Re: Small MicroVAX IIs - what version? - was Re: NetBSD/vax current

["John D. Peedle" <john%peedle.org.uk@localhost>]

Whilst not what you were looking for, I have a 3100 M10 with a disk expansion 
unit and a 4000VLC needing homes. 

Best regards,

John


> On 14 Apr 2014, at 14:05, "David Brownlee" <abs%netbsd.org@localhost> wrote:
> 
> It would be nice if there were numbers for the relative performance of
> NetBSD versions.
> I've alluded to this before, and I'd be happy to collect them, but the
> only machines supported by 1.2 were the uVAXII and 11/750, and I only
> have a 4000 and a VS2000. (*)
> 
> I think the idea test box would be a 16M uVAXII, though a smaller RAM
> size would also be helpful.
> 
> Since NetBSD (usually) provides excellent backwards compatibility it
> should be possible to install NetBSD 1.2, run some timings, and then
> retest the same install with a kernel from 1.3, 1.4, 1.5...
> (There may be a version which requires new boot blocks, but the
> principle applies).
> 
> That first pass would determine how kernel code bloat has affected the
> system over time.
> 
> The second pass would be be similar, but reinstalling the entire
> system rather than kernel each time.
> 
> One key point would be to determine a useful set of tests - lmbench,
> apachebench against a simple http server, and a nasty shell script?
> 
> I know that gcc bloat makes it effectively unusable on anything but
> the largest memory/fastest VAXes now day, but it would be helpful to
> determine what has happened to baseline NetBSD performance...
> 
> David
> 
> (* If someone has a spare uVAXII in the UK I'd be delighted to give it
> a loving home, but I'm not trying to use the above as an excuse to pry
> one out of an existing home.... well, not really :)
> 
>> On 13 April 2014 22:23, Johnny Billquist <bqt%update.uu.se@localhost> wrote:
>>> On 2014-04-13 23:12, Toby Thain wrote:
>>> 
>>> On 13/04/14 4:35 PM, John Klos wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> I'm going to try and do some more testing, but I really can't see many
>>>>> other explanations. I noticed that just booting NetBSD up on the
>>>>> 4000/90 grabbed more than 16M before the boot was complete, so with
>>>>> only 16M it is going to be paging a lot.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> NetBSD 6 runs OK on a VAXstation 4000/30 with 24 megs. Not great, but OK.
>>> 
>>> Any recommendations for a MicroVAX II with 9MB? I have 1.4.1 netbooting
>>> on it right now and it's pretty happy - was able to compile Apache
>>> 1.3.x, etc.
>>> 
>>> Is 1.5 okay for such a small system? I've read conflicting opinions.
>> 
>> 
>> If you ask me, 1.6 is just fine as well. 2.0 is still also pretty ok. I'm
>> not sure exactly when things became horrible, but back in those versions,
>> NetBSD was still pretty snappy, as far as I can remember. (Used to run a
>> VAX-11/750 with it, and still thought it was acceptable.)
>> 
>> On another side note, NetBSD/vax (but I sortof notice something similar on
>> other architectures) are hitting the namei sys-cache a lot. And when that
>> happens, the system is spending the majority of the time in system, and are
>> not making much progress on anything.
>> There seems to be a very clear correspondence between the namei calls and
>> the amount of time spent in system. With gcc just chugging along trying to
>> compile a file, I see maybe 1000 namei calls in 5s (looking at system). With
>> this, I have about 10% system time. When namei calls jumps to above 6000 I
>> have more than 50% time in system, sometimes going up to over 80%. The
>> correlation is not absolute, but there definitely seems to be some
>> connection between them.
>> 
>> I recently fired up an Alpha with current, and sometimes the namei calls
>> jumps up to over 100.000, which I found rather impressive. (Although maybe
>> also depressing.) And of course, that machine also spent large chunks of
>> time in system.
>> 
>> 
>>>> http://vax.zia.io/
>>>> 
>>>> The hardware isn't as cool as an 11/785, but it's a bit more affordable
>>>> to run :)
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>>>>   Well, get to it, man! ;)  I expect there will eventually be a
>>>>>> fork of
>>>>>> NetBSD that will trim the fat and make it more usable.  Testing on
>>>>>> older, slower hardware would go a long way toward "keeping it honest".
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> Question is if anyone have the time, energy and money for that to
>>>>> happen?
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> It'd be nice to see pcc for VAX instead of gcc. gcc has way too much fat
>>>> and take way too long to do anything. And I wonder how much better an
>>>> entirely crunchgen'd NetBSD would be on a very low memory machine...
>>> 
>>> 
>>> I wonder if lcc does a better job than pcc. lcc is ANSI and has a VAX
>>> code generator, that's fairly easy to modify.
>>> 
>>> https://sites.google.com/site/lccretargetablecompiler/
>> 
>> 
>> I think that Ragge have gotten pcc more or less to compile most of NetBSD,
>> so ANSI is not a problem.
>> 
>>        Johnny
>> 
>> --
>> Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
>>                                  ||  on a psychedelic trip
>> email: bqt%softjar.se@localhost             ||  Reading murder books
>> pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol