[comp.unix.wizards] Kernel build times, esp. on Amdahl

mash@mips.UUCP (John Mashey) (07/07/87)

I've been intrigued by Amdahl's recent recuriting ads that say they
build a UNIX kernel in 3 minutes.  Can anybody from Amdahl say:
1) what model this is on?
2) is 3 minutes CPU time, or real time, and what's the other number?
3) is this optimized or unoptimized?

For comparison:
UNIX kernel make from scratch times: 4.3BSD+NFS, MIPS M/1000:
239.7u 74.5s 12:39 41% 99+231k 6739+6986io 3167pf	unoptimized
492.6u 100.3s 18:53 52% 174+313k 8591+8880io 3901pf 	optimized -O2

MIPS M/800's are a little slower, take about 15 minutes real, and 6 minutes
total CPU time.

NOTE: this benchmark is NOT necessarily a good test of anything in particular,
but it is of more than passing interest to people who do kernels!

[I'm hunting numbers from other machines for next Performance Brief.
Mail to me and I'll summarize to the net.]
-- 
-john mashey	DISCLAIMER: <generic disclaimer, I speak for me only, etc>
UUCP: 	{decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4}!decwrl!mips!mash  OR  mash@mips.com
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USPS: 	MIPS Computer Systems, 930 E. Arques, Sunnyvale, CA 94086

haynes@ucscc.UCSC.EDU.ucsc.edu (99700000) (07/08/87)

In article <502@winchester.UUCP> mash@mips.UUCP (John Mashey) writes:
>I've been intrigued by Amdahl's recent recuriting ads that say they
>build a UNIX kernel in 3 minutes.  Can anybody from Amdahl say:

I haven't seen the ads, but it has bothered me for years that we could
compile the 'kernel' of the Burroughs 5500 MCP from scratch in about
20 minutes (from scratch being the only way you could compile it), yet
on hardware 20 years younger it takes hours to compile a Unix kernel
of about the same size.

haynes@ucscc.ucsc.edu
haynes@ucscc.bitnet
..ucbvax!ucscc!haynes

dwc@homxc.UUCP (07/09/87)

In article <502@winchester.UUCP>, mash@mips.UUCP (John Mashey) writes:
> I've been intrigued by Amdahl's recent recuriting ads that say they
> build a UNIX kernel in 3 minutes.  Can anybody from Amdahl say:
> 1) what model this is on?
> 2) is 3 minutes CPU time, or real time, and what's the other number?
> 3) is this optimized or unoptimized?
> 
> For comparison:
> UNIX kernel make from scratch times: 4.3BSD+NFS, MIPS M/1000:
> 239.7u 74.5s 12:39 41% 99+231k 6739+6986io 3167pf	unoptimized
> 492.6u 100.3s 18:53 52% 174+313k 8591+8880io 3901pf 	optimized -O2
> 
> MIPS M/800's are a little slower, take about 15 minutes real, and 6 minutes
> total CPU time.
> 
> NOTE: this benchmark is NOT necessarily a good test of anything in particular,
> but it is of more than passing interest to people who do kernels!
> 
> [I'm hunting numbers from other machines for next Performance Brief.

i don't know about kernel builds but i once ported a cross compiler
enviroment in order to run a benchmark on an amdahl and the make went
so fast that i thought that i was 'cat'ting the makefile!

danny chen
{ihnp4|attunix}!homxc!dwc

pdg@ihdev.UUCP (07/09/87)

In article <502@winchester.UUCP> mash@mips.UUCP (John Mashey) writes:
>I've been intrigued by Amdahl's recent recuriting ads that say they
>build a UNIX kernel in 3 minutes.  Can anybody from Amdahl say:
>1) what model this is on?
>2) is 3 minutes CPU time, or real time, and what's the other number?
>3) is this optimized or unoptimized?

I must say I believe it.  On one of our systems:

uts ihlpj 5.2.5 5 5890

(ie an amdahl 5890 running Unix 5.2.5)

I can build GNU emacs from scratch in less than a minute.  I would
then guess that that is real time.  Also (as a guess) I would say
optimized as I would suppose they are running (as I was) the native
mode compiler.  Check out the Dhrystones for these beasties.  Quite
impressive and they do live up to it.

-- 

Paul Guthrie				"Another day, another Jaguar"
ihnp4!ihdev!pdg				    -- Pat Sajak