jeffr_tech ([info]jeffr_tech) wrote,
@ 2008-03-15 23:11:00
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People are always posting comments of 'what about solaris!'. I'm going to install some new operating systems on an 8way xeon (2x4). So what about solaris? What should I install? Can I do a network install or do I have to burn dvds? Any tips? Which Linux should I install for benchmarking? I've just been using fedora. Maybe I should stick with that since I'm familiar with it.

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(Anonymous)
2008-03-16 10:07 am UTC (link)
I agree that you should stick with Fedora. It contains pretty new kernels, so it's useful for benchmarking.
As for Solaris, I suppose you want it for benchmarking too, so I recommend you install the latest Solaris Express Developer Edition which is based on current opensolaris code while also being "official".

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Solaris
[info]ceri.myopenid.com
2008-03-16 10:48 am UTC (link)
There are currently a whole bunch of Solaris' for you to try.

The commercial Solaris 10 is available for download at http://sun.com/solaris/get.jsp.

If you want a more up to date version that you can get a free DVD for, try the last developer edition from http://developers.sun.com/sxde/download.jsp where you can order a DVD which should arrive within a week or so.

There's the Indiana preview which will be replacing the developer edition; it runs from a live CD and is available from http://www.opensolaris.org/os/project/indiana/resources/getit/

There's also the Community edition which is released every two weeks and is the most up to date version you'll be able to get without getting your hands dirty, which will require a DVD be burnt from images at http://www.opensolaris.org/os/downloads/sol_ex_dvd/

You can do a network install of them all, except maybe Indiana which is somewhat different to the others, by following the instructions in http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/819-2394

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Re: Solaris
[info]jeffr_tech
2008-03-16 11:52 am UTC (link)
Thanks. I ordered the developer addition dvd. That'll probably be the easiest for me to deal with. I'll post results in a few weeks after I have everything setup.

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(Anonymous)
2008-03-16 11:00 am UTC (link)
Could you please tell us which mainboards you are using (for both the 8-way and the 16-way)? Would be nice to have a list of high-end serverboards which are known to work properly with FreeBSD.

Thanks

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[info]jeffr_tech
2008-03-16 11:10 am UTC (link)
I have mostly been using machines from www.ixsystems.com. They are a BSD centric server shop and also distributed pc-bsd. If you order from them they'll pre-install most BSDs on the boxes. The 4x4barcelona is generic box with a tyan board.

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(Anonymous)
2008-03-16 11:21 am UTC (link)
Thanks, by any chance you know the exact model?
I found these 3 boards on the Tyan website, they all support 4 quad-core cpus.

www.tyan.com/product_board_detail.aspx?pid=496
www.tyan.com/product_board_detail.aspx?pid=271
www.tyan.com/product_board_detail.aspx?pid=554

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[info]jeffr_tech
2008-03-16 11:31 am UTC (link)
http://www.tyan.com/product_board_detail.aspx?pid=496

Looks to me like it's that one.

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[info]sas_spidey01
2008-03-17 05:56 am UTC (link)
I've always wanted to try HP-UX and Solaris for some odd reason, dunno why. I know if I ever did I would just RTFM though :-)

Benchmarking wise, it makes good enough sense to use Fedora / RHEL / CentOS stuff for benchmarking Linux I guess. if it really is as popular as I hear it would be even more logical.


When it comes to kernels though, shouldn't you just build one from kernel.org for the Linux end of the tests?


I personally don't care a lot about benchmarks as long as they are competitive. Because the worst I've ever put my systems (FreeBSD, Linux, WinXP) through is simultaneously blasting music, ripping an audio cd, running Mozilla, desktop (KDE/Gnome/Explorer), and trying to get my work done surfing, chatting, e-mailing, and editing text.

And the worst I'm ever likely to add to that load add compiling some thing for a few hours on top of it, not surfing more page hits then Disney World makes $$$ in a day :-)

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[info]asgard.myopenid.com
2008-03-17 06:43 am UTC (link)
When it comes to kernels though, shouldn't you just build one from kernel.org for the Linux end of the tests?

agree. It'll be the most clear way because most linux distributive vendors use their kernel patches. So redhat/debian/ubuntu kernels are not pure.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)
glibc
(Anonymous)
2008-03-17 07:26 am UTC (link)
The libc library especially can be very important in these tests as well. And it can be a lot more difficult to install than a kernel. An "easy" way to do it is set up a chroot environment outside the regular distro where you compile a plain glibc and test programs.

(Reply to this) (Parent)
Which Solaris
(Anonymous)
2008-03-17 09:54 am UTC (link)
Which Solaris you say, it depends to what you compare it, if a benchmark will compare newest testing Linux kernel Like 2.6.25-rc6 and FreeBSD 8-CURRENT, then get Solaris SXCE (Solaris Express Community Edition).

Generally the line up is like that:
SXCE --> monthly binary (latest is Solaris Express Community Edition DVD - Build 84)
SXDE --> quarterly binary (latest is Solaris Express Developer Edition 1/08)
S10Updates --> quarterly binary (latest is Solaris 10 8/07)

So comparing this to FreeBSD naming scheme ...
SXCE --> monthly snapshot of CURRENT
SXDE --> snapshot of STABLE
S10Updates --> *.1+ RELEASE (like 6.3 7.1)

I would go for DVD, you will not have to switch CDs.

Also Solaris has many services running by default, you may check these like that:
# svcs

and this one to enable/disable/restart and so on:
# svcadm

You may also create a thread on http://opensolaris.org/os/discussions/ to get Solaris specific tweeks so no one will later scream about wrong Solaris configuration.

