MCslp Coalface

General Purpose vs Specialized systems

Yesterday at Computerworld I talked about the X4150 and how it fits into a general purpose piece of hardware that can easily be redeployed and reused.

Interestingly I’ve just found this item in my blog post queue from way back in 2006, Jonathan Schwartz: The Rise of the General Purpose System, where Jonathan pretty much spells out that general purpose was the way to go. Obviously the X4150 is an embodiment of that belief.

Comparing 32-bit/64-bit MySQL on OpenSolaris

I’ve been working with the folks working on OpenSolaris for a few months now providing advice and input on getting MySQL and the connectors (C/ODBC and C/J) installed as a standard component. Having got the basics in, the team are now looking at adding both 32-bit and 64-bit packages.

The question raised at the end of last week was whether OpenSolaris should enable 64-bit builds by default in 64-bit installations, and whether there was a noticeable performance difference that would make this worthwhile.

I did some initial tests on Friday which showed that there was a small increase (10-15%) of the packaged 64-bit installations over 32-bit under x86 using snv_81. Tests were executed using the included sql-bench tool, and this was a single execution run of each package for 5.0.56. Transactions are missing because I hadn’t enabled transactions in the tests.

There are some significant differences there (like the 55% increase on SELECT speeds, for example), but a single execution is never a good test. Also, it’s unclear whether the differences are between the compilations, the platform or just pure coincidence. This requires further investigation.

As a coincidence, Krish Shankar posted these notes on using SunStudio 11 and SunStudio 12 and the right compiler flags to get the best optimization.

I decided to do 10-pass iterations of sql-bench and compare both 32-bit and 64-bit standard builds, the 32-bit standard builds against Krish’s optimizations, and finally 32-bit and 64-bit optimized builds.

Some notes on all the tests:

• All builds are 5.0.56
• All tests are run on SunOS 5.11, snv_81
• Tests are executed on the same OS and machine running in 64-bit. The SPARC tests are on an UltraSPARC IIIi@1.28GHz Workstation with 1GB RAM; x86 are on a Dell T105, Opteron 1212 with 4GB RAM. Of course we’re not comparing machine speed, just 32-bit binaries over 64-bit.
• All results are in seconds; lower values mean faster performance.
• In all tests I’m using the built-in defaults (i.e. no my.cnf anywhere) so as to simulate a standardized installation.

Let’s first look at x86 and the 32-bit standard and 32-bit optimized builds:

The standard build uses gcc instead of SunStudio, but I don’t get the same performance increases that Krish saw - in fact, I see reductions in performance, not improvements at all. I’m going to rebuild and retest, because I’m convinced there’s a problem here with the builds that I’m not otherwise seeing. I certainly don’t expect to get results that show a 27% reduction in insert speed. That said, a 10% big-table increase is interesting. I’ll redo these builds and find out if the slow down is as marked as it here.

Here’s the comparison for standard builds between 32-bit and 64-bit standard builds on x86:

There are some incredible differences here - more than 50% increase in SELECT, and 30% for the big-tables test show that there is some advantage to having the 64-bit builds on x86 enabled.

Unfortunately I’ve had problems with the 64-bit optimized builds on my machine, so I haven’t completed optimized test comparisons.

On SPARC, Sun Studio is used as the default compiler, and the standard 32-bit and 64-bit show little difference:

Overall, a pretty insignificant difference here.

Now let’s compare the standard and optimized builds using Krish’s flags on SPARC:

The tests here show little significant difference between the standard and the optimized builds, although 6-7% would probably be enough to prefer an optimized build if you wanted to build your own.

Now let’s compare the optimized, Sun Studio 12 builds running in 32-bit and 64-bit:

The differences are virtually non-existent, and taking the reductions and increases in performance overall, there’s probably little difference.

The overall impression is that on x86 the improvement of 64-bit over 32-bit is significant enough that it’s probably a good idea to make 64-bit the default. On SPARC, the difference in the optimized builds is so slight that for compatibility reasons alone, 32-bit would probably make a better default.

I’ll probably be re-running these tests over the next week or so (particularly the x86 so I can get a true comparison of the 64-bit optimized improvements), and I’ll try the T1000 which I upgraded to snv_81 over the weekend, but I think indications are good enough to make a reasonable recommendation of 64-bit over 32-bit.

