Topics

46

Operating Systems and Porting / OpenBSD 6.8, first official release, testing, outstanding issues

« on: September 07, 2020, 03:22:08 am »

According to the PPC page on the OpenBSD web site, OpenBSD 6.8, which is imminent, will be the first official release to support PPC64

Has anybody else tried their PPC64 installer snapshots recently?

After my attempt to run it last week, they included a patch to support machines with larger amounts of memory and the installer progresses further but it still has a limit somewhere.

The next problem I found was that it becomes stuck when I have the LSI 9207-4i4e HBA in the machine.  If I remove the HBA, the OpenBSD installer boots all the way to the first question:

Code: [Select]

Welcome to the OpenBSD/powerpc64 6.8 installation program.
(I)nstall, (U)pgrade, (A)utoinstall or (S)hell?

If anybody else has time to test it, especially if you have accessories like a HBA or NIC, that can help the OpenBSD 6.8 release gain traction or at least help qualify the list of supported hardware on the wiki.

47

Firmware / swapping flash chips, ordering spares

« on: September 06, 2020, 03:43:52 am »

I looked at the wiki pages Updating Firmware and Debricking the BMC

The latter suggests "Remove the BMC SPI flash chip and reflash it with a flash programmer"

Rather than reflashing the existing chip, it may be safer to keep one additional flash chip on site.  Any new images can be flashed to the spare flash chip, it is swapped into the socket and if it doesn't work, the old chip is swapped back in.

Can anybody clarify the exact type of chip to order?  Are both flash chips identical or different part numbers?

Has anybody seen any useful video that shows the correct way to remove the chip?

I have a CH341A flash programmer, what type of cable or adapter is needed to insert the flash chip, or does it fit directly into one of these programmers?

48

Operating Systems and Porting / testing a new machine, memory test, etc

« on: September 05, 2020, 02:53:07 pm »

What burn-in test routines do people use when making a new machine or modifying the machine substantially?

For example, on x86 machines, I frequently run memtest86 from a USB stick before installing the OS.  It is not available for OpenPOWER.  It would be really useful to have something like this accessible in petitboot.

49

Operating Systems and Porting / installers not booting

« on: September 04, 2020, 09:22:43 am »

petitboot starts up and displays the menu

I've tried both the Debian 10 and OpenBSD USB sticks.  Neither of them appears to be working.  The install options (e.g. Debian/Expert mode) appear in petitboot, I select the option I want, the screen goes blank and then displays the message "SIGTERM received, booting..."

Leaving the machine like this for 5 or 10 minutes, nothing more happens, it just appears stuck like that.

50

Operating Systems and Porting / testing different operating systems next week, any ideas/requests?

« on: September 03, 2020, 02:46:16 pm »

Before putting my Talos II into proper use, I might spend a week or so testing different operating systems on it.

Can anybody make any suggestions about things that might be worthwhile to explore?

51

General OpenPOWER Discussion / Talos II arrived

« on: September 03, 2020, 02:12:14 pm »

My Talos II arrived yesterday, I'll be building it gradually over the next few days.

I already shared some observations about success with the Fractal 7 XL case, it would be really helpful to get some feedback about their fan hub connections

I'll use a legacy SATA HBA as a stop-gap measure until I get some U.2 disks in a few weeks.  Long term, can anybody comment on what will be a good choice of HBA to combine at least two U.2 disks and a handful of legacy SATA disks?

Can anybody make any other tips about getting started?

52

General CPU Discussion / max memory speeds

« on: July 31, 2020, 03:46:40 pm »

AbstractConcept made this edit in the wiki

I read somewhere that RAM operates at different speeds:

1 channel filled: 2666MHz

2 channels filled: 2400MHz

4 channels filled: 2133MHz

but the edit by AbstractConcept implies that RAM is always clocked at 2666MHz

Can anybody clarify?

53

General CPU Discussion / v2 CPU availability?

« on: July 29, 2020, 11:25:49 am »

I notice that Raptor is only offering the 4 core and 8 core version of the v2 (stepping DD2.3) chips.  The 22 core chip is only available in v1.

Is there any reason for this?

I decided to order the 8 core v2 CPUs with the intention that I will use them on a dual-CPU board until the 22 core v2.3 CPU is available.  Then I could move the 8 core CPUs onto Talos II Lite boards and upgrade to 22 core v2.3 chips on my primary workstation.

54

General Discussion / optimum add-on cards for 2-slot systems (Talos II Lite and Blackbird)

« on: July 26, 2020, 01:11:54 pm »

I've had some discussions with other developers about the POWER9 platform and one observation I've made is that people are looking at a choice between Talos II Lite or Blackbird.  Many don't need a dual CPU system and can't afford the full Talos II.

