2009 Update

[Anton Shterenlikht]

On Sat, Nov 07, 2009 at 05:26:27PM -0500, "C. Bergström" wrote:
> Anton Shterenlikht wrote:
> > On Fri, Nov 06, 2009 at 09:52:25AM -0800, Marcel Moolenaar wrote:
> >   
> >> 3.  More compiler and debugger work. GCC is really not good for
> >>      ia64. I'm planning on refocusing some of my attention towards
> >>      compiler work. Related to this is the debugger. GDB is not
> >>      lacking severely on ia64. Note that I don't plan to fix GDB.
> >>      Neither will I fix GCC. I'll be looking elsewhere.
> >>     
> >
> > This seems a major undertaking. Also, what will happen to
> > a miriad of GCC-dependent ports?
> >   
> I'm willing to make PathScale's PathDB CDDL or possibly BSD licensed.  
> I've been planning this for months, it has the green light and I'm the 
> bottleneck.  If there's interest it could serve a dual purpose of 
> building a providing a more liberal licensed debugger for the BSD 
> community/open source and share the workload beyond the ia64 community.  
> I've not reviewed the code to know the quality, but I'm happy to give 
> anyone access to the source.  Once the headers are updated and there's a 
> plan going forward we can make it publicly available.
> 
> http://hg.pathscale.com
> Just let me know your username and I'll give you access.
> 
> 
> It may also be possible for PathScale's compiler to be getting a major 
> improvement in the near future that would benefit IA64 and other 
> targets.  It's still uncertain, but I'd love to see it happen.  Parts of 
> our fully open source compiler project are being held up by some legal 
> issues beyond my control.  The parts that are pending wouldn't inhibit 
> finishing our BSD port and or get in the way of anything ia64 related.
> 
> Between now and after SC09 (SuperComputing) I apologize if I'm slow to 
> respond to emails.  irc is best for quick questions or to say hi..

There are 6 ia64 systems on top500 list (details below). All
run linux, of course. But these organisations must use
very good compilers, and, at least for nuclear codes (systems 71
and 96), these will be f90-f95 or even f2003 (I don't know of
any f2008) compilers. Perhaps they do use PathScale and
forget about GCC..

anton

################

Rank	Site	System	Cores	Rmax	Rpeak
58	NASA/Ames Research Center/NAS
United States	SGI Altix 1.5/1.6/1.66 GHz, Voltaire Infiniband
SGI	13824	66.57	82.94

66	Leibniz Rechenzentrum
Germany	Altix 4700 1.6 GHz
SGI	9728	56.52	62.26

71	Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique (CEA)
France	NovaScale 5160, Itanium2 1.6 GHz, Quadrics
Bull SA	9968	52.84	63.8

75	Wright-Patterson Air Force Base/DoD ASC
United States	Altix 4700 1.6 GHz
SGI	9216	51.44	58.98

96	Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique (CEA)
France	Novascale 3045, Itanium2 1.6 GHz, Infiniband
Bull SA	7680	42.13	49.15

325	Government Classified
United States	Cluster Platform 6000 rx1620, Itanium2 1.6 GHz, Quadrics
Hewlett-Packard	4096	20.45	26.21te

-- 
Anton Shterenlikht
Room 2.6, Queen's Building
Mech Eng Dept
Bristol University
University Walk, Bristol BS8 1TR, UK
Tel: +44 (0)117 331 5944
Fax: +44 (0)117 929 4423