Subject: Linux-Misc Digest #281
From: Digestifier <Linux-Misc-Request@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU>
To: Linux-Misc@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU
Reply-To: Linux-Misc@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU
Date:     Sat, 18 Jun 94 02:13:09 EDT

Linux-Misc Digest #281, Volume #2                Sat, 18 Jun 94 02:13:09 EDT

Contents:
  Zenon P5-90 Compatibility and some Floating Point Benchmarks on P5-90. (Michael J. Holst)
  unix version of dos prog XCOPY? (David Flood)
  Xfm suggestions (Bill McCarthy)
  Limit memory to low 16MB ? (Bogdan Urma)
  Info an Quantex system (Ken Mcdonald)
  Re: Limit memory to low 16MB ? (Brandon S. Allbery)
  Re: AutoCAD and Linux (Donald Jeff Dionne)
  Re: unix version of dos prog XCOPY? (David Flood)
  S3 palette restore problem exiting X server (andro@louie.cc.utexas.edu)
  Re: Recreational COBOL programming (Bjorn)
  Segmentation Fault on realloc() in C++ (ERIC R. BUDDINGTON)
  Re: Latest in PC WEEK (May 30 Editorial) (John Paul Morrison)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: holst@cco.caltech.edu (Michael J. Holst)
Subject: Zenon P5-90 Compatibility and some Floating Point Benchmarks on P5-90.
Date: 17 Jun 1994 17:54:13 GMT

MACHINE:
========

The following machine was obtained from Zenon, which is a slight variation
of the "Z-Win PCI" machine selling for $2549.00 in the July Computer Shopper:

  Pentium 90 (Brand is Intel)
  PCI/ISA Motherboard (Brand is SUPER)
  PCI video card (Brand is ATI, the Mach 32 with 2Mb VRAM)
  PCI/IDE Disk controller (Brand is Unknown)
  540Mb hard disk (Brand is Conner)
  8Mb (on 2 4Mb SIMS; two SIM slots still open)
  Parallel/Serial cards (unfortunately, not 16550 serials I noticed...)
  3 1/2" floppy
  Minitower case
  230 Watt power (I think)
  15" Flat screen low radiation monitor (Brand is CTX, model is 1562)
  Keyboard

LINUX COMPATIBILITY:
====================

Our variations included the larger 540Mb disk (vs. 410Mb) and the ATI Mach 32
PCI video card.  Obtaining the Mach 32 from them was a little difficult, but
they were pretty reasonable.  Some other vendors simply wouldn't install one
for us.  We selected the above configuration because it seemed likely to give
little trouble in setting up Linux/X, which has turned out to be the case.  We
had absolutely no problems installing the entire Linux Slackware distribution,
and all of the applications we typically use work fine (X, Latex, xdvi, gcc,
g++, f2c, etc).

The only difficulty was that the 540 Mb disk has 1048 cylinders, and both Linux
fdisk and Linux setup complain about disks larger than 1024 cylinders.  We 
partitioned the disk ignoring the last 24 cylinders, so we probably lost some 
disk space.

FLOATING POINT BENCHMARKS/COMPARISONS TO OTHER ARCHITECURES:
============================================================

We bought the machine hoping that it would be competitive as a number cruncher
with the SPARC-2, SPARC-10, and RS6000 machines we use for numerical codes 
written in C/C++/Fortran (we also write/preview papers on these things 
constantly as well.)  This has turned out to be the case.  When solving 
partial differential equations the key operation is often a matrix-vector 
product of the form:

             y = A * x

where x and y are extremely large vectors (say a million entries) and the 
square matrix A is quite sparse.  Typically A has some structure, and perhaps
is made up of a vew diagonal bands of nonzero components, being zero elsewhere.
In fact, this is quite common, and the floating performance of a machine on
this operation is perhaps the most important consideration for turnaround
time when doing computational mathematics/numerical simulations of physical
systems.  We ran a benchmark program (written in C) on several machines, 
including the P5-90 running Linux, comparing the above operation and several 
additional operations that are common in numerical codes.  The results are 
listed below.  The gcc compiler with optimization was used in each case, with 
an additional listing for the IBM RS6000 to indicate how well their xlc 
compiler does.

We decided to post this note to help others in trying to decide whether these
P5-90 machines would be competitive with some of the common workstations for 
their scientific codes.  All benchmark figures commonly quoted for various 
architectures in various publications and newsgroups seem to be missing the 
most important indicator for those doing numerical work, namely raw floating 
point performance on common numerical kernels such as matrix-vector products.

