A while back I sent out an email requesting good benchmarks for SMP Alpha machines. The only seemingly viable response I received was one recommending the SPLASH benchmark, with a request to post my results. I obtained and attempted to use the SPLASH2 set of programs which are available from www-flash.stanford.edu. Here is what I found: 1) The benchmark programs do not compile as downloaded. There is some problem with missing identifiers and external functions. This was done with the null macros supplied with the benchmark suite on a UP Alpha (our development platform). The null macros are supposed to nullify the SMP nature of the tests and allow them to be compiled for a UP test. This failed. 2) The only available references in the supplied material are obsolete email addresses for people/groups that I would have to guess are no longer available at Stanford. 3) The only available sets of macros that are "done" are for three machines, none of which matches Linux or Alpha. The closest set, that for SGI's IRIX, include a precompiled library with no apparent source and no references on how to construct an equivalent for other machines. I suppose that I could spend a lot of time and effort tracking these specific problems down and resolving them, and I have no doubt that I could. However, my charter at the moment does not allow for this kind of time and effort, and is unlikely to for the foreseeable future. Any other suggestions for benchmarks that are viable, either for Linux or Alpha or both, would be most welcome. Of course I will publish whatever I find that is of interest. For the record, the Harvard benchmark that I was using (hbench) coupled with a modified version of Stephen Tweedie's sard program that I wrote to generate interrupt statistics revealed one fact (confirmed) of which I had been previously unaware: multi-CPU Alpha systems do not distribute interrupts across the processors. CPU 0 handles all of them. My Compaq/Digital contact tells me that there was no demand for this, so it wasn't done. Regards.
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