Miscellaneous Operating Systems/Hardware

ERLite-3 , it's ~{100..120} Euro from Amazon | Ebay

it's an SMP, dual core Cavium Octeon, MIPS64, and comes with 3 GigaE plus 1 hidden (inside the case) USB
(plus a strange RJ45 serial port, so, do not forget to buy an adaptor to RS232, Amazon has it, it costs 10..15 USD)
has some already tried it ? in case, feedbacks ? can you run nbench and report ?

I'd be surprised if the RJ45 was a different pinout from the one used on every Cisco router and just about everything else. Converters are a dime a dozen.
Does the version of linux in that link support the crypto engines in the Octeon? There are content filter engines (hardware regex) as well.

DB9M RJ45 kit

robespierre wrote: I'd be surprised if the RJ45 was a different pinout from the one used on every Cisco router and just about everything else. Converters are a dime a dozen.

usually these kits allow you to have customized wiring

robespierre wrote: Does the version of linux in that link support the crypto engines in the Octeon? There are content filter engines (hardware regex) as well.

I do not know how good it the kernel support.
I am not interested in crypto engines.
and the offered rootfs (in the above link) is gentoo stage3-mips64-be-glibc
it means no crypto-engine support by default, you have to modify the profile (change USEflags) and remerge things

robespierre wrote: I'd be surprised if the RJ45 was a different pinout from the one used on every Cisco router and just about everything else.

ERL use indeed Cisco-compatible wiring for the serial port, so there is nothing odd about it.

interesting question: to be, or not to be, Cavium's SDK addicted

ivelegacy wrote: interesting question: to be, or not to be, Cavium's SDK addicted

It's crap, but they're not giving you much choice if you intend your code to be portable to all Octeon families.

miod wrote: It's crap

why? I mean, PROs & CONs with them ?

PROs: if the Octeon's toy works, then it could help my poor IP30
which eats too much electricity so it's allowed to be Powered-ON only for a few hours a day

they could share the same rootfs

miod wrote: but they're not giving you much choice if you intend your code to be portable to all Octeon families

mmm Octeon'ISA seems compatible with { mips1, mips2, mips3, mips4, mips64r2 }
so in first place I can recycle the job I have done for Atheros RS/P (mips1) and SGI/IP30 (mips4)

even if it seems (I have to check) they have advanced instructions not covered by mips64-unknown-linux-gnu

kernel that comes with the board is a modified 2.6.32.13 one. If you ever want to rebuild it yourself from the GPL archive, you need a mips64-octeon-linux-gnu toolchain that comes with the Cavium SDK. Typical distro toolchains (mips64-unknonwn-*) will fail to compile these kernel sources with errors like these:

root #make ARCH=mips CROSS_COMPILE=mips64-unknown-linux-gnu-

Code: Select all

Error: Opcode not supported on this processor: octeon (mips64r2) `saa $6,($7)
Error: Opcode not supported on this processor: octeon (mips64r2) `saa $9,($7)
Error: Opcode not supported on this processor: octeon (mips64r2) `saa $3,($7)


ivelegacy wrote: why? I mean, PROs & CONs with them ?

The Cavium SDK tries hard to be the kernel itself. For example, it comes with its own malloc, spinlocks, mutexes, you name it. Trying to replace this with your kernel's existing facilities is not really supported, and error-prone. Also, it suffers from too much OOP disease, with accessors on top of accessors on top of accessors, hidden by a thick layer of preprocessor macros (see octeon-model.h for a belching example of this). I understand that some layers are necessary because of the broad family of subtly different octeon models, but there seem to be too many of them.

ivelegacy wrote: they could share the same rootfs

I'm not so sure about that. Octeon lack coprocessor 1, i.e. the FPU. So either you need to have proper FPU emulation in the kernel, or you need to compile your userland in soft-float mode, which will suck on SGI where there is no such limitation.

miod wrote: I'm not so sure about that. Octeon lack coprocessor 1, i.e. the FPU. So either you need to have proper FPU emulation in the kernel

kernel FPU emulation, my RS/P(1) has no FPU, and I am sometimes (too often) using it to compile things for my IP30
to compile the kernel it takes 5 hours, while my IP30 2xR12K@400 takes 40 minutes, just to compare the cpupower
but RS/P eats less than 10Watt of electricity, while my IP30 eats up to 400Watt

btw, for the FPU staff I am using this wicked trick

see what my RS/P dmesg | grep "FPU" says


(1) Atheros AR7161 rev 2, MIPS32r2 core

Well, if you don't often need floating point, COP1 emulation is certainly a solution. But since the MIPS FP registers are inside COP1, the code needs to be carefully written so that whatever variables store the emulated registers are context switched the same as the int registers.

