NPTL vs Linuxthreads on Alpha?

Trevoke · Advocate Joined: 04 Sep 2004 Posts: 4099 Location: NY, NY

I'm compiling glibc 2.3.5 currently because I'm crazy and I wanna check out gcc 4.0.1 on my ALPHA (ev5 processor) .. And it's compiling for linuxthreads. Is there no NPTL support? I have it in my USE flags but it's not appearing when I do emerge -pv glibc.
Can I force NPTL to be used? How? Is it safe?
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zeek

This part of the ebuild decides what can use nptl:

NormalBoy · Posted: Sat Sep 10, 2005 2:39 am Post subject:

Hi. Long time lurker, first time poster

I compiled glibc with nptl / nptlonly on my alpha (ev56). Apache and mysql recompiled without problem.

Why nptl isn't enabled for alpha by default?

griffypoo · n00b Joined: 28 Jan 2005 Posts: 16

NPTL does seem to work on the Alpha, at least for me. Here's the steps I did to get it working:

- Edit /usr/portage/sys-libs/glibc/glibc-2.3.4.20041102-r1.ebuild adding || use alpha to the end of line 270
- Take the md5sum of glibc-2.3.4.20041102-r1.ebuild and update that and the filesize in /usr/portage/sys-libs/glibc/Manifest
- Comment out nptl in /usr/portage/profiles/default-linux/alpha/use.mask
- emerge glibc

I think that the reason that this hasn't been enabled so far is that there hasn't been much of a push to do so. LinuxThreads has always worked "OK" and there have been bigger fish to fry for the alpha herd - keeping current with things like glibc, gcc and marking more packages with the ~alpha and alpha KEYWORDS.

I suspect that NPTL will start becoming a priority soon. For glibc 2.4, LinuxThreads is no longer supported, so we'll be forced to upgrade pretty soon. There is also a bug out there (about defunct threads) in bugzilla that is solved by switching from LinuxThreads to NPTL.

NormalBoy · Posted: Mon Sep 12, 2005 12:55 am Post subject:

I did the same things with my alpha installation. I had defunct thread problems with mysql before I enabled nptl.
Nptl rocks!

ihayhurst · n00b Joined: 12 Sep 2005 Posts: 11

wey hey !!
been folowing this https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=100259

no more restarting mysqld every morning

Thanks
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Kloeri · Retired Dev Joined: 02 Sep 2002 Posts: 144

I've enabled NPTL for alpha so 2.6 users now have the choice between linuxthreads (currently somewhat broken) and NPTL. I know of at least one box displaying weird problems with NPTL so YMMV.

ihayhurst · n00b Joined: 12 Sep 2005 Posts: 11

Well with NPTL the defunct processes went away but the mysqld now crashes and restarts every time it's called from web/php, usually so fast that the users don't notice sometimes the get an error saying mysql unavailabe (goes with refresh), I should have stayed with the defunct processes, at least the users didn't see that... all is fine other than mysql... which was the reason I went NPTL in the first place.... With the nptl USE flag both the linuxthreads and NPTL libraryl are built (I believe) what must I do to get mysql to use the linuxthreads again?

poor alpha box is now non-production :-(

sniff

as you say your mileage may indeed vary
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Kloeri · Retired Dev Joined: 02 Sep 2002 Posts: 144

Have you tried remerging mysql and/or apache + any apache modules? That might solve the problem. If you still need to use linuxthreads for mysql you need to start mysql with the environment variable LD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.4.1 to force linuxthreads use.

ihayhurst · n00b Joined: 12 Sep 2005 Posts: 11

I re emerged mysql, possibly not apache though, It's academic now as I build a much bigger intel bow to replace it though I'd still like to run the alpha so I'll try using the env var you suggest (thanks).. it will give me back my defunct process but I'm sure a fix will be found for that eventually.
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