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devsk
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 09, 2012 12:20 am    Post subject: Brand new x32 gentoo install - the journey and some numbers Reply with quote

Folks,

I have been running my original install from like 7 years ago and updating it on 4-6 monthly basis. Now, I think I want to do a brand new install of Gentoo in a separate partition and move my root to it.

Since this is a brand new, I am thinking of going with x32 ABI. Does anybody here have any experience doing a fresh install of Gentoo using x32 ABI? Any wikis to look at?

Thanks,
-devsk


Last edited by devsk on Wed Jul 18, 2012 3:11 am; edited 1 time in total
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Jaglover
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 09, 2012 12:25 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

See this first: http://blog.flameeyes.eu/2012/06/debunking-x32-myths
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devsk
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 09, 2012 1:44 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yeah, I had gone through it. I think converting an existing install is probably questionable but doing a fresh install makes sense to be done in x32.
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 09, 2012 2:42 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Downloaded the tar from gentoo.org and here is one quick run of dumb math in python3:

current amd64 install:
Code:
$ time python3 -c "import math ; l = [i + i for i in range(100000000)];"
real    0m9.605s


x32 inside chroot:
Code:
time python3 -c "import math ; l = [i + i for i in range(100000000)];"
real    0m13.165s
I ran three times in each to rule out cache and load time effect.

So, pretty big loss there for x32. May be I need to recompile python3 with my flags and then compare. We will see.
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devsk
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 09, 2012 4:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

x32 has too many build failures during @system update...:( Not useful at all.
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devsk
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 10, 2012 6:33 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Code:
~ # /etc/java-config-2/current-system-vm/bin/javac
/etc/java-config-2/current-system-vm/bin/javac: error while loading shared libraries: libz.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
~ # LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/libx32 /etc/java-config-2/current-system-vm/bin/javac
/etc/java-config-2/current-system-vm/bin/javac: error while loading shared libraries: libz.so.1: wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS32
~ # file /etc/java-config-2/current-system-vm/bin/javac
/etc/java-config-2/current-system-vm/bin/javac: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked (uses shared libs), for GNU/Linux 2.6.9, stripped
Totally undercooked this x32 is. Many packages need to account for it. In this case, iced tea is creating 64-bit binaries explicitly but won't find the 64-bit dependent libs at run time. This won't let anything compile beyond a point in @system.

Some packages are just plain broken on x32:
Code:
dev-db/mariadb-5.1.62
x11-libs/qt-webkit-4.8.2
dev-lang/spidermonkey-1.8.5
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devsk
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 11, 2012 4:33 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I would advise people against even trying this. There is a lot of stuff which won't build. And I have a feeling that it won't build for a long time. When packages are doing silly stuff like 'oh, this is x86_64, I must pass amd64 to yasm", or "oh, this is x86_64 but the files on the link line show '32-bit', I must pass -m32 to linker"...things just won't work.

Just too many things are broken at this time. You can't get a usable desktop. Not even close.
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 17, 2012 3:29 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

OK. I can see the logic behind memory usage. And anybody who doesn't see it is either blind or lying. Here is eog (about the only intensive GUI app I can run at this time in x32...:-)) running (just started and sitting idle for 5 mins, and no pics loaded) from x32 chroot vs one running from native 64-bit install:
Code:

USER       PID  PPID  C START TT           TIME RESMEM VIRTUAL PRI S COMMAND         COMMAND
devsk      568 32618  0 20:11 pts/15   00:00:00  39828  229516  19 S eog             eog
root     32737 28261  0 20:10 pts/26   00:00:00  16920   31796  19 S eog             eog
That's more than twice the RSS and about 7 times more virtual memory used (because of all the dependent libs mapped into the process) in native amd64 install.

Once I load an image (same image):
Code:

USER       PID  PPID  C START TT           TIME RESMEM VIRTUAL PRI S COMMAND         COMMAND
devsk      568 32618  0 20:11 pts/15   00:00:01  66916  942220  19 S eog             eog
root     32737 28261  0 20:10 pts/26   00:00:01  43788   99052  19 S eog             eog
Now, this is interesting. RSS gap has reduced but 64-bit native is still using 50% more RSS. WOW! Look at the VM usage. Its almost 10 times!

