Re: Xen News

[Sarton O'Brien <bsd-xen%roguewrt.org@localhost>]

On Mon, 12 May 2008 10:26:54 am Greg Troxel wrote:
> Sarton O'Brien <bsd-xen%roguewrt.org@localhost> writes:
> 
> > On Sat, 10 May 2008 12:29:27 am Christoph Egger wrote:
> >> 
> >> XenSource removed the support for powerpc and support for 32bit non-PAE.
> >> 
> >> Xen 3.3 will come without powerpc support and
> >> x86 32bit hypervisor with PAE only.
> >
> > Gee, that's a shame.
> >
> > I was contemplating switching to amd64 as I have an intel em64t system
> > and it would save me having to generate non-PAE guests, which can be
> > IMO a PITA.
> 
> My understanding is that with amd64 dom0, one can run as domU either
> amd64 or i386PAE, but not i386(non-PAE).  NetBSD does not, AFAIK,
> support i386PAE dom0.  So I interpret the above as saying that Xen 3.3
> on i386 is PAE only, so until NetBSD does i386PAE dom0, you can't run
> NetBSD as dom0.

That's my understanding too. The em64t intel (i386 with 64 bit extensions) is 
supposedly supported by the amd64 netbsd branch, hence the reason why I'm 
contemplating the switch.

> > This is a dell poweredge sc440 (and multiple variants), has anyone
> > played much with amd64 on an em64t system? I can't imagine there'd be
> > much of a performance benefit but if it's largely a success in general
> > I'll give it a go.
> 
> My impression is that the real benefit is in handling more memory.

Yea I'd tend to agree, though in the netbsd scenario, it also aids the use of 
PAE enabled domu kernels.

I'm more or less curious as to the success of anyone running amd64 dom0 on an 
em64t.

Sarton