Greg Lindahl wrote:
> I have a bunch of DS20Es running 2.2.14-6.0smp (the kernel compiled by
> RedHat for RH 6.2), and they have several spinlock stuck messages while
> booting, and more systematically happen when doing certain things (loading a
> particular module). What's more annoying is that the machines occasionally
> freeze under heavy load, and when they do, they're periodically printing a
> spinlock message on their console.
>
> Does this 2.2.16 patch perhaps fix this or does it go deeper? When Alpha SMP
> was first developed it was stress tested on an ES40 by Jay and friends; do
> all 2.2 kernel releases get similar testing these days? It's hard to believe
> that 2.2.14-6.0smp would pass that test.
>
Uh, when Alpha SMP was developed, ES40s didn't exist. :) At least, not unless
Jay had a _very_ early proto, that is... (Probably pre-EV6, at that...)
Anyway, yes, I do occasionally stress test releases, but most of my testing has
been done under the 2.3/2.4test series in recent months. I know that others
have now and again stressed the 2.2 series for varying purposes.
The "spinlock stuck" message is just a debugging aid AFAIK, albeit a possible
hint for problems in design. I routinely have AIM runs where I'll see these
messages scroll on by the dozens, and performance is still quite good. If
you're really concerned, you could also check out the crash tools from Mission
Critical (haven't tried them, but have used their counterparts on Tru64 and
they're quite good). If you're still concerned, maybe we can try to replicate
what's happening here and I'll take a closer look.
My $0.02.
- Pete
-- To unsubscribe: send e-mail to axp-list-request@redhat.com with 'unsubscribe' as the subject. Do not send it to axp-list@redhat.com
This archive was generated by hypermail version 2a22 on Sat Jul 1 05:31:30 2000 PDT
Send any problems or questions about this archive to webmaster@alphalinux.org.