This is a HUGE difference if you ask me! This is every ricer's wet dream...:D

More things are building now but I think a full functional desktop looks like a pipe dream at this time. Too much breakage!
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devsk
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 17, 2012 4:02 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Here is another example:
Code:
USER       PID  PPID  C START TT           TIME RESMEM VIRTUAL PRI S COMMAND         COMMAND
root     20268 19031  0 20:52 pts/26   00:00:00  14952   40012  19 S gnome-terminal  gnome-terminal
devsk    20637 32618  0 20:57 pts/15   00:00:00  36896  302612  19 S gnome-terminal  gnome-terminal
Same thing: more than twice the RSS and about 7 times the virtual memory.
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devsk
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 18, 2012 2:07 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Now, the story continues with QT apps:
Code:

root      6052     1  0 09:28 pts/24   00:00:03  26544   18840  19 S konsole         konsole
devsk    11002     1  0 09:28 pts/15   00:00:02  41512   92780  19 S konsole         konsole
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 18, 2012 2:13 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hey, keep it up! I'm reading this with interest and I do not think I'm alone. :)
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 18, 2012 2:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I just emerged gimp successfully in the chroot. So, here is the obligatory comparison after loading the same 4MB jpeg:

Code:
devsk     6658  4532  2 19:41 pts/15   00:00:04 199156 1512320  19 S gimp            gimp
devsk     6850  6658  0 19:41 pts/15   00:00:00  23548    3076  19 S script-fu       /usr/lib64/gimp/2.0/plug-ins/script-fu -gimp 11 10 -run 0
root      6909  5355  2 19:42 pts/24   00:00:02 148992  244616  19 S gimp            gimp
root      7093  6909  0 19:42 pts/24   00:00:00   6008    2448  19 S script-fu       /usr/libx32/gimp/2.0/plug-ins/script-fu -gimp 10 9 -run 0
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 18, 2012 2:59 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Could you change the subject of your initial post to something more descriptive? Please?
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 18, 2012 5:31 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

After patching and building many many packages, I have about 100 or so packages on my desktop which won't build. And they are essential packages like firefox, thunderbird, k3b, mplayer, ffmpeg, x264, libvpx, nvidia-drivers, skype, adobe-flash,vnc, ipsec-tools, vlc, wine, mythtv, native ZFS and so on.

But about 1200 packages built and run, that's quite good for a new ABI. Most of the KDE desktop built fine after hiccups with kdelibs.

We will get there some day!
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 18, 2012 8:28 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hello,

The big, big issue with x32 is that almost all assembler optimizations are disabled. So you will lose a lot of performance with x32.
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 18, 2012 5:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

XavierMiller wrote:
Hello,

The big, big issue with x32 is that almost all assembler optimizations are disabled. So you will lose a lot of performance with x32.
Compilers are getting better and better at optimizing C code. So, the loss compared to hand coded assembly has reduced over the last many years.

The reduced memory footprint, larger set of registers and improved CPU cache usage are a big plus for x32 in my books.
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mv
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 08, 2013 10:58 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I saw this interesting thread only now, but something with the presented memory numbers is very strange:

Given that all memory usage is only pointers or int, then, and only then - in this unrealistic case - you can reduce the memory with x32 by the factor 2. In practice, this factor should be much lower, especially with loaded pictures in gimp. I expect that in practice you should see a difference in memory usage of 10-20% at most, even much less for programs like gimp or multimedia whose memory usage comes from "real" data and not from pointers and administration overhead.

So somehow the results presented here cannot be "true" in the sense that they cannot be for the same programs with the same useflags: I suppose that you had to drop a lot of bloated useflags (due to unable to compile otherwise) and what you measure is essentially the difference when omitting bloat and not between the architectures (which - as mentioned above - can in no case be more than the factor 2).
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devsk
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 08, 2013 2:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

@mv: you are right. I did realize that soon after last posting but never came back to this thread. It was indeed because of the opengl bloat from nvidia (which I could not compile on x32), which was getting pulled into each X binary and getting mapped in RAM.
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 13, 2013 3:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

How did you solve the issue with java? Nothing still compiles when the java use flag is enabled.
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