Re: [R] Announcement: Automatic ATLAS support under Debian GNU/Linux
What about other distributions? Can ATLAS be used with, i.e., SuSe? Thanks Agus Dr. Agustin Lobo Instituto de Ciencias de la Tierra (CSIC) Lluis Sole Sabaris s/n 08028 Barcelona SPAIN tel 34 93409 5410 fax 34 93411 0012 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Announcement: Automatic ATLAS support under Debian GNU/Linux
[ If this is considered off-topic please let me know in private mail. ] With the current version of the glibc library in Debian's testing and unstable distributions, ldconfig now loads the ATLAS optimised BLAS without any user intervention beyond installation of the Atlas and R or Octave packages. ATLAS can lead to very dramatic speed increases (up to a factor of ten, see below for simple examples) for common linear algebra operations. The ability to use these optimised libraries along with either R or Octave without having to compile any code is probably a first among Linux, and Unix, distributions. The README file below (included with Debian's R and Octave packages) provides a few more details, and has the appropriate acknowledgements. Comments or questions are welcome. Best regards, Dirk Notes on using Atlas libs with GNU Octave and GNU R I. Overview As of the Debian releases 2.1.34-6 (for GNU Octave) and 1.3.0-3 (for GNU R), both Octave and R can be used with Atlas, the Automatically Tuned Linear Algebra Software, in order to obtain much faster linear algebra operations. To make use of Atlas, Debian users need to install the Atlas libraries for their given cpu architecture. Concretely, one of atlas2-base - Automatically Tuned Linear Algebra Software atlas2-p3 - Automatically Tuned Linear Algebra Software atlas2-p4 - Automatically Tuned Linear Algebra Software atlas2-athlon - Automatically Tuned Linear Algebra Software must be installed. Here, 'base' provides generic libraries which run on all platforms whereas 'p3', 'p4' and 'athlon' stand for the Pentium III and IV as well as the AMD Athlon, respectively. The actual libraries are installed in /usr/lib/atlas (in the case of 'base') and in /usr/lib/$arch/atlas for the cpu-specific versions. Here $arch stands for the cpu code used by the kernel and shown in /proc/cpuinfo. The Atlas libraries can be loaded dynamically instead of the (non-optimised) blas libraries against which both Octave and R are compiled. Section III below briefly describes how Atlas libraries can be compiled for your specific machine to further optimise performance. II. Using the Atlas libraries II.A New default behaviour with automatic loading of the Atlas libraries In order to have the libraries loaded at run-time, the location needs to be communicated to the dynamic linker/loader. As of the Debian release libc6_2.2.4-5 of the glibc library, a patch to ldconfig automates the use of the Atlas library. If an Atlas package is installed, and correctly registered in /etc/ld.so.conf as done by its postinst script, ldconfig will automatically load the Atlas' version of the Blas instead of the (slower) default Blas. The following text is hence only relevant for systems which have not yet upgraded to libc6_2.2.4-5 or later. II.B Old behaviour requiring LD_LIBRARY_PATH for Octave For Octave, use the variable LD_LIBRARY_PATH. On a computer with the atlas2-base package: $ LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib/atlas octave2.1 -q octave2.1:1 X=randn(1000,1000);t=cputime();Y=X'*X;cputime-t ans = 7.9600 $ [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~ octave2.1 -q octave2.1:1 X=randn(1000,1000);t=cputime();Y=X'*X;cputime-t ans = 61.520 For R version 1.3.0-4, the R_LD_LIBRARY_PATH variable has to be used, and its value needs to be copied out of /usr/bin/R (or edited therein). For R version 1.3.1 or later this is done automatically in the R startup shell script. For an Athlon machine, and with the explicit definition which is no longer needed as of R 1.3.1, the example becomes $ R_LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib/R/bin:/usr/local/lib:/usr/X11R6/lib:/usr/lib/3dnow/atlas:/usr/lib:/usr/X11R6/lib:/usr/lib/gcc-lib/i386-linux/2.95.4:. R --vanilla -q mm - matrix(rnorm(10^6), ncol = 10^3) system.time(crossprod(mm)) [1] 2.38 0.04 2.84 0.00 0.00 $ R --vanilla -q mm - matrix(rnorm(10^6), ncol = 10^3) system.time(crossprod(mm)) [1] 28.28 0.08 33.54 0.00 0.00 Running such a small example is highly recommded to ascertain that the libraries are indeed found, and to prove that the speed gain is real (and significant) for problems of at least a medium size as the 1000x1000 examples above. Note that the example use /usr/lib/atlas for the atlas2-base package; Athlon users should employ /usr/lib/3dnow/atlas, Pentium III users should employ /usr/lib/xmm/atlas and Pentium IV users should employ /usr/lib/26/atlas. Lastly, it should be pointed out that it is probably worthwhile to locally compile, and thereby optimise, the Atlas libraries if at least a moderately intensive load is expected. This is described in the next section. III. Locally compiling the Atlas libraries The Debian Atlas packages have been setup to allow for local recompilation of the Atlas libraries. This way the behaviour will be tuned exactly to the specific CPU rather than the broader class of CPUs. It has been reported that this can increase performance by a
