Reliability of SuSE AMD64?
Hello, I'm in the market for a new Java workstation, so I'm looking at bi-Xeons and bi-Opterons. Now here is the catch: I do not have lots of time to spend on coding, and even less time on tinkering my setup, so my workstation must _just_ work. That's why I'm running SuSE: it just work almost without any maintenane. Now, I've been reading this mailing-list for a while, and it seems that AMD64 users are having a rough ride. Kernel lockups, JVM segfaults... Are those common ? Or is it just the usual 'background noise' ? I'm pretty sure that Opterons are, long-term, a better platform than Xeons. But my question is: does it _just_ work _right_ now? If Suse 9.1 for AMD64 is still a tad bumpy, can I just install SuSE 9.1 for x32 and expect flawless operation (I don't know if that question really make sense, so please be kind) ? Then I could get an bi-Opteron, wait 6 month for SuSE 9.2 and then finally enjoy the expected 20 or 30% boost (yeah right) brought by the x86-64 architecture. Secondary question: I would love some benchmarks that focus on Java (compilation and execution), between Opterons and Xeons. It seems that most benchmarks out there focus on rendering 3D scenes and encoding MP3s. Thanks in advance for your answers. Best Regards, --
On Thu, Jun 10, 2004 at 10:11:40PM +0200, David Garnier wrote:
I'm in the market for a new Java workstation, so I'm looking at bi-Xeons and bi-Opterons. Now here is the catch: I do not have lots of time to spend on coding, and even less time on tinkering my setup, so my workstation must _just_ work. That's why I'm running SuSE: it just work almost without any maintenane.
Now, I've been reading this mailing-list for a while, and it seems that AMD64 users are having a rough ride. Kernel lockups, JVM segfaults... Are those common ? Or is it just the usual 'background noise' ?
I think one of the reason there are so many kernel lockup problems reported is that Opteron systems tend to have much more memory than other systems (and they're picky in their DIMMs too). The more DIMMs you have the more likely is that a bad DIMM is included. A lot of reported problems are simply hardware problems like that. One way to avoid such problems is to not assemble a box yourself, but buy a tested complete system from some vendor. Another common source of problems is Cool'n'quiet on A64, but that's near always buggy BIOS. Opteron doesn't have C'n'Q, so there are no such issues there. The upcomming kernels will have better sanity checking on BIOS C'n'Q tables, so hopefully a few lockups with C'n'Q that were reported will be gone too. Of course there are some other issues too like in all software, but overall it's quite usable.
I'm pretty sure that Opterons are, long-term, a better platform than Xeons. But my question is: does it _just_ work _right_ now?
It works fine for a lot of people. However satisfied users don't usually post to mailing lists.
If Suse 9.1 for AMD64 is still a tad bumpy, can I just install SuSE 9.1 for x32 and expect flawless operation (I don't know if that question really make sense, so please be kind) ? Then I could get an bi-Opteron,
Yes, 32bit SUSE should work fine on these systems too. For 9.1 it's even on the same DVD. -Andi
Well, FWIW, I'm not having much luck with Suse9.1 installing on my DIY Athlon64 computer... none of the distro's are giving me a lot of love, to be honest. Granted, I'm quite the newbie when it comes to linux however, so YMMV. - Kevin
Actually, I've had success with both 9.0 and 9.1 on a dual Opteron I put together late last year. It's a Tyan 2880 with two 244 Opterons and 4-GB of RAM. The on-board frame buffer, SCSI and Ethernet all work without fuss. I haven't tried the SATA interface yet. It even successfully hotplugged a USB Compact Flash card! However, there was one wrinkle: before I installed 9.1 I upgraded the BIOS with Tyan's latest beta. Everything worked until I ran a FFT benchmark compiled with g77. The benchmark just locked the system up tight as a drum. I then installed the highest rev non-beta BIOS and the problem disappeared. Regards, Lew Wolfgang
Well, FWIW, I'm not having much luck with Suse9.1 installing on my DIY Athlon64 computer... none of the distro's are giving me a lot of love, to be honest. Granted, I'm quite the newbie when it comes to linux however, so YMMV.
