Contributed by jose on from the vroom-vroom dept.
Hi, As some of you have seen there is once again SMP activity, this time I have good hopes of getting to a point where the branch will be usable before I once again will be hit my real life demands :-) Genua is sponsoring me for this work, and it is very appreciated. The SMP branch now works for some i386 MP systems (the config to use is GENERIC.MP), if booting multiuser and staying up for a few hours can be considered working :-) There are a bunch of machine specific problems (e.g. motherboards with non-standard interrupt routing), at least one more serious data corruption problem (meaning, do not write to important files, if you have no way of recreating them) and there is still missing all userland support (like ps and top support). That said, the report Marco provided is for a build of the normal GENERIC kernel without SMP support, of course those issues need to be fixed too, although it's a low priority. I don't even believe such a kernel will work, I have not tested it at all. I also doubt the MP kernel will work on UP systems, but you are free to test. Don't expect me to react fast to report or questions on this, I rather keep a low communicative profile, and instead work at a full pace, and I believe my funder expects me to as well :-) Happy hacking, Niklas
(Comments are closed)
By Alejandro Belluscio () baldusi@hotmail.com on mailto:baldusi@hotmail.com
I think this would attract more donors. I know I make a donation of money because of the Hackathlon case and some WiFi hardware because I actually wanted to use it.
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By Anonymous Coward () on
I think this is great! What ever happened to spinlocks though?
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By Anonymous Coward () on
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By Anonymous Coward () on
By Peter Hessler () spambox@theapt.org on http://www.theapt.org
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By henning () on
By Anonymous Coward () on
At least Freeciv uses it...
By schnick () on
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By Dan () spam@datasquid.net on mailto:spam@datasquid.net
By Chad Loder () on
I wonder why they don't set up an account that's easy to donate to, but that's specific to certain projects.
If you [all] want a feature implemented and you're willing to pay for it, then you should pool your money and hire a qualified developer to do it. If you can't pool enough money to hire a qualified developer, then what is a "tip jar" with those insufficient funds going to accomplish?
There are only a handful of project members who can do meaningful work on, say, SMP, and they all have day jobs. Having a pittance in a tip jar is not going to give them more hours in the day.
If you allow users to segment their donations into separate jars that can only be used for their favorite features, the result will be 50 jars, each filled with insufficient funds to accomplish anything. The proliferation of special jars would probably fragment donations to the point where the general purpose fund gets depleted -- and basic expenses like bandwidth, equipment, travel, etc. could not be paid for.
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By Henrik Holmboe () on
And a tipjar can raise enough money over time (from smaller donors, perhaps).
Perhaps the tipjar function should allow the donor to specify multiple targets for the donation, so if it isnt used for feature X it would wind up being used for other expenses.
Just a thought.
.h
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By Chad Loder () on
People who are actually going to donate will do it (or have done it) regardless of their favorite projects. Those who never intend to donate will simply talk about it until something else grabs their attention.
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By Alejandro Belluscio () baldusi@hotmail.com on mailto:baldusi@hotmail.com
I sure think it would be great if some really big donor (like billg who uses the OBSD utilities in its Unix Services :-) would make a donation big enough to make an endowment fund. You could also try to put some fraction of donations in there. That way you'd get a base "income" for the project. It's just standard foundation/non-profit organization.
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By Anonymous Coward () on
And about "call to arms", there was one for amd64 hardware just this week. Those things happen.
And the base income - what do you think the two releases every year are for, exept throwing out great software? Its for selling CD sets!
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By Alejandro Belluscio () baldusi@hotmail.com on mailto:baldusi@hotmail.com
Yep they do ask. But an easy more specific way of contributing should be great. I've been buying the CDs since 2.7 and donating hardware and money whenever I can (not many since Argentina devaluated :-( .) But I don't consider myself the public that has to be added. I'm already a donor. This is for those that are impulsive. Besides, I've got an offer of a dual Pentium II BX platform turned down. So it's not like this guys actually make this to get this stuff.
Besides, there's a huge difference between stating in a page your needs (that's for people like us) and going out to raise resources (that's for the mob.)
And regarding the base income, there's a big difference. One thing is to hope that the sales help you. Sales may go well, may just let you break even, or may sunk. A good portfolio will have much less variance. And might even allow some developers to actually "work" for OpenBSD full time. Forever.
By jcs () on
By jtorin () spmkll on myrealbox point com on mailto:spmkll on myrealbox point com
I do however belive that if you clearly (and in short!) states what you want to prioritize in the OpenBSD project, the team can't do more than read your statement. They are definately *not* obliged to follow your plea, but they will get an idea of the general opinon. And as it is backed up with money, it is actually worth something (as opposed to the constant whining on misc@openbsd.org/deadly.org about the lack of feature X).
