    FreeBSD Boots? Where can I get my pair?
    Will it keep my feet warm with that x86-64?
  • Now, I'm not denying that what this guy is done is pretty good. But if you can't even get to /sbin/init, then has your system really booted up? Certainly not in any useful way. I think this story is a bit premature. Post another one when programs can actually run on FreeBSD on a Clawhammer. Only then will I really be impressed.

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