 - Michael Holst, Postdoctoral Fellow          Email:  holst@ama.caltech.edu
   Applied Math 217-50                         Phone:  (818) 395-4549
   Caltech, Pasadena, CA 91125                 FAX:    (818) 683-3549

===============================================================================
| Benchmarks for 5-diag (rectangular-mesh Laplace-like) matrix-vector product |
| on the following architectures:                                             |
|                                                                             |
| Intel 80386    (=4M RAM, 25Mhz chip)                                        |
| Intel P5-90    (=8M RAM, 90Mhz chip)                                        |
|                                                                             |
| Sun   SPARC-2  (>8M RAM, ??Mhz chip)                                        |
| Sun   SPARC-10 (>8M RAM, ??Mhz chip)                                        |
|                                                                             |
| IBM   RS-6000  (>8M RAM, ??Mhz chip)                                        |
|                                                                             |
| A summary of the performance on the matrix-vector product is given first,   |
| followed by a list of performance on several different types of floating    |
| point operation combinations often occurring in numerical codes.            |
|                                                                             |
| (Recall that 1 megaflop = 1 million floating point operations per second.)  |
===============================================================================

============                      ==========================================
Architecture                      Megaflops for 5-diag Matvec (gcc with -O2)
============                      ==========================================
Intel 80386      (with gcc)        0.99     (0.18 Mflops without -O2)
Sun   SPARC-2    (with gcc)        3.50     (0.58 Mflops without -O2)
Sun   SPARC-10   (with gcc)        9.17     (1.44 Mflops without -O2)
Intel P5-90      (with gcc)        9.57     (4.18 Mflops without -O2)
IBM   RS-6000    (with gcc)       14.70     (1.31 Mflops without -O2)
IBM   RS-6000    (with xlc)       32.30     (3.13 Mflops without -O2)

=========================
Details for:  Intel 80386
=========================
Operation                                       time   megaflop rate
   VADD    e(i) = a(i) + b(i)                 5.47e-06      1.83e-01
   VADD1   e(i) = a(i) + b(i) + c(i)          7.81e-06      2.56e-01
   VMULT   e(i) = a(i) * b(i)                 7.81e-06      1.28e-01
   VMA     e(i) = a(i) + b(i) * d(i)          3.91e-06      5.12e-01
   VDIV    e(i) = a(i) / b(i)                 2.34e-06      4.27e-01
   VDA     e(i) = a(i) + b(i) / d(i)          5.47e-06      3.66e-01
   TRID    e(i) = e(i) + b(i) * e(i-1)        4.69e-06      4.27e-01
   VCOPY   e(i) = a(i)                        3.13e-06      3.20e-01
   5-DIAGONAL MATVEC                          1.02e-05      9.85e-01

=========================
Details for:  Sun SPARC-2
=========================
Operation                                       time   megaflop rate
   VADD    e(i) = a(i) + b(i)                 8.70e-07      1.15e+00
   VADD1   e(i) = a(i) + b(i) + c(i)          1.19e-06      1.68e+00
   VMULT   e(i) = a(i) * b(i)                 9.10e-07      1.10e+00
   VMA     e(i) = a(i) + b(i) * d(i)          1.32e-06      1.52e+00
   VDIV    e(i) = a(i) / b(i)                 1.52e-06      6.58e-01
   VDA     e(i) = a(i) + b(i) / d(i)          1.81e-06      1.10e+00
   TRID    e(i) = e(i) + b(i) * e(i-1)        1.01e-06      1.98e+00
   VCOPY   e(i) = a(i)                        5.40e-07      1.85e+00
   5-DIAGONAL MATVEC                          2.86e-06      3.50e+00

==========================
Details for:  Sun SPARC-10
==========================
Operation                                       time   megaflop rate
   VADD    e(i) = a(i) + b(i)                 3.20e-07      3.12e+00
   VADD1   e(i) = a(i) + b(i) + c(i)          3.60e-07      5.56e+00
   VMULT   e(i) = a(i) * b(i)                 3.70e-07      2.70e+00
   VMA     e(i) = a(i) + b(i) * d(i)          3.00e-07      6.67e+00
   VDIV    e(i) = a(i) / b(i)                 4.80e-07      2.08e+00
   VDA     e(i) = a(i) + b(i) / d(i)          4.40e-07      4.55e+00
   TRID    e(i) = e(i) + b(i) * e(i-1)        3.00e-07      6.67e+00
   VCOPY   e(i) = a(i)                        2.50e-07      4.00e+00
   5-DIAGONAL MATVEC                          1.09e-06      9.17e+00

