From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S264148AbTICSGl (ORCPT ); Wed, 3 Sep 2003 14:06:41 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S264158AbTICSGl (ORCPT ); Wed, 3 Sep 2003 14:06:41 -0400 Received: from holomorphy.com ([66.224.33.161]:30601 "EHLO holomorphy") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S264148AbTICSGL (ORCPT ); Wed, 3 Sep 2003 14:06:11 -0400 Date: Wed, 3 Sep 2003 11:07:02 -0700 From: William Lee Irwin III To: Larry McVoy , "Brown, Len" , Larry McVoy , Giuliano Pochini , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: Scaling noise Message-ID: <20030903180702.GQ4306@holomorphy.com> Mail-Followup-To: William Lee Irwin III , Larry McVoy , "Brown, Len" , Larry McVoy , Giuliano Pochini , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org References: <20030903173213.GC5769@work.bitmover.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20030903173213.GC5769@work.bitmover.com> Organization: The Domain of Holomorphy User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.4i Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Wed, Sep 03, 2003 at 01:07:03PM -0400, Brown, Len wrote: >> Fortunately seek time on RAM is lower than disk;-) Sure, parallel >> systems are a waste of effort for running a single copy of a single >> threaded app, but when you have multiple apps, or better yet MT apps, >> you win. If system performance were limited over time to the rate of >> decrease in RAM latency, then we'd be in sorry shape. On Wed, Sep 03, 2003 at 10:32:13AM -0700, Larry McVoy wrote: > For a lot of applications we are. Go talk to your buddies in the processor > group, I think there is a fair amount of awareness that for most apps faster > processors aren't doing any good. Ditto for SMP. You're thinking single-application again. Systems run more than one thing at once. On Wed, Sep 03, 2003 at 01:07:03PM -0400, Brown, Len wrote: >> Back to the original off-topic... >> An OEM can spin their motivation to focus on smaller systems in 3 ways: >> 1. large server sales are a small % of industry units >> 2. large server sales are a small % of industry revenue >> 3. large server sales are a small % of industry profits >> Only 1 is true. On Wed, Sep 03, 2003 at 10:32:13AM -0700, Larry McVoy wrote: > How about some data to back up that statement? > Sun: ~11B/year and losing money, heavily server based > Dell: ~38B/year and making money, 99% small box based > If you were gambling with _your_ money, would you invest in Sun or Dell? That's neither sufficient information about those two companies nor a sufficient number of companies to make a proper empirical statement about this. I really don't