I need that machine to compile and cook stages for Octane, & the reason is that it eats less electricity
I do not need FPU, and in case the kernel FPU-emulation-trick is good enough

the point is: how fast is it (I'd like to see a benchmark) & how good is USB engine?

ivelegacy wrote: the point is: how fast is it (I'd like to see a benchmark) & how good is USB engine?

Actually, I have a question here: Can it run with a USB hub and an external disk, or does it need to be a single USB stick and no peripheral expansion other than via the network ports?

nyef wrote: Can it run with a USB hub and an external disk

if theres a full EHCI inside the chip, then it depends on the kernel support.
(need to be recompiled with HUB enabled)

ivelegacy wrote:
DB9M RJ45 kit

I bought a couple of dozen of these (both the male and female gender) a couple of years ago. I have a ton of equipment with serial management ports, and a Cyclades ACS 48 console server (48x serial port on RJ45). Whenever a new weirdo piece of kit shows up at my place I make an adapter. You just have to make sure you label these things properly or you will forget what system they go with.

ivelegacy wrote: kernel FPU emulation, my RS/P(1) has no FPU, and I am sometimes (too often) using it to compile things for my IP30
to compile the kernel it takes 5 hours, while my IP30 2xR12K@400 takes 40 minutes, just to compare the cpupower
but RS/P eats less than 10Watt of electricity, while my IP30 eats up to 400Watt :shock: :shock: :shock:

How is your Octane pulling 400W? You said you run it headless with no graphics, so it should be well under 300W. Mine has the dual R14K, an Impact board with a PCI shoebox, and 3x 10k RPM 2.5" SCA drives, and it clocks in right around 303W average. These systems don't do power scaling, either, so regardless if it's compiling code or contributing to the ambient room temperature, it'll run at a fairly fixed wattage. And aren't you on 240V mains? That should be more efficient than our silly 120V setup over here in the states.

Kumba wrote: How is your Octane pulling 400W? You said you run it headless with no graphics, so it should be well under 300W.

measured on my friend machine
- 2xR14K@600Mhz
- 2Gbyte of ram (currently downgraded to 1.7Gbyte)
- V12 + Mgras installed {SlotA,SlotB,SlotD}
- PCI ShoeBox with a dual SCSI controller and PCI_USB
- 2x40Gbyte SCA hard drives

we measured ~390Watt average

my machine is littler and comes without gfx
- 2xR12K@400Mhz
- 1.5Gbyte
- Menet @ slotD
- ShoeHorn @ Slot B, PCI_USB
- 3x8Gbyte SCA hard drives

ironically this brings me back to the last question that a friend asked to me

Ivelegacy wrote: need for
qty=1, MGRAS XIO Carrier
qty=4, Blanking plate for XIO slot

friend wrote: I'm curious, why 4 plates? Is the system not going to have any gfx at all?

because without gfx, I can have 100Watt less

Kumba wrote: And aren't you on 240V mains?

yes || no

Yes : in Europe.Italy we have 240V
No : but my IP30 system is powered by a diesel generator (2), which comes with 120V setup
so I modified the IP30 PSU instead of buying a more expensive converter for the generator (1)
it's 5Kwatt diesel generator, paid 200 euro for the whole as second hand




btw, things within the range { 200, 300, 400 } Watt are greater than things within the range { 20, 30, 40 } watt
corollary: RSP & Cavium Octeon eat less electricity -> they are 10x better dogs !


