Re: NetBSD/vax current

[Thor Lancelot Simon <tls%panix.com@localhost>]

On Sat, Apr 19, 2014 at 04:56:01PM +0100, David Brownlee wrote:
> On 19 April 2014 07:27, Johnny Billquist <bqt%update.uu.se@localhost> wrote:
> > On 2014-04-18 19:07, Thor Lancelot Simon wrote:
> >> Right, so, this points out something which seems obvious to me but perhaps
> >> it's not: *Of course* it takes longer, because the workload is not at all
> >> the same.
> >
> > Ayup. 30 seconds from entering username until I get a password prompt is
> > clearly asking the system to do much more today than in the past, so
> > obviously it is just as expected, and nothing to even talk about.
> 
> The system now processes through all the PAM infrastructure, which
> provides a bunch of additional functionality. Whether that
> functionality is worthwhile is certainly a valid discussion.

However, the simple fact that it can be turned off is not.  It's just a
fact.  If you want a build of NetBSD without PAM, you can make one (on
your VAX or elsewhere).  If you want a build without PIC and shared
libraries -- which, actually, seems more likely to impact the Dhrystone
question we were originally discussing than anything else -- you can make
one of those, too.

You can strip away functionality piece by piece to turn the workload into
what it used to be, and then you will approach the performance you used
to get.  Unless there is some fundamental problem with the kernel, which
I consider unlikely but not impossible.

A good way to figure out, though, would be to run the exact same executable
for your benchmark on a legacy operating system and on NetBSD on your VAX.

Unfortunately, DEC probably generated their Dhrystone number using VAX C
on VMS, so you can't do just what they did; but you could certainly build
a static executable in 4.3 or Ultrix and run it in both environments -- if
you can still get those operating systems to boot on your hardware.

Thor