Also thanks for adding Solaris to your great tests and comparasions, I have always been curious how it performs comparing to FreeBSD 7.0.

Regards
vermaden

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Re: Which Solaris
[info]jeffr_tech
2008-03-17 10:06 am UTC (link)
Thanks for the information. I got the developer edition ordered. Is it possible to upgrade to the community edition later if I want?

I'm going to compare 7.0, 8.0-CURRENT and maybe a couple of linux kernel version on a recent redhat depending on what the results look like and how interested I am.

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Re: Which Solaris
(Anonymous)
2008-03-17 02:14 pm UTC (link)
You should really go with Solaris Express Developer Edition since it gives you a pretty good estimate at Future Solaris Performance while being considered a stable "release" by many people using Solaris. In my experience it performs a lot better than Solaris 10 in most if not all scenarios, so it will give an outlook on Solaris 11 Performance while being used in many productive environments already. It should be a worthy competitor I guess. http://www.stdlib.net/~colmmacc/2006/04/13/more-ubuntu-on-t2000/ <-- here you can see what i mean.

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Re: Which Solaris
[info]ceri.myopenid.com
2008-03-17 09:36 pm UTC (link)
Yep, SXDE is upgradable to SXCE. Sensible thing to do is to create a single / partition and another one of the same size for Live Upgrade boot environments; this way you can upgrade each boot environment independently and switch between them as you like. If your disk is "big enough" (over 40GB IIRC) then the SXDE installer will create a /second_root partition for this purpose by default.

Note that I don't quite agree with the schedules suggested by vermaden above, but they're not terribly important. SX*E will come Secure By Default too.

As for Solaris specific tweaks, current thinking in Solaris kernel engineer land is really that if you had to manually tune something, that's a bug.

(Reply to this) (Parent)
Don't Use Fedora to Test
(Anonymous)
2008-03-17 06:01 pm UTC (link)
If you want to really test Linux, I suggest testing either Ubuntu Server Edition or Debian Unstable. You will be able to get relatively new kernel for both and you will be able to have a pretty minimal install on both so you can focus on testing kernels. I think that will give you a true apple to apple comparison. Fedora just seems to install everything and the kitchen sink even when doing a minimal install.

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Counter opinion
(Anonymous)
2008-03-19 09:00 am UTC (link)
The Red Hat folks care a lot about server performance so I feel it is reasonable to choose the latest Fedora (which tends to be fairly cutting edge) as it should be better tuned to that type of workload out of the box while making reasonable tradeoffs (e.g. RH stopped compiling kernels for each Pentium variant after running tests showing marginal improvements). Sure you can always squeeze out a few percent by hand compiling things or turning off daemons but having things like smartd running in the background makes sense for a default server setup.

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Re: Counter opinion
[info]jeffr_tech
2008-03-19 09:05 am UTC (link)
Well thanks anonymous posters. I usually compile my own kernels anyway unless I have reason to do otherwise. I just need to make sure the distribution has the most up to date glibc and nptl.

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Solaris EULA
(Anonymous)
2008-03-20 12:09 am UTC (link)
The Solaris EULA prohibits sharing benchmark results with third parties,
which is kind of lame. I've heard OpenSolaris suggested as an alternative.

- ad

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Re: Solaris EULA
[info]jeffr_tech
2008-03-20 12:11 am UTC (link)
Wow thanks for sharing. I guess that includes the developer edition? I'll just have to 'upgrade' it to opensolaris then.

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Re: Solaris EULA
[info]http://openid.submonkey.net/ceri
2008-03-20 10:59 pm UTC (link)
Crap; it also means SXCE. You'll have to use the Indiana preview from http://www.opensolaris.org/os/project/indiana/resources/getit/ which is licensed purely under http://opensolaris.org/os/licensing/opensolaris_binary_license/

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Re: Solaris EULA
(Anonymous)
2008-03-20 11:53 pm UTC (link)
Well, I have seen many Solaris benchmarks thought the years, so it doesn't seem like Sun really cares about it. It might be one of those legacy clauses still in the license that they just forgot to remove or left it "just in case". Sure it makes sense to at least read that license and do a basic research, but I don't think it's a definitive no go to benchmark Solaris. Even more now that it's open source. The last thing Sun needs now is to sue some open source developer for posting some benchmarks...

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Re: Solaris EULA
[info]http://openid.submonkey.net/ceri
2008-03-21 06:03 pm UTC (link)
I know that Simon Phipps is working on getting it changed, but currently the prohibition stands.

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Re: Solaris EULA
(Anonymous)
2008-03-22 09:45 am UTC (link)
Sun SLA [1] for Solaris tells:
(f) You may not publish or provide the results of any benchmark or comparison tests run on Software to any third party without the prior written consent of Sun.

So you cannot (officially) post benchmark that compares Solaris performance to other OS, but nothing prevents you from posting alone Solaris results, and for example, to put all other OSes results in another entry on your blog, it will not be so hard to compare the results.

Also this SLA restriction is probably used only to prevent posting non-valid results of inexperienced benchmarkers, at your place I will post benchmarks just like that, if Sun will reply to this, then ask them how to tune Solaris to make it better perform at the task you are making a benchmark.

[1] http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/licensing/sla.xml

Regards
vermaden

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Re: Solaris EULA
[info]http://openid.submonkey.net/ceri
2008-03-25 10:44 am UTC (link)
I have no idea how you get from "You may not publish or provide the results of any benchmark or comparison tests run on Software" to "nothing prevents you from posting alone Solaris results".

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