=========================
Details for:  Intel P5-90
=========================
Operation                                       time   megaflop rate
   VADD    e(i) = a(i) + b(i)                 4.06e-07      2.46e+00
   VADD1   e(i) = a(i) + b(i) + c(i)          5.15e-07      3.88e+00
   VMULT   e(i) = a(i) * b(i)                 3.68e-07      2.72e+00
   VMA     e(i) = a(i) + b(i) * d(i)          5.16e-07      3.88e+00
   VDIV    e(i) = a(i) / b(i)                 6.90e-07      1.45e+00
   VDA     e(i) = a(i) + b(i) / d(i)          7.68e-07      2.60e+00
   TRID    e(i) = e(i) + b(i) * e(i-1)        3.85e-07      5.19e+00
   VCOPY   e(i) = a(i)                        4.12e-07      2.43e+00
   5-DIAGONAL MATVEC                          1.04e-06      9.57e+00

====================================
Details for:  IBM RS-6000 (with gcc)
====================================
Operation                                       time   megaflop rate
   VADD    e(i) = a(i) + b(i)                 1.60e-07      6.25e+00
   VADD1   e(i) = a(i) + b(i) + c(i)          2.40e-07      8.33e+00
   VMULT   e(i) = a(i) * b(i)                 1.60e-07      6.25e+00
   VMA     e(i) = a(i) + b(i) * d(i)          2.10e-07      9.52e+00
   VDIV    e(i) = a(i) / b(i)                 4.30e-07      2.33e+00
   VDA     e(i) = a(i) + b(i) / d(i)          4.10e-07      4.88e+00
   TRID    e(i) = e(i) + b(i) * e(i-1)        1.90e-07      1.05e+01
   VCOPY   e(i) = a(i)                        2.70e-07      3.70e+00
   5-DIAGONAL MATVEC                          6.80e-07      1.47e+01

====================================
Details for:  IBM RS-6000 (with xlc)
====================================
Operation                                       time   megaflop rate
   VADD    e(i) = a(i) + b(i)                 8.00e-08      1.25e+01
   VADD1   e(i) = a(i) + b(i) + c(i)          1.60e-07      1.25e+01
   VMULT   e(i) = a(i) * b(i)                 1.30e-07      7.69e+00
   VMA     e(i) = a(i) + b(i) * d(i)          1.60e-07      1.25e+01
   VDIV    e(i) = a(i) / b(i)                 4.00e-07      2.50e+00
   VDA     e(i) = a(i) + b(i) / d(i)          4.60e-07      4.35e+00
   TRID    e(i) = e(i) + b(i) * e(i-1)        1.10e-07      1.82e+01
   VCOPY   e(i) = a(i)                        8.00e-08      1.25e+01
   5-DIAGONAL MATVEC                          3.10e-07      3.23e+01


------------------------------

From: dcflood@u.washington.edu (David Flood)
Subject: unix version of dos prog XCOPY?
Date: 17 Jun 1994 18:09:04 GMT

Before re-inventing the wheel, I am looking for the source code of a program
that works like the messy-dos program XCOPY.  Anyone know of one?

-- 
=============================================================================
dcflood@u.washington.edu

The above opinions are mine alone and do not reflect anyone elses.
Besides, who wants my opinion anyway?
=============================================================================

------------------------------

From: bmccarth@gulfaero.com (Bill McCarthy)
Subject: Xfm suggestions
Date: 17 Jun 1994 14:17:39 -0400

Hiya:

Was wondering if anyone could offer some suggestions or hints. I'm
a relative newbie to linux, and so I'm not all that familiar with
basic conventions. I recently dowloaded xfm-1.3 - a filemanager for
X. I was able to compile it fine, and it works. BUT, the file xfm.man
is not linked/compiled/formatted so that when I use man xfm nothing comes
up. Any hints? I read the README files, but can't find anything to help.

The same situation occured when I downloaded and installed xearth. I can
set xearth as a default root screen, but nothing for the manpage. Am I
totally clueless and missing something really basic? A 'yes' with some
pointers would be a good answer. TIA.




Bill McCarthy
bmccarth@gulfaero.com

{new .sig under construction. CAUTION: we whistle at women.}
TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT\_______________________________
Linux + i486dx2/66 = neato!
cat bin/usual | sed -e 's/company opinons/ /my opinions/g' > disclaimer

 
   

 

------------------------------

From: bogdan@crl.com (Bogdan Urma)
Subject: Limit memory to low 16MB ?
Date: 17 Jun 1994 11:11:24 -0700

   I have 16MB RAM in my machine. If I answer [y] to the config option
"Limit memory to low 16MB", will Linux use the RAM more efficiently ?
Will the kernel be smaller? Is there any advantage to doing this?