To iron out bugs in software, it is really vital to have a critical mass of developers using the platform and I suspect most of them are going to use either Talos II Lite or Blackbird.  When they narrow their choice down to those products, the next thing that comes to mind is: what should they put in the PCIe slots to get best use out of their workstation?

The wiki contains a large list of compatible products but what I'm really thinking about here is making a shortlist of five to ten really interesting products and putting them on the comparison page

Here is a summary of the problem:
 

• most people will want to put a GPU in the x16 slot - some GPUs, like the Radeon Pro W5700 throw in a USB-C socket or some other bonus which is really useful on a system like this with limited expansion slots
• with the x8 slot, most people will probably want a card that can give them some combination of SSDs (U.2 NVMe), legacy SATA disks and hopefully some other ports like OCuLink or ethernet on the same board as a bonus.  Can anybody comment on which boards are optimal in this scenario?

Some other permutations come to mind: for example, people who don't do a lot of graphics may be happy with a GPU in the x8 slot and use the x16 slot for OCuLink.  Hopefully we will also see some external OCuLink GPUs in the future but none seem to be available right now.

Feel free to add comments here or at the bottom of this wiki page

55

General OpenPOWER Discussion / RCS products for confidential human subject research data

« on: July 22, 2020, 01:06:24 pm »

Many academic institutions around the world have special requirements for the storage of confidential human subject research data.

For example, a private company like Facebook can profile their users and there is little control on that.  But when a team in a university conducts a study on the same human subjects, they have to go to their Institutional Review Board (IRB) for approval.

Each time they start a new study, they have to approach the IRB and submit a plan.  The IRB can ask about their data storage and processing strategy.

This appears to be a use case where legislation introduced decades before modern spyware forces them to look for best practice.  With each new generation of technologies like Intel ME, the OpenPOWER and similar platforms become more compelling for this type of user.

Has anybody already tried to pitch these solutions in that environment?

56

General OpenPOWER Discussion / hosting requirements and strategies

« on: July 21, 2020, 11:38:18 am »

Can anybody comment on ideas or case studies for hosting with the Talos II platform?

For example:

What type of workloads is it most suitable for, or how would you build a Talos II-based rack mount system for different types of workloads?

Many hosting companies sell space by full rack, half rack, quarter rack (approximately) - how would you fit out one of these spaces if you had a pure Talos II strategy, even using the platform for firewall and BGP perhaps?

The largest vendors can provide next day and sometimes same day replacement parts, worldwide.  How would you approximate this with RCS products?  One idea that comes to mind: keeping one or two "community" servers in each rack for developers to log in and run tests, running Jenkins (a.k.a. travis-ci for POWER9) on the understanding that these servers can be scavanged on short notice to resolve production outages.

Is there any interest in hosting here in Switzerland right now?

57

General OpenPOWER Discussion / helping people purchase and get started

« on: July 21, 2020, 10:26:05 am »

I wanted to make this world a little bit easier for other developers to buy in, so I'm making some contributions on the wiki, feedback or enhancements would also be welcome.

In particular, comparing different wiki pages during purchasing can be frustrating, so I've combined key facts in a single table on a single page but please feel free to correct it if you feel anything is not quite right there.

58

Blackbird / using bigger CPUs with some cores disabled on Blackbird?

« on: July 20, 2020, 06:50:51 am »

I started a separate thread about disabling cores in the CPUs in a Talos II

It occurred to me that disabling cores could be a way to reduce CPU power consumption on Blackbird, for example, if you have an 18 core CPU (which is not supported) and you use the operating system to disable 4 cores, leaving just 14 cores, does the power consumption fall within the supported range for the motherboard?

This is probably not a good way to design a new system but if somebody has a spare CPU and they want to temporarily use it in a Blackbird, maybe this would be a useful hack that will reduce the risk of unexpected behavior.

59

General OpenPOWER Discussion / forum sections for different regions?

« on: July 13, 2020, 01:05:59 pm »

Are there enough users here to have sections in the forum for specific regions and/or countries?

For example, advertising local events where OpenPOWER solutions will be on display or simply helping users find each other at local hackerspaces.

60

Applications and Porting / availability for porting work

« on: July 07, 2020, 08:59:09 am »

If there are any urgent porting issues that I could investigate and if anybody is willing to sponsor a few weeks of ad-hoc developer time like that then please get in touch with me.

I'm beginning to try and schedule work on a range of things for the period October - December 2020.

If funding (or other incentives) are available, I'd like to use some of that time to become more familiar with this platform as I believe it has an important role to play in the free software ecosystem.

If anybody can suggest high-priority issues in the hope that somebody else will fund the work please feel free to comment here too.