Yes, I'm aware that the people that makes up the OpenBSD team pretty much choose whatever they want to work on, and how much. But still, it's the money from CD sales and donations that funds the game. Sure, the moment the money leaves my account it is the hands of the OpenBSD project and they can do whatever they damn wish with it. But remember, if they want more they have to atleast listen to the hands that feeds them.
I have donated money before and I will do it again.
By Anonymous Coward () on
By van Rihn () on
Which boards?
I've a INTEL SHG2.. I will try it ,)
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By Isak Lyberth () isak@lyberth.dk on www.lyberth.dk
By j0rd () mits_rox@OHNOS.hotmail.com on http://j0rd.ath.cx/
I'd be happy to test it and give feedback once something is working, and get gentoo off my main workstation at home.
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By Chad Loder () on
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By Anonymous Coward () on
By Anonymous Coward () on
By Nick B. () on
I'll gladly test a MP kernel.
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By Anonymous Coward () on
By SoupIsGood Food () soupisgood_food at reallyfast dawt info on mailto:soupisgood_food at reallyfast dawt info
Something is clearly broken with the approach the developer(s) are currently taking... wheel re-invention is strongly suspected.
SoupIsGood Food
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By Anonymous Coward () on
We know they can do SMP but before you rant, you might want to check http://www.openbsd.org/goals.html for yourself.
But hey, thanks for volunteering to do some SMP work, glad to see another person come forth and offer a hand...
When will you be starting? :-)
Regards.
By Anonymous Coward () on
As stated on many places, it is a question of setting priorities, avaliable resources etc etc.
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By Jeff () on
Obviously, Niklas is a fellow with other priorities that must be dealt with. I seem to recall that he might have a family or something like that..?
I don't personally care much about SMP.
Some people cannot afford fancy computer equipment ;)
Anyway, this is all beside the point.
Shouldn't we all just say, "Thank you Sir Niklas for helping the OpenBSD project. We all appreciate your work!"
By Anonymous Coward () on
oh look at that ... it's not open source
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By philipp () pb@ on mailto:pb@
HP-UX? AIX? IRIX?
Those are not solid? Yeah, right.
Go back under your rock.
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By Luiz Gustavo () on
Perhaps the same people who claims JFS is rock solid five nines file system...
At least I know how to use fsdb when needed.
(;
By Anonymous Coward () on
AIX: closed source
IRIX: closed source
His point was that all stable/mature SMP OS's are closed source and thus we can't see how it was done. Perhaps you can name a stable/mature open source implementation?
This stuff is hard, especially when you don't have control over the hardware, unlike Sun, HP, IBM, SGI, etc.
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By henning () on
it is not like SMP is a two files device driver you can port over from some other OS...
By Anonymous Coward () on
How do I know?
I administer 2x 4-way HP N-class servers running Oracle.
The hardware and HPUX is a shit crock from hell. I mean the FC interface spams the SAN and even HP don't know how to stop it.
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By ciph3r () on
It give us errors and it's not optimal but has benn solid until now.
By Anonymous Coward () on
>
> Those are not solid? Yeah, right.
Those were not any of the OSes listed... Solaris was the only closed-source OS listed.
By pravus () on
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By Anthony () on
By Anthony () on
The development process is not broken. In fact, NetBSD's SMP support is serving as a guide. OpenBSD forked from NetBSD, so they're very closely related.
The lack of SMP support is due to it being a low priority. That priority will increase over time as SMP support becomes more important in an OS.
Lack of SMP support isn't the only reason to avoid OpenBSD. There's plenty of other things it's bad at. I makes for a convincing argument to use the OS best for the job, doesn't it?
By Chad Loder () on
By tedu () on
By Ben () mouring@eviladmin.org on mailto:mouring@eviladmin.org
Retraining programmers to consider the MP/Thread cases also takes time. "Is this function re-entrant?" becomes the question of the day.
Some code can be borrowed from NetBSD, but in the end it boils down to fixing what is in the tree.
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By ciph3r () on
Maybe we can see what has been done in FreeBSD or even better, adapt the great job Matt Dillon is doing in DragonFlyBSD once it'll get stable.
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By Ben Lindstrom () mouring@eviladmin.org on mailto:mouring@eviladmin.org
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By ciph3r () on
By Anonymous Coward () on
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By krh () on
By Anonymous Coward () on
By Anthony () on
By Marc Espie () espie@openbsd.org on mailto:espie@openbsd.org
You don't know anything about how the project worksm nor about SMP development.
By Michael van der Westhuizen () on
Yet all but a few comments I've read here are negative.... why?
Why not just offer some (at least verbal) support for the huge job he's undertaking.
(a side note to the guy who spoke about maybe lifting code from NetBSD or FreeBSD: nice try, it really doesn't work like that... try it).
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By Anonymous Coward () on
My many thanks to all those who make OpenBSD what it is and will be and my many thanks to Niklas personally for his time and effort!
Regards.
By Anonymous Coward () on