| In other linux/sparc news... | by marasmus |
| It has been known (and not well documented) that the TurboSparc processor used in the Sparc 5/170 machine is not so friendly on linux.
It seems that the init process is, for some currently unknown reason (to me), incapable of communicating reliably with the processor. During some copy commands (normally big ones) it will segfault and start misallocating RAM. I have not found any other particular commands which cause this failure, but it does some really cool stuff. First, it starts hammering out BIND really bad. Second, it starts overwriting SNMP octet information, so it looks like you're doing ~60-100mbits/sec on each of your interface (appears to be relative to how much CPU is getting dedicated to overwriting octets)... Fun stuff! I'm going to get my hands dirty with the debian people and see if i can come up with a way to fix this problem. After I conclude that entourage, I'll bring that knowledge to the slackware crew to help with the current Slackware/SPARC alpha. We have Slack4Sparc on anonymous FTP, if any of you are brave. Release information says that it's VERY bitchy, so be careful with it. Props to Toby for being the first to officially SlashDot the Slack4Sparc release. | |