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Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!bunyip.cc.uq.oz.au!munnari.oz.au!spool.mu.edu!agate!library.ucla.edu!csulb.edu!nic-nac.CSU.net!charnel.ecst.csuchico.edu!olivea!koriel!news2me.EBay.Sun.COM!engnews2.Eng.Sun.COM!orpheus!jackv From: jackv@orpheus.Eng.Sun.COM (Jack F. Vogel) Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions Subject: Re: Dual/Quad Pentium servers Date: 23 Sep 1994 06:26:02 GMT Organization: Sun Lines: 45 Message-ID: <35tsdq$bbb@engnews2.Eng.Sun.COM> References: <Robert-CCN.jrfq@sacbbx.com> <35igq3$2no@engnews2.Eng.Sun.COM> <35kbrn$s2k@qualcomm.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: orpheus.eng.sun.com In article <35kbrn$s2k@qualcomm.com> bri@qualcomm.com (Brian Ellis) writes: |Jack F. Vogel <jackv@orpheus.Eng.Sun.COM> wrote: | |>The answer is unfortunately NO, NONE of the free BSD variants will |>run MP. Of course I don't know the hardware, but I owuld guess that |>it will RUN on the machine, it just won't initialize or do anything |>with the other CPUs. |> |>As someone who has worked on a couple of MP kernels, if someone |>wants to donate an MP motherboard (I will even foot the bill for |>the CPUs :-), I would LOVE to work on MP extensions to FreeBSD :-). |Jack, if you mean you've worked on the Solaris kernel, then I'm sure |you know how drastically the kernel had to be re-engineered to go |from SunOS 4.x. Frankly, I don't think the *BSD kernels could ever |be made to run reliably on a symetric multiprocessing platform. Heavens NO, I don't work on Solaris 2.X (well not much :-), my primary job is as the technical lead for 4.X Sustaining Engineering. The first MP-capable kernel Sun shipped was 4.1.2, I have worked on that and its follow-ons for three years. Prior to that I worked on an MP version of AIX that ran on IBM Big Iron :-), so count another two years on that project. So the type of MP kernel I've worked on may have been more coarsely grained, but the advantage is this approach is its MUCH easier to implement based on a kernel that starts UP (like *BSD). That's why I think it would be FUN to get a coarsely-grained X86 system running. In fact with the primitives from Mach in FreeBSD and/or NetBSD it shouldn't be hard to get something finer grained running without much difficulty. |Solaris 2.3 is a fine OS, and I understand that the newly released 2.3 |for x86 is built from the same source tree as the Sparc version. Solaris 2.X is impressive in MANY ways; heck, some people like Cadillacs, me I drive a Stealth, but either are better than the poor slobs driving Edsels (MSDOG/WinDOZE :-). DISCLAIMER: I am IN NO WAY a spokesperson for Sun Microsystems, opinions expressed here are MINE, activity around 386BSD is strictly personal. -- Jack F. Vogel Sun Microsystems Inc. jackv@Sun.COM