Thanks,
Bogdan Urma
bogdan@crl.com


------------------------------

Crossposted-To: comp.ibm.pc.hardware
From: mcdonald@cs.sfu.ca (Ken Mcdonald)
Subject: Info an Quantex system
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 1994 17:55:50 GMT


Well, in my apparently never-ending quest for a top (dx4/100 or P90) Linux
system, I've come across yet another interesting system.  Called up the
company this morning, and got some info.  NOTE: the major drawback here is
that they have about a four-week wait, due to a shortage of M/Bs.

Company: Quantex, 1-800-787-8686
System: P-90, 8 meg RAM, 420 H/D, 72-pin SIMMs, monitor + standard goodies,
        $2295 (sorry, can't remember the name of this particular unit.)
M/B: Intel PCI board, Neptune chip set, 2PCI slots, 4ISA(16-bit), 1PCI/ISA.
Video card: Advanced Logic 1MB RAM, upgr. to 2MB.  Salesman clains it comes
        with some UNIX drivers; anyone know of X11 compatibility for this line?
Monitor: 15" TEKO (sp?) with Quantex label, digital controls, .28dp.
14.4 moden: add $99

Articles: The company (though not this particular system) is mentioned in
the July issues of Computer Shopper and PC Computing, and the June issue of
PC World.  Anyone care to summarize for quality, service, etc?

Who to talk to: well, anyone, obviously, but I thought John at extension 3615
was knowlegdable, helpful, and pleasant to talk with.  Mention to him that
you got this info off the InterNet, if he thinks I'm responsible for some
new customers, it might expedite my order !:-)

SUMMARY: a nice looking system, but a few weeks until delivery.  (Anyone
know how fast P90s are being cranked out right now?)

Enjoy,
Ken McDonald
mcdonald@cs.sfu.ca

------------------------------

From: bsa@kf8nh.wariat.org (Brandon S. Allbery)
Subject: Re: Limit memory to low 16MB ?
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 1994 21:44:53 GMT

In article <2tsp0c$40v@crl.crl.com>, bogdan@crl.com (Bogdan Urma) says:
+---------------
|    I have 16MB RAM in my machine. If I answer [y] to the config option
| "Limit memory to low 16MB", will Linux use the RAM more efficiently ?
| Will the kernel be smaller? Is there any advantage to doing this?
+------------->8

It's a workaround for (a) broken motherboards that disable caching when more
than 16MB is present and (b) old ISA-bus device drivers which do DMA but don't
support bounceback buffers to work around the ISA bus limitation that DMA can
only occur to the lower 16MB of memory (because the ISA bus can't address more
than 16MB).

If you don't need it, don't use it; it means exactly what it says (any memory
beyond 16MB will be completely ignored).

++Brandon
-- 
Brandon S. Allbery         kf8nh@kf8nh.ampr.org          bsa@kf8nh.wariat.org
Friends don't let friends load Windows NT.              Linux iBCS2 emulation

------------------------------

From: jeff@ee.ryerson.ca (Donald Jeff Dionne)
Subject: Re: AutoCAD and Linux
Date: 17 Jun 1994 22:13:25 GMT

Jeff Landenberger (jdl@condor.ic.net) wrote:

: Has anyone attempted to use AutoCAD on Linux, either the DOS version or 
: one of the many UNIX versions? I would be very interested in finding out 
: if it is possible.


If they offer an SCO version, you might try that under the iBCS2 emulator
and let the rest of us know.  Perhaps they have a demo version :-)

: Jeff
: jdl@ic.net

Jeff@EE.Ryerson.ca

------------------------------

From: dcflood@u.washington.edu (David Flood)
Subject: Re: unix version of dos prog XCOPY?
Date: 17 Jun 1994 22:22:45 GMT

sam1007@hermes.cam.ac.uk (Steve McIntyre) writes:

>Try reading the man page for cp. It's amazing what you can learn.>

Ok, which part of Slackware has the man pages for cp? man can't find it
on my machine.
-- 
=============================================================================
dcflood@u.washington.edu

The above opinions are mine alone and do not reflect anyone elses.
Besides, who wants my opinion anyway?
=============================================================================

------------------------------

From: andro@louie.cc.utexas.edu
Subject: S3 palette restore problem exiting X server
Date: 17 Jun 1994 17:59:55 -0500

Keywords: 
Cc: 
I saw this problem mentioned here recently -- Upon exiting XFree,,
with some S3 boards [mine is a Taiwanese 928 VLB] the palette
is not restored correctly, giving me invisible text.