(1) here the electricity costs a lot , so I applied a wicked trick to be minded about that
my power generator eats diesel as my car eats petrol, and my car does 16 Km with 1 liter of petrol
so, I have to be careful how far I am used to go, and how many times I am used to drive
and how many times, and how long, I am used to use the IP30
(2) bought at Friedrichshafen marketplace

ivelegacy wrote: measured on my friend machine
- 2xR14K@600Mhz
- 2Gbyte of ram (currently downgraded to 1.7Gbyte)
- V12 + Mgras installed {SlotA,SlotB,SlotD}
- PCI ShoeBox with a dual SCSI controller and PCI_USB
- 2x40Gbyte SCA hard drives

we measured ~390Watt average

Okay, Impact AND Odyssey in the same system, pulling 390W sounds closer to what I'd expect. Your Octane should, however, be around 250W or less, since you removed all of your graphics options. That's actually not a bad draw, and while I don't know what electric rates are like in the EU, it shouldn't be that expensive on a per-month basis, especially if you're only running the Octane a couple hours a day.

ivelegacy wrote: yes || no

Yes : in Europe.Italy we have 240V
No : but my IP30 system is powered by a diesel generator (2), which comes with 120V setup
so I modified the IP30 PSU instead of buying a more expensive converter for the generator (1)
it's 5Kwatt diesel generator, paid 200 euro for the whole as second hand

Okay, I was not expecting that as an answer. Why can't you run the Octane on the 240V system? The power supply is auto-sensing and should handle either 120 or 240 just fine. And what did you modify on the PSU?

ivelegacy wrote: btw, things within the range { 200, 300, 400 } Watt are greater than things within the range { 20, 30, 40 } watt
corollary: RSP & Cavium Octeon eat less electricity -> they are 10x better dogs :D !

Maybe, maybe not. SGI built some wicked gear that has stood the test of time a lot longer than most computer gear normally does. Especially with dual R14K's. What does Cavium have for L2 caches on those chips?

Kumba wrote: Why can't you run the Octane on the 240V system?

the House where I live is property of my girlfriend, and even if I pay half the electricity she doesn't like the IP30, in first place

she understands Cerberus because she uses that machine for her personal photos album and mp3 playlist player
while doesn't understand the BlueQueen (aka IP30) because she sees a strange iron that has the only purpose to eats electricity
so the Queen must be hidden in the attic, and remotely controlled over the lan

she can't understand what goes through the lan, encrypted by openSSH, and she is not familiar with lan-sniffers
but if I use the house electricity to power the big iron then she catches me immediately !
due to an electronic main control I have installed in her house (d'oh ), she can check the electricity, room by room
so I'd better use a diesel power engine, which is outside the house, hidden in my garage, literally my personal Neverland

so, "the cause" sounds like Peter Pan vs She-Captain-Hook

even if, some days she makes herself called "Hook" as the wicked woman in Piracy ever
up to her new and old tricks, but it won't last forever, so next day she is a super "Trilli" Fairy Girl,
without Fairy Wings but out to save the World (and the Neverland says Go Go GaGa)

it doesn't really matter if she is a Fairy or a She-Pirate, the House Game keeps getting better!
(never seen in the movie industry, and, trust me, we are all feeling fine about that )

oh, also I have installed a few solar cells over the garage's roof
they recharge a big battery (still experimental), which comes also charged by the power generator

this equipment can't be hosted inside the house, and I can't stay in the garage
it's too cold over there (-7 C), so there is a big hidden power cable between the garage and the house
it comes to the attic (over a groove) and it feeds the IP30. That room is never less than +8 C, even if … there is too much dust

Kumba wrote: The power supply is auto-sensing and should handle either 120 or 240 just fine. And what did you modify on the PSU?

my Diesel Power generator comes with a very bad designed output stage, in first place it seems it has a too poor output filter
and as results its signal shape is not a sinusoidal wave, it has a lot of components at low-middle-high frequency spectrum
which is OK for an electric drill while it's very very bad if you want to power supply a computer equipment
(this, even if the switching stage inside the IP30 PSU comes already filtered)
so I added another strong filter in order to suppress them and the BlueQueen is feeling fine

Kumba wrote: Maybe, maybe not.

if a machine like my RSP eats less than 50 watt then I can hide it from the electricity meter, so it's a "good dog"
and here you have a practical definition, however see about pros and cons, see the cons:

AR7161 @ 680Mhz -> BogoMIPS 479.23 (RSP, Router, MIPS32R2 without FPU, kernel floating point emulation)


Toshiba RISC 2xR12000 @ 400Mhz with FPU -> BogoMIPS 598.01+600.00 (SGI Octane2 with SMP CPU module)

Kumba wrote: What does Cavium have for L2 caches on those chips?

Not yet investigated

Octeon Plus has 128KB shared L2 cache. The Octeon II has 4MB shared L2.

ivelegacy wrote: the House where I live is property of my girlfriend, and even if I pay half the electricity she doesn't like the IP30, in first place

You need a new girlfriend.