Re: question regarding architecture mailing lists

[Diana Eichert]

On Mon, 16 Apr 2018, Theo de Raadt wrote:


Discuss what?

That OpenBSD doesn't run on it?  With pleasant requests that
someone will write the code?


I know there is arm@, but sgi@ does not seem appropriate for Cavium
Octeon or other hardware.


lists which very few people pay attention to

OpenBSD uses very few mailing lists intentionally.


thanks, I appreciate your reminder.

I'll go back to being quiet on misc@

Re: question regarding architecture mailing lists

[Tom Smyth]

Hello Theo, Diana,

Yeah .. it was one of those Misc Responses where I
responded to a PS with a n essay ... :)
basically i was putting a stick in the ground saying
"Here be trouble!!"...
and offering my humble experience as a MikroTik
User for those who might think the tilera would be
super awesome for OpenBSD
it would be alot of work with limited help from the
new owners of the
CPU

all the Best,
Tom Smyth

On 16 April 2018 at 23:21, Theo de Raadt  wrote:
> Diana Eichert  wrote:
>
>> On Mon, 16 Apr 2018, Theo de Raadt wrote:
>>
>> > Diana Eichert  wrote:
>> >
>> >> Hi Tom
>> >>
>> >> Thanks for educating the misc@ masses on Tile hardware.
>> >
>> > Unfortunately I don't think misc@ will do much with the info.
>>
>> I doubt they will either, however my original question still
>> stands.  Is there a better OpenBSD mailing list to discuss
>> hardware related to non x86 or x86_64 platforms?
>
> Discuss what?
>
> That OpenBSD doesn't run on it?  With pleasant requests that
> someone will write the code?
>
>> I know there is arm@, but sgi@ does not seem appropriate for Cavium
>> Octeon or other hardware.
>
> lists which very few people pay attention to
>
> OpenBSD uses very few mailing lists intentionally.
>



-- 
Kindest regards,
Tom Smyth

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Re: question regarding architecture mailing lists

[Theo de Raadt]

Diana Eichert  wrote:

> On Mon, 16 Apr 2018, Theo de Raadt wrote:
> 
> > Diana Eichert  wrote:
> >
> >> Hi Tom
> >>
> >> Thanks for educating the misc@ masses on Tile hardware.
> >
> > Unfortunately I don't think misc@ will do much with the info.
> 
> I doubt they will either, however my original question still
> stands.  Is there a better OpenBSD mailing list to discuss
> hardware related to non x86 or x86_64 platforms?

Discuss what?

That OpenBSD doesn't run on it?  With pleasant requests that
someone will write the code?  

> I know there is arm@, but sgi@ does not seem appropriate for Cavium
> Octeon or other hardware.

lists which very few people pay attention to

OpenBSD uses very few mailing lists intentionally.

Re: question regarding architecture mailing lists

[Diana Eichert]

On Mon, 16 Apr 2018, Theo de Raadt wrote:


Diana Eichert  wrote:


Hi Tom

Thanks for educating the misc@ masses on Tile hardware.


Unfortunately I don't think misc@ will do much with the info.


I doubt they will either, however my original question still
stands.  Is there a better OpenBSD mailing list to discuss
hardware related to non x86 or x86_64 platforms?  I know
there is arm@, but sgi@ does not seem appropriate for
Cavium Octeon or other hardware.

FWIW, it appears Mellanox doesn't have a future for
Tile h/w, http://www.mellanox.com/repository/solutions/tile-scm/

sorry for the noise
diana

Re: question regarding architecture mailing lists

[Theo de Raadt]

Diana Eichert  wrote:

> Hi Tom
> 
> Thanks for educating the misc@ masses on Tile hardware.

Unfortunately I don't think misc@ will do much with the info.

Re: question regarding architecture mailing lists

[Diana Eichert]

Hi Tom

Thanks for educating the misc@ masses on Tile hardware.  I have quite a
bit of experience with Tile h/w prior to the EZchip sale, however we could
no longer work with the hardware after the sale.

There was anotherBSD Tile-GX port, however it was never committed to
their tree.

g.day
diana

On Mon, 16 Apr 2018, Tom Smyth wrote:


Hi Diana

That Mikrotik router board is based on originally a tilera chip the chip
owner which was sold to ez chip which then sold to mellanox.
Im not sure what mellanox are doing with the tech
The chip was a tile architecture meaning adding additional cores was easy
(ier) for the manufacturer


From my experience of using hardware is that it is massively parallelising

individual 1 ghz cores..