- Kevin
I too was seriously considering a dual xeon. But I built a dual opteron about 9 months ago for a development mysql server. It has a 500GB sata raid 5 array, and a 500GB scsi raid 50 array. The sata array is on a 3ware controller. The mobo is arima HDAMA. I have absolutely no complaints. I've loaded billions of records into the database with no problems. I liked it so much I built another dual opteron as a development workstation. This one has 8GB of ddr400 ram. This is a tyan S2885. Its great for java development. I use 64-bit eclipse 3.0-RC1 with 64-bit 1.5.0-beta2 JDK from sun. This jdk is still in beta but I haven't seen any problems with it. Blackdown has 64-bit 1.4.2 JDKs that are still in beta too. The great thing about java on the opteron is that when you use a 64-bit OS, you can run either a 64-bit JDK or a 32-bit JDK. Suse 9.1 comes with Sun's 32-bit 1.4.2 JDK. I haven't heard or seen any stability issues with it. I would stick with a 32-bit JDK until the 64-bit JDKs come out of beta. I don't know of any java only benchmarks against the xeon. I know the 64-bit mysql can be considerably faster which was the main selling point for me. Mark David Garnier wrote:
Hello,
I'm in the market for a new Java workstation, so I'm looking at bi-Xeons and bi-Opterons. Now here is the catch: I do not have lots of time to spend on coding, and even less time on tinkering my setup, so my workstation must _just_ work. That's why I'm running SuSE: it just work almost without any maintenane.
Now, I've been reading this mailing-list for a while, and it seems that AMD64 users are having a rough ride. Kernel lockups, JVM segfaults... Are those common ? Or is it just the usual 'background noise' ?
I'm pretty sure that Opterons are, long-term, a better platform than Xeons. But my question is: does it _just_ work _right_ now?
If Suse 9.1 for AMD64 is still a tad bumpy, can I just install SuSE 9.1 for x32 and expect flawless operation (I don't know if that question really make sense, so please be kind) ? Then I could get an bi-Opteron, wait 6 month for SuSE 9.2 and then finally enjoy the expected 20 or 30% boost (yeah right) brought by the x86-64 architecture.
Secondary question: I would love some benchmarks that focus on Java (compilation and execution), between Opterons and Xeons. It seems that most benchmarks out there focus on rendering 3D scenes and encoding MP3s.
Thanks in advance for your answers.
Best Regards,
Secondary question: I would love some benchmarks that focus on Java (compilation and execution), between Opterons and Xeons. It seems that most benchmarks out there focus on rendering 3D scenes and encoding MP3s.
I forgot about this. This is several months old but they did some xeon vs. opteron java performance comparisons. http://www.aceshardware.com/read.jsp?id=60000275 Mark
David Garnier
Hello,
I'm in the market for a new Java workstation, so I'm looking at bi-Xeons and bi-Opterons. Now here is the catch: I do not have lots of time to spend on coding, and even less time on tinkering my setup, so my workstation must _just_ work. That's why I'm running SuSE: it just work almost without any maintenane.
Now, I've been reading this mailing-list for a while, and it seems that AMD64 users are having a rough ride. Kernel lockups, JVM segfaults... Are those common ? Or is it just the usual 'background noise' ?
On such a list you only hear about problems but seldom success stories ;-)
I'm pretty sure that Opterons are, long-term, a better platform than Xeons. But my question is: does it _just_ work _right_ now?
In my quite biased opinion: Yes.
If Suse 9.1 for AMD64 is still a tad bumpy, can I just install SuSE 9.1 for x32 and expect flawless operation (I don't know if that question really make sense, so please be kind) ? Then I could get an bi-Opteron, wait 6 month for SuSE 9.2 and then finally enjoy the expected 20 or 30% boost (yeah right) brought by the x86-64 architecture.
Secondary question: I would love some benchmarks that focus on Java (compilation and execution), between Opterons and Xeons. It seems that most benchmarks out there focus on rendering 3D scenes and encoding MP3s.
Have a look at the AMD sites or www.spec.org, they might have something, Andreas -- Andreas Jaeger, aj@suse.de, http://www.suse.de/~aj SUSE Linux AG, Maxfeldstr. 5, 90409 Nürnberg, Germany GPG fingerprint = 93A3 365E CE47 B889 DF7F FED1 389A 563C C272 A126
participants (6)
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Andi Kleen -
Andreas Jaeger -
David Garnier -
kevin -
Lewis Wolfgang -
Mark Horton