Someone mentioned some Xconfig settings for saving and restoring
the palette, but I missed them.  There was a post following claiming
the problem was solved by "nomemaccess", so I just went with that.

No such luck for me.  Anyone have the palette save/restore settings
for Xconfig?

Thanks in advance :)


-- 
==========================================================================
Steve Chauvin
andro@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu
"Of course I believe in free will, I have no choice!"

------------------------------

From: bjorn@oslonett.no (Bjorn)
Subject: Re: Recreational COBOL programming
Date: 17 Jun 1994 22:12:09 +0200

In article <1994Jun10.191117.18514@rosevax.rosemount.com>,
grante@reddwarf.rosemount.com (Grant Edwards) writes:
>Recreational COBOL programming?!?!
>
>What a horrifying thought.  Everybody's got to eat, so I can see why
>there are COBOL programmers, but doing it as recreation is about as
>warped as anything I can think of.
>
>--
>Grant Edwards                                 |Yow!  I'm also pre-POURED
>Rosemount Inc.                                |pre-MEDITATED and
>                                              |pre-RAPHAELITE!!
>grante@rosemount.com                          |

  Masochism ?

  Followup to alt.sex.bondage :-) :-)

 Bjxrn  ( who once upon a time used MASM on a GE 415 ... )


------------------------------

Subject: Segmentation Fault on realloc() in C++
From: EBUDDINGTON@eagle.wesleyan.edu (ERIC R. BUDDINGTON)
Date: 17 Jun 94 19:05:53 -0400

        I have a program, partly my own, in C++, that gives segmentation faults
which I have traced (using gdb) to a realloc statement.
        First question: What's a segmentation fault? Is that caused by a
program that tries to access memory that it hasn't allocated?
        Second question: Under what circumstances would a realloc call cause
it? Is there a bug? Being not terribly adept at C++, I think it more likely
that it is the code.
        NOTE: This program runs fine when compiled under DOS with Borland.

        Replies to the group or to ebuddington@eagle.wesleyan.edu.

Thanks,
Eric

------------------------------

From: jmorriso@bogomips.ee.ubc.ca (John Paul Morrison)
Subject: Re: Latest in PC WEEK (May 30 Editorial)
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 1994 21:56:23 GMT

In article <1143@blox.se>, Bjorn Ekwall <bj0rn@blox.se> wrote:
>Alan Cox (iiitac@uk.ac.swan.pyr) wrote:
> > In article <2tau1r$n0h@news.u.washington.edu> tzs@u.washington.edu (Tim Smith) writes:
> > >lilo [Dances With Geeks] <lilo@slip-5-16.ots.utexas.edu> wrote:
> > >What do you mean "only among lawyers"?  I doubt that there are many lawyers
> > >who think loadable modules are derivative works.
>
> > A loadable module is simply a piece of kernel code that got linked slightly
>   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> > later rather than earlier. It depends totally on Linux and it's calling all
>   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> > sorts of internal routines. 
>
> > Alan
>
>Extremely well put!
>
>The kernel is GPL-ed. All code that is linked to it is therefore also GPL-ed.
>The only interface to the kernel that is non-"GPL-virus-infected" is the
>syscall API, as this is explicitly extempt from the GPL.

the source may be GPL'ed but you can't usurp someone else's copyrights
just because there code could coceivably be linked into a GPL program,
and if their code doesn't have a single scrap of GPL code contained within it.

the source code is the last word on what is part of the API. However the
entire source is published, so you can't claim that one bit here is part of
the API and one part isn't. The source, in this case, *is* the API.

>All "official" interpretations of the GPL, as seen in the numerous
>discussions in gnu.misc.discuss, are _very_ clear about this.

those don't mean squat. FSF wishful thinking is all it is. They want
their cake and to eat it too, but they've release the source so they
have no more say in what's API and what isn't, because the source
alone defines it. You can't violate a copyright if you haven't
included a portion of someone elses copyrighted works.

>
>Bjorn Ekwall == bj0rn@blox.se


-- 
===========================================================================
BogoMIPS Research Labs  --  bogosity research & simulation  --  VE7JPM  --      
jmorriso@bogomips.ee.ubc.ca ve7jpm@ve7jpm.ampr.org jmorriso@rflab.ee.ubc.ca
===========================================================================

------------------------------


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