Very Computer

Sun is focusing on what's really important--not clock speeds or
megahertz, but the amount of work a processor gets done. This means
designing multicore processors designed to process multiple threads
simultaneously with the goal of boosting application throughput up to 30
times.

For more a white paper and other resources:
http://www.sun.com/processors/throughput/index.html?ssobm=ng

Throughput computing is a wonderful idea, but I think Sun
also needs to concentrate on CPU performance for applications
that don't fit the CMP model very well.

I'm thinking of single threaded apps that are CPU heavy.
For example, compiling a large (single file) program.

--
Rich Teer, SCNA, SCSA

President,
Rite Online Inc.

Voice: +1 (250) 979-1638
URL: http://www.rite-online.net

But Sun has limited resources; they can't concentrate on everything.

Quote:> I'm thinking of single threaded apps that are CPU heavy.
> For example, compiling a large (single file) program.

That is a small problem these days; it's hardly worth hiring a
boatload of expensive world-class chip designers for.  Almost nobody
has billion-line modules; everybody splits up their code into small
modules, and the people who care about speed of compilation use a
parallelized build process.

If you want to motivate Sun to do fast single-threaded CPUs, you'll
need to have a better argument than that.

Oh I know!  Just wishfully thinking...

Quote:> If you want to motivate Sun to do fast single-threaded CPUs, you'll
> need to have a better argument than that.

True; how about that stuff (CPU emulation?) that Robert
Whatshisname (Mullenax?) had problems with a few months
ago?

--
Rich Teer, SCNA, SCSA

President,
Rite Online Inc.

Voice: +1 (250) 979-1638
URL: http://www.rite-online.net

That would be engineering design work on workstations.  I use
Pro-Engineering, this program stresses both the video processing (3D)
and the CPU for processing power.  There is still a fair amount of
people using Sun computers for this type of work, but if Sun doesn't do
something soon, they're going to loose this market completely.

Paul

Yeah, that's the example I was trying to recall.

--
Rich Teer, SCNA, SCSA

President,
Rite Online Inc.

Voice: +1 (250) 979-1638
URL: http://www.rite-online.net

Have you tried the port of Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire to GNU/Linux?
HP sells GNU/Linux workstations that are certified to run
Pro/ENGINEER, at fairly attractive price points (attractive, that is,
compared to both Sun workstations and HP-UX workstations :-).

Pro/ENGINEER still hasn't been ported to HP's Itanium 2 GNU/Linux
boxes.  But if you fit in 32 bits, the x86 GNU/Linux boxes look pretty
attractive, hardware-price-wise.

Perhaps Sun should emulate HP and support GNU/Linux on the desktop.
It would save Sun valuable resources, compared to maintaining Solaris
on the desktop for the indefinite future.

Surely one of the principle points of Sun producing workstations is so
that developers and sysadmins can have the same operating system on the
desktop as they do on the server.

--
Wishing you good fortune,
--Robin Kay-- (komadori)

That is waht Mad Hatter is all about, apparently.  (Quite why
Sun went with Linux instead of Solaris x86 is beyond me, but
oh well.)

And as Robin Kay said, some of us prefer to support just one
OS, on the desktop AND the server.

--
Rich Teer, SCNA, SCSA

President,
Rite Online Inc.

Voice: +1 (250) 979-1638
URL: http://www.rite-online.net

True.  However, this argument is becoming obsolete, as Sun moves more
to a network-centric model (as opposed to a workstation model).  Sun
itself uses Sun Rays heavily, for example.

Also, Sun and others sell a large number of GNU/Linux servers, so even
if you prefer the workstation model, there is an argument for having a
GNU/Linux workstation to match one's GNU/Linux servers.  At my current
location, for example, the GNU/Linux servers (barely) outnumber the
Solaris servers.

Quote:>That is waht Mad Hatter is all about, apparently.  (Quite why

Maybe.
Project Arsenic Poisoning was first proposed at SunNetwork SF2002
as a call center desktop solution.

Quote:>Sun went with Linux instead of Solaris x86 is beyond me, but
>oh well.)

Because the idea was championed by former Cobalt Networks
employees?

John

Hey, let's get our poisons straight here.  Hatters went mad because of
mecury poisoning, not arsenic.

Quote:> ... was first proposed at SunNetwork SF2002
> as a call center desktop solution.

and they said it'd be out in early 2003, if I recall correctly.
(I guess "early" didn't mean "first half of".)

I suspect that the handwriting is on the wall for Sun Rays, though.

Well, what about designing, simulating and verifying large
microprocessors. :-)

Or small ones, for that matter.

All the major DA/CAD tools for logic synthesis, placement, routing,
logic simulation, circuit simulation, and timing analysis are
single-threaded, operate on large amounts of data and are very
difficult to multithread (it's been tried many times for the
simulation tools).

Very nearly all these tools have Linux ports and no chip development
companies I know of are purchasing SPARC HW or Solaris SW for compute
farms unless absolutely forced by >4GB process size.  Needless to
say, you scramble like a SOB to structure your design so you don't
need that big process size.

(This could just as easily be Solaris x86, but NONE of these vendors
have Solaris x86 ports; apparently Sun has very successfully
discouraged that.)

It would be fairly fascinating to know how long the Sun HW design
groups will continue to "eat their own dog food" in their
compute farms; it is a 1.2-2.0X throughput disadvantage per
application license, when you compare a 2.8GHz P4 box against
a 1.2GHz USIII box. Big cache is the reason for some of the
the 1.2X numbers.

Yes, my Linux boxes require 2-3X the admin time compared to my
Solaris boxes, and it *pisses* me off that I have to deal with
that, but I don't see my company ever going back.  Cost-effective
time-to-tapeout is what matters.

-Jay-

Quote:>Hey, let's get our poisons straight here.  Hatters went mad because of
>mecury poisoning, not arsenic.

Good catch, thanks.

BTW the project is called Enterprise Linux Client.
<URL:http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/30005.html>

Quote:>and they said it'd be out in early 2003, if I recall correctly.
>(I guess "early" didn't mean "first half of".)

Slipped to mid CY03.
<URL:http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/media/presskits/lowcostcomputing/FactShee...>

Quote:>I suspect that the handwriting is on the wall for Sun Rays, though.

I gleamed the same from Sun's bizarro marketing.
The handwriting doesn't bode well for Solaris as a desktop solution. :(

John

I was thinking of trying to run it on Solaris X86, the only difficult
part I imagine would be getting OpenGL working.  Everything else would
be a matter of proper libraries in correct locations.

I have no intention of changing from Solaris.  I've been using it for 10
years now, and finally got use to Gnome 2.  Pro-Engineering runs fine on

large assemblies, the Graphics gets slow in 3D rotation, and large
pattern regeneration does the CPU seem slow.  I also use a Ultra 2 and
Blade 100 for all my productivity applications.  I've created my company
brochure (StarOffice) and image edited the large graphics files (>
1024meg) using gimp and do my accounting using gnu-cash.  I have found a
productivity application for every task that has come along.  I don't
have 1 PC here.  Some people may not agree with that, but I take pride
in that.

Paul