[M3devel] OS for CM3

[Jay K]

Modula-3 will run on almost anything. Install something we don't work on yet and give me ssh access. :)
Like get a Loongson laptop -- comes with Linux/MIPS but can also run OpenBSD and maybe others.
Or, install something we don't have yet in Hudson yet, e.g. NetBSD/amd64, and have Olaf add jobs for it.

Seriously, for Hudson purposes, NetBSD/amd64 is probably the best, followed by NetBSD/x86.
I'll set these up eventually.


Regarding Linux, I've been using Debian, because it has about the best support for multiple architectures.
  And then the same "experience" across all of them -- same installer and package management.


Gentoo would be the next or previous choice -- not clear what the ppc64 support is in Debian.
It helps that I first used wimpy Ubuntu before moving up to the supposedly manly Debian.
Gentoo I've had trouble getting to install+boot.


OpenBSD has about the best install experience imho and a certain hard to capture purity about it.
  Examples:
     NetBSD and FreeBSD support powerpc.
     FreeBSD's partitioner doesn't run on powerpc though.
     NetBSD I couldn't get to install.
     OpenBSD was easy.
   
     Attempting to install Linux or NetBSD on an SGI machine apparently killed the machine.
     I couldn't get either to install or boot. One of them might not have local console working.
     But again OpenBSD was easy and worked.


    My OpenBSD/sgimips CD was actually bad. But it worked enough to boot, and the
    the install was then easy to fallback to over the network.


But they don't have kernel threads, so, while we work, we probably scale the worst here.
  Besides, user threads are an /option/ on all Posix systems, only /required/ on OpenBSD.


I think all the user interfaces are terrible though.
I am most productive by far on NT, using find-in-files countless times daily in Visual C++ 5.0.
 It is so much better than command line grep, and it beats every other IDE/editor I have tried,
 and I have tried many. Komodo Edit is so-so. MonoDevelop was promising, but it refused
 to open *.m3 files as plain text. TextWrangler on Mac is so-so, what I use for lack
 of anything good. Eclipse is confusing to install and I don't think worked well, but I forget.


Mac is distant second in productivity.
  At least I don't have to constantly flip the newlines and it has a fast fork.


Everything else I can't even edit files on. I can't copy/paste, navigate quickly (e.g. esp. using
page up/down/home/end/mouse!). NT also has a fast console with half decent most support.


My most productive pattern is editing on NT and copying files around otherwise.


As well, consider that the NT Modula-3 backend is unique and pretty darn good.
  It is fast, in-proc, and always optimizes a certain amount.
  In its only mode, it generates significantly better code than unoptimizing gcc.


 Compiling N files on NT takes one process to compile, codegen, write objs files,
and then another one or two to link.


Compiling N files on the other systems takes one process to compile, N runs
of m3cg to generate N asssembly files, N runs to run the assembler.


If you really need an *occasional* Posixy experience on NT, there is Cygwin and SFU/SUA.
Cygwin has a very slow fork and it is very noticable.
SFU/SUA has a "normally" fast fork, and it is very noticable.


FreeBSD, Solaris, NetBSD, Linux -- should all be about the same.
 (ok, Solaris/x86 support is only in head, not release).


Then there are the non-x86 ones, like HP-UX, OSF/1, Irix, AIX, VMS... :)


Also, for Hudson purposes, we need Java.
That actually rules out a lot -- basically any *BSD that isn't x86/amd64.
Linux now has good enough Java on all architectures.
  There was a project to eliminate all the assembly code. And we have no problem
    e.g. now on Linux/sparc and Linux/powerpc.

All the commercial systems probably suffice also.

 - Jay

----------------------------------------
> From: dragisha at m3w.org
> To: mika at async.async.caltech.edu
> Date: Sun, 23 May 2010 00:32:25 +0200
> CC: m3devel at elegosoft.com
> Subject: Re: [M3devel] OS for CM3
>
> There is no simple nor unique answer to this. I prefer Fedora, and I've
> been using RedHat since 1996... Some people prefer RHEL, or CentOS if
> they like it freer. Jumped of SLS then Slackware I've been using from
> 1993-1995, and never looked back.
>
> Easy to administer and maintain, most of modern distros have GUI for
> every admin task.
>
> On Sat, 2010-05-22 at 14:53 -0700, Mika Nystrom wrote:
>> Hi Modula-3ers,
>>
>> Can anyone give me some advice on what OS to install on a new PC compute
>> server with 16 to 24 cores and 16 to 32 GB of RAM? The code I'm going
>> to be running is all written in Modula-3 with some C and Fortran thrown
>> in and I want to use CM3. The odd extra thing in Java and some analysis
>> in R. Currently I'm stuck with PM3 on FreeBSD/i386.
>>
>> I've always liked the ease of administration (i.e., I'm an old dog and I
>> don't have to learn anything new) of FreeBSD, but the threading support
>> seems much better with Linux? I do really want to run multi-threaded
>> programs across several CPUs.
>>
>> I am considering Debian/amd64. Any other recommendations, experiences?
>>
>> Mika
>
> --
> Dragiša Durić 
>