Early experience was poor enough... aparently many vendors who tfied this
architecture had pains with the quality of the reference linux kernel 3.3x
i believe...
Stability was painful... to be fair it would be difficult for any vendor
trying to run code designed for faster individual cores and then trying to
run on many slower cores...

Packet ordering and through put was painful particularly with encapsulating
/dencapsulating traffic loads

The architecture has some nice features such as interrupt load balancing in
hardware (similar to those found on server chipsets...) nics built directly
ito the chip...

Mikrotik have done an lot of work on reworking their os to use the
architecture better... iron out kinks in the linux kernel on that
architecture... rewritten alot of their code to handle out of order packets
better and to make their code make use of more cores. Alot of their work is
paying off for certain loads but you are limited in what features you can
use on the router in "fast path" to get the big packet rate numbers ...

The build quality of the mikrotik ccrs make them more attractive for
development on than some of their low budget offerings (eg rb2011)

I have 1 x ccr2016 tilera 12 port 16 core router spare if there is an
interested dev who wants to seriously look at the architecture... but with
uncertainty of what mellanox will do with the chip it may be a waste of
time...
Also im not sure how open the architecture and if they have some bsd
licensed code / reference implentation to get development started on it
I hope this helps

Tom Smyth

On Mon 16 Apr 2018, 19:42 Diana Eichert,  wrote:


I subscribe to the OpenBSD arm list but was wondering what the
appropriate mon-misc list would be for mips based h/w, ex:
Cavium Octeon.

Sometimes I don't want to pollute misc@ with h/w specific
questions.

thanks
diana

PS Anyone seen this hardware,
https://mikrotik.com/product/CCR1036-12G-4S-EM ?

Re: question regarding architecture mailing lists

[Tom Smyth]

Hi Diana

That Mikrotik router board is based on originally a tilera chip the chip
owner which was sold to ez chip which then sold to mellanox.
Im not sure what mellanox are doing with the tech
The chip was a tile architecture meaning adding additional cores was easy
(ier) for the manufacturer

>From my experience of using hardware is that it is massively parallelising
individual 1 ghz cores..

Early experience was poor enough... aparently many vendors who tfied this
architecture had pains with the quality of the reference linux kernel 3.3x
i believe...
Stability was painful... to be fair it would be difficult for any vendor
trying to run code designed for faster individual cores and then trying to
run on many slower cores...

Packet ordering and through put was painful particularly with encapsulating
/dencapsulating traffic loads

The architecture has some nice features such as interrupt load balancing in
hardware (similar to those found on server chipsets...) nics built directly
ito the chip...

Mikrotik have done an lot of work on reworking their os to use the
architecture better... iron out kinks in the linux kernel on that
architecture... rewritten alot of their code to handle out of order packets
better and to make their code make use of more cores. Alot of their work is
paying off for certain loads but you are limited in what features you can
use on the router in "fast path" to get the big packet rate numbers ...

The build quality of the mikrotik ccrs make them more attractive for
development on than some of their low budget offerings (eg rb2011)

I have 1 x ccr2016 tilera 12 port 16 core router spare if there is an
interested dev who wants to seriously look at the architecture... but with
uncertainty of what mellanox will do with the chip it may be a waste of
time...
Also im not sure how open the architecture and if they have some bsd
licensed code / reference implentation to get development started on it
I hope this helps

Tom Smyth

On Mon 16 Apr 2018, 19:42 Diana Eichert,  wrote:

> I subscribe to the OpenBSD arm list but was wondering what the
> appropriate mon-misc list would be for mips based h/w, ex:
> Cavium Octeon.
>
> Sometimes I don't want to pollute misc@ with h/w specific
> questions.
>
> thanks
> diana
>
> PS Anyone seen this hardware,
> https://mikrotik.com/product/CCR1036-12G-4S-EM ?
>
>

question regarding architecture mailing lists

[Diana Eichert]

I subscribe to the OpenBSD arm list but was wondering what the
appropriate mon-misc list would be for mips based h/w, ex:
Cavium Octeon.

Sometimes I don't want to pollute misc@ with h/w specific
questions.

thanks
diana

PS Anyone seen this hardware, 
https://mikrotik.com/product/CCR1036-12G-4S-EM ?