Adaptec SCSI AIC7890 (Ultra2) support for Debian/GNU Linux 2.0
I finally could install a Debian 2.0 Linux system on an ASUS P2B-DS board (UltraWide disk). I rebuilt the Debian boot disk with support for the 7890 chip. You can find them in http://cs.tu-berlin.de/~doko/aic7xxx/ Have fun, but remember the driver has alpha status ... -- Unsubscribe? mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] /dev/null
Re: Support for Debian GNU/Linux
In the 1998 Linux Journal Buyer's guide, there is a matrix comparing the various distributions. Under Debian, it says that optional paid commercial support is available, but gives no details. Have a look at the How do I get support? section in http://www.debian.org/intro/about.html And the link from there to a List of Consultants at http://www.debian.org/consultants.html Cheers, Rich -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word unsubscribe to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
Re: Support for Debian GNU/Linux
A commercial company will have a proposal on my desk this weekend to coordinate the worldwide network of Debian consultants in a single support organization. Great news! I've been waiting for the RH Support Partner program to get moving for months... and waiting... and waiting... and waiting... Cheers, Rich -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word unsubscribe to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
Support for Debian GNU/Linux
This is the last time I'll ask this question, I promise. A while ago, Bruse Perens stated that there would be an effort to provide some sort of centralized support for Debian. I'm interested in this since the company I work for likes to have a signed support contract with our vendors. Anyone know if there have been any developments along these lines? In the 1998 Linux Journal Buyer's guide, there is a matrix comparing the various distributions. Under Debian, it says that optional paid commercial support is available, but gives no details. Anyone? -- Nathan Norman MidcoNet - 410 South Phillips Avenue - Sioux Falls, SD 57104 phone: (605) 334-4454 fax: (605) 335-1173 mailto://[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.midco.net PGP Key ID: 0xA33B86E9 - Public key available at keyservers PGP Key fingerprint: CE03 10AF 3281 1858 9D32 C2AB 936D C472 -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word unsubscribe to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
Re: Support for Debian GNU/Linux
On Sat, 28 Feb 1998, Nathan E Norman wrote: This is the last time I'll ask this question, I promise. A while ago, Bruse Perens stated that there would be an effort to provide some sort of centralized support for Debian. I'm interested in this since the company I work for likes to have a signed support contract with our vendors. Anyone know if there have been any developments along these lines? http://www.linuxpress.com/001001.htm Offers free 30 e-mail support, maybe Dale also works on a pay for support basis ([EMAIL PROTECTED]). http://www.debian.org/consultants.html The official list of people willing to give paid support, mostly by hour. Brandon P.S. please avoid cross posting - Brandon Mitchell [EMAIL PROTECTED] We all know linux is great... it PGP: finger -l [EMAIL PROTECTED] does infinite loops in 5 seconds Phone: (757) 221-4847 --Linus Torvalds -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word unsubscribe to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
Re: Support for Debian GNU/Linux
A commercial company will have a proposal on my desk this weekend to coordinate the worldwide network of Debian consultants in a single support organization. Thanks Bruce -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word unsubscribe to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
Re: Support for Debian GNU/Linux
On 28 Feb 1998 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: : A commercial company will have a proposal on my desk this weekend : to coordinate the worldwide network of Debian consultants in a single : support organization. : : Thanks : : Bruce Woohoo! This is excellent news! Thanks, Bruce. (Needless to say, I await details with much anticipation) -- Nathan Norman MidcoNet - 410 South Phillips Avenue - Sioux Falls, SD 57104 phone: (605) 334-4454 fax: (605) 335-1173 mailto://[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.midco.net PGP Key ID: 0xA33B86E9 - Public key available at keyservers PGP Key fingerprint: CE03 10AF 3281 1858 9D32 C2AB 936D C472 -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word unsubscribe to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
