monitoring a Linux version

Carlo Monari · 2004-12-04, 11:14

Recently I had to install Fedora on a dual Xeon system on which I was running two instances of prime 95. So I downloaded mprime239, and after having copied on the new system disk the files of the old prime95 directory, I issued the command ./mprime -B2. I can see that the two cpus are working, but how can I monitor the work progress? Is there anything like the red icon to open a window with intermediate results?

patrik · 2004-12-04, 11:42

You could use -d to get detailed output. But I think that -B overrides that, so you would have to start two copies using -A1 on the second:
./mprime -d &
./mprime -A1 -d &
You could also log this to files
./mprime -d >> log.txt &
./mprime -A1 -d >> log1.txt &

Carlo Monari · 2004-12-09, 12:20

Thanks; the information is in the readme file too, but I missed it. Maybe beeing a total novice with Linux made me unable to read too...
Anyway, another thing that I don't find is a way to nail each copy to only one CPU (the affinity flag in the adwanced menu in the windows version). Is there anything that I missed ?

Carlo Monari · 2004-12-09, 17:11

Now that I can see what's happening, I am quite disappointed: the iteration time is almost double that the one I had when running prime95 under Windows.
Running under windows, I observed that not setting the affinity, or setting it to wrong values, could affect heavily the performance; the iteration times I am observing now are similiar to those I observed setting the affinities of both copies to the same CPU.
Suggestions?

geoff · 2004-12-11, 17:26

If you use kernel 2.6 then the process schedular usually does a good job of handling process affinity, but if you want to force a process to be affine to one CPU then you can use the taskset command. On my system (Debian) this is not in the standard installation, it is part of the schedutils package. I don't know about Fedora.

If you use kernel 2.4 then I think you need a patch to be able to set process affinity. Better to upgrade to kernel 2.6.

2004-12-04, 11:14	#1
Carlo Monari May 2004 Italy 1010₂ Posts	monitoring a Linux version Recently I had to install Fedora on a dual Xeon system on which I was running two instances of prime 95. So I downloaded mprime239, and after having copied on the new system disk the files of the old prime95 directory, I issued the command ./mprime -B2. I can see that the two cpus are working, but how can I monitor the work progress? Is there anything like the red icon to open a window with intermediate results?

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2004-12-04, 11:42	#2
patrik "Patrik Johansson" Aug 2002 Uppsala, Sweden 1A9₁₆ Posts	You could use -d to get detailed output. But I think that -B overrides that, so you would have to start two copies using -A1 on the second: ./mprime -d & ./mprime -A1 -d & You could also log this to files ./mprime -d >> log.txt & ./mprime -A1 -d >> log1.txt &

2004-12-09, 12:20	#3
Carlo Monari May 2004 Italy 2·5 Posts	Thanks; the information is in the readme file too, but I missed it. Maybe beeing a total novice with Linux made me unable to read too... Anyway, another thing that I don't find is a way to nail each copy to only one CPU (the affinity flag in the adwanced menu in the windows version). Is there anything that I missed ?

2004-12-09, 17:11	#4
Carlo Monari May 2004 Italy 2×5 Posts	Now that I can see what's happening, I am quite disappointed: the iteration time is almost double that the one I had when running prime95 under Windows. Running under windows, I observed that not setting the affinity, or setting it to wrong values, could affect heavily the performance; the iteration times I am observing now are similiar to those I observed setting the affinities of both copies to the same CPU. Suggestions?

2004-12-11, 17:26	#5
geoff Mar 2003 New Zealand 13×89 Posts	If you use kernel 2.6 then the process schedular usually does a good job of handling process affinity, but if you want to force a process to be affine to one CPU then you can use the taskset command. On my system (Debian) this is not in the standard installation, it is part of the schedutils package. I don't know about Fedora. If you use kernel 2.4 then I think you need a patch to be able to set process affinity. Better to upgrade to kernel 2.6.