Author: Robert Hyatt
Date: 22:34:06 07/20/99
Go up one level in this thread
On July 20, 1999 at 21:30:21, Robert Pawlak wrote: >On July 20, 1999 at 19:39:37, Vincent Diepeveen wrote: > ><snip> >>Let me tell about my probs with linux. >> >>It starts with installing linux at my home computer. Man >>that took time. installation procedure, although a lot better than >>in the past, still sucks bigtime. It's like giving someone a big manual >>from a boeing 747 and say to him: "please fly this plane for me". >>no doubt it can fly that jumbo, but how? Lot of non-trivial things. >> >No argument here - it's definitely not win95. > >>Compiling 2.0.xx kernel to a parallel kernel was a real disaster. >> >>First of all one cannot allocate at the older linux systems >>more than 4 mb of shared memory. lucky at newer systems that's >>already extended to 32 mb of shared memory. >> >>Still a big bummer for me, as i wanted to use 450mb hashtables >>in paderborn at the quad xeon of Bob. >> >>To pass the functions: >> >>mmap() >> >>at unix systems MMAP can be used to allocate shared, anonymeous memory. >>To my big surprise someone (tim mann) figured out for me why i didn't >>get it to work. shared anonymeous memory is simply not implemented in linux >>yet! ><tale of woe snipped> > >Well, it sounds like you are pushing the envelope of the OS. Not many people are >running Linux on parallel machines (at least as far as a target audience goes). > quite the contrary. SMP linux development is quite advanced... to the point that most computer vendors now prefer to ship Linux on their large quad-cpu file servers, over NT, because of significant performance advantages. I've been running SMP linux for 2 years almost, and find it just as robust and clean as normal linux. Crafty development has _always_ been done on a linux box, currently running on a quad xeon machine... There are _thousands_ of SMP linux installations. I just taught an undergrad parallel programming course this past spring, with 48 students in it. Of that group, _three_ had dual processor machines at home already running linux. Others had multiple linux boxes on a network using PVM... parallel processing is _here_ now. Not next year... >>then i discover suddenly that the schedulers in both OSes (NT >>and linux) suck bigtime! >> >>type in linux: >> >>man sched_setscheduler >> >>all those nice schedulers are simply not implemented yet! >> >>If they would work however linux would be ahead of NT on that... >> >> > >This is interesting - but of course I really don't know much about this topic. > they aren't needed. The stock linux kernel scheduler is doing _perfectly_ for normal programs... IE on a 4 cpu machine, you get perfect results with 4 compute bound threads. If you use 5 or 6, then things get sticky but that is a bad program design anyway... >>>Specifically, do you think that it is now/will be a platform worth developing >>>for. From a layman's standpoint, I would think that it would not be too >>>difficult to port an engine written in ANSI C over to Linux, then use Tkl or >>>something like it to build an interface. >> >>my engine always ran under unix,linux and windows. >> >>However commercially seen linux is of course nothing yet. It's >>simply a toy. I didn't sell a single linux version of DIEP so far. >>Of course my linux interface doesn't have a graphical interface. >>I'm not that stupid to waste time at it! >> >Yes, it is nothing yet. However, I see a certain amount of evangelism concerning >this OS. Having used it, I feel a certain amount of this myself. But in the end, >people need to make a living. Just because you (Vincent) haven't sold a linux version yet is totally, 100% meaningless, in the world of computing. Linux is now the most installed unix system around. Companies like RedHat have streamlined the installation via CD to the point that beginners (even students) are getting it up in no time at all... > >It's certainly difficult to gaze into a crystal ball concerning this OS. >However, what's been at the back of my mind are comparisons between DOS/windows >and the Mac OS. It really came down to an issue of money, and I think mainly for >this reason, the Mac OS never really made it. > >Linux does require alot of sophistication on the part of the user, and perhaps >more on the part of the developer. But so did DOS and windows. And Linux is >cheaper than dirt. > >>>Also, do you think that the development tools are sufficiently mature to >>>undertake something like this? >> >>development tools under linux are there, but man. just to get them, >>imagine the effort! >> >>biggest complaint is the compiler: gcc, which sucks bigtime. >>all linux compilers are very slow. It's logical that they are, but >>man, nearly 3 years after pentium pro i would hope for finally a linux >>compiler doing correctly the pentium pro instructions. >> >>they're all producing 486 code now! >>Can you imagine? >>We're having the PIII now. So after >>pentium pro first came: >> >>PII >>PIII >>Merced specs are getting written now >> >>So we're 3 generations of processors later and still we don't have >>a compiler that can produce faster code that only works at pentium >>pro, PII, or PIII. it all works still at the 486, which is a big >>shame a few pro instructions would speedup my program directly 20%. >> >>However if i now compile my program with >> -mpentiumpro -march mpentiumpro >> >>then it outputs 486 code and is 25% slower. big big shame. >> >>>But, I realize that not all engines are coded in C... As a side question, what >>>is the percentage of chess engines coded in C, and in assembler? >>>Bob P. >> >>We have a saying in netherlands which translated is: >>"whose bread you eat, his word you speak". >> >>So for now it's compared to windows NT/95/98 >> >> a) linux is slower as gcc is slower than msvc >> b) i can't sell any program (chess and non-chessgame) >> now or in the near future >> for linux (although it's very easy to make a protection for >> linux and very tough to protect for windows) ain't no such thing as 'protection' for linux. You write it, I'll break it within 24 hours, if it is worthwhile to do. But then, Linux is an open- source system, where protection is not generally considered important for preventing copying. Copying is a good thing, not a bad thing, in GPL-land... >> >>If only 1 of the 2 would be true, then linux would be in my eyes a major >>success. >> >>If you are interested in buying a linux version, let me know. >>I bet you are not :) > >Of course not :-) At least, not yet. > >> >>So conclusion: linux gets slowly better (easier to install, >>easier to work with), but it's far off right now from windows. >> >>Nothing can beat the compatibility and easyness of windows so far. >>big luck for all OS developers now is that seemingly windows-guys not taking >>advantage of their advantage towards all other systems that compete with >>them in that area, so linux gets a lot of years for free to get better, >>without windows getting an inch better from gameplaying perspective. >> >>Greetings, >>Vincent > >Thanks very much for your detailed response....
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