Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!wuarchive!ukma!news From: soward@inslab.uky.edu (John Soward) Newsgroups: comp.sys.next Subject: Re: Parallel Make Message-ID: <1991Jun10.035748.3335@ms.uky.edu> Date: 10 Jun 91 03:57:48 GMT References: Sender: news@ms.uky.edu (USENET News System) Organization: University Of Kentucky, Dept. of Math Sciences Lines: 52 In article scott@mcs-server.gac.edu (Scott Hess) writes: > In article <1991Jun9.152606.12802@cs.cmu.edu> ddj@zardoz.club.cc.cmu.edu (Doug DeJulio) writes: > In article melling@cs.psu.edu (Michael D Mellinger) writes: > > > >Does anyone have a parallel make program running on the NeXT? I have > >a lab full of NeXT's that I want to put to use :-). By my > >calculations, the 040 NeXT runs a little more than 1/2 as fast as our > >$10,000,000 IBM 3090 when compiling programs(compared standard C > >programs). So, if I get two or three machines running together, I > >should be in good shape. > > Yes and no. I compiled gnu-make, which has support for parallel > compiles. When I use "gmake -j3" (do three jobs at the same time) > combined with "cc -pipe" on my 20 meg NeXTstation, I get an average of > a 20% speedup in compiles. > > More than likely, not much more will be reasonable, without an > investment in a faster NFS server and the like. I've found that > the biggest limiting factor in compiles isn't generally the CPU > speed, but the memory and disk capabilities. The compiling itself > doesn't actually seem to take that long . . . this might be a > limitation of the GNU compiler, as GNU tends to be sort of > liberal with memory usage (and in a low-memory system, memory==disk, > so that makes it worse). > > Anyhow, getting down to the main point, I've done makes on different > projects on different machines, but since all the makes are > yelling at the same server for their fodder, it didn't seem to be > substantially faster than single makes on the same machine . . . > That was a NeXT serving, though, maybe a DEC or Sun machine with > optimized NFS stuff could do better . . . > > Later, > -- > scott hess scott@gac.edu > Independent NeXT Developer Graduated GAC Undergrad! > Oh, now, see, I think you missed the point as well as the OS classes, he was running 3 compiles simultaneously on the *same* machine, Which may initially seem like a fauxpas, but in reality will get a larger percentage of the overall cpu, since Mach will interrupt you ocmpile just to see what else there is to do, this way that other thing to do will be to work on another part of your compile... -- ________________________________________________________________________ / "no, they're totally different. Their song goes 'bomp-bomp-bomp' / / but mine goes 'bomp-bomp-Bomp'...totally differnt" -V. Ice. / / john@ukpr.uky.edu | soward@s.ms.uky.edu | sysjohn@ukcc.uky.edu / /_______________________________________________________________________/