XBOX360 and XBOX games

You know, I am consistently (and pleasantly) surprised at the compatibility of old XBOX games on the on the XBOX360. When you consider that the games are running and emulation (the platforms are completely different), the speed difference between the two is difficult to discern.

It is also interesting to see which games look as good when viewed at the higher res. Black, for example, looks just as good on my 20″ LCD panel and the XBOX360 at more than twice the resolution than it did on the XBOX. Far Cry, however, looks particularly pixellated at times.

The only time I use the original XBOX now is when playing Dancing Stage Unleashed where the screen and mat are easier to use together.

Geekbench results for iMac 24

I’ve just completed running Geekbench results for my 24″ iMac (3GB, Intel T7600, 2.33GHz) and the Sun Ultra 20M2 I have on test (4GB, AMD Opteron 1200 2.8GHz).

The overall rates are interesting:

iMac: 246*
U20M2: 273.5*

The U20M2 is slightly faster, although in use I think it’s much faster.

I’m still completing some tests on the U20 under different operating systems on the U20 to see whether there is some advantage to different OS on the U20M2.

*: The iMac is updated to the latest BIOS and latest updates, with other applications not running
*: The U20M2 is updated to the BIOS and drivers (from the 1.4 driver update CD), with other applications not running

Cool tools for hot laptops

Belkin have announced two cool tools for using your hot laptop - and I’m talking about the temperature here.

You can see them at Gizmodo: Belkin Releases Lap-Friendly CushTop, PocketTop Laptop Accessories.

The CushTop is the one I’m most interested in. I have a wooden unit that I’ve been using for the last seven or eight years that Sharon bought for Christmas. It’s great, particularly on the sofabed here in the office, or the bed proper, but it doesn’t work so great with the new squishy leather sofa. There’s a better description of the CushTop on the Belkin website (Belkin: CushTop). The price is good too, but I guess I’ll have to wait a bit for it to hit the UK.

The PocketTop looks good too, and I like the ability to keep all the cables with the laptop, but it’s not going to work with the 17″ MBP…

Photo blogging with the K800i

As planned, I got a K800i earlier this week, and it’s taken me the best part of the week to try and sort out all of the different elements. I already did a quick post on Convergence in mobile phones with the SE K800i at ComputerWorld, but I thought it would be worth looking at some of the other elements.

With Mac OS X, it doesn’t take much work to get everything set up, but it has taken me a while to sort out and organize some of the more fun elements. Getting the phone syncing with my address book was achieved using the plugin available from feisar.com.

To populate the audio so that I can use it for what I used to employ the iPod shuffle for, I used iTunes to create 128Kbps AAC files; when you connect the camera through the supplied USB cable, the Memory Stick Micro card appears on the desktop just like a USB thumb drive - so you can copy the files (including the folders) over so you can play them. Playback through the headphones is great. Through the built-in speaker, it’s good enough to use in a small room for some ambient noise. My only problem now is remembering to pick up the headphones each time I leave.

I’ve also set up the email for the phone so that I can pick up emergency messages on the phone when away from the office. The phone has it’s own email address (technically it has two, my own and one provided by the mobile phone operator (O2)), and I’ve set up some rules within sieve to forward specific types of message to the phone.

As I hoped (and to be honest, expected) the quality of the camera is superb, and I love the way you can use this to blog directly just by pressing a button (you can see the results and quality at Martin MC Brown’s Mobile Blog. OK, so I might be late to the whole mobile blogging thing, but honestly, it works so great that my mother could be doing this.

The camera itself works just like a Sony camera - you get the same controls, zoom, built in flash, auto-focus and you can set a full range of options, like metering mode, white balance and selected special photo subjects with corresponding optimized settings. The results are obviously less expansive than those on my Sony P200, but definitely a good range given that we are talking about the camera built into a mobile phone.

Having said for years I was never going to get a mobile phone with a built in camera, I can now imagine a situation where the walks to the post office or those ever-so-rare cat shots suddenly become possible (nay, necessary) when I can publish them straight to the blog from the phone.

Expect more photos and experience notes as I get to use the camera more. Afterall, I’m still yet to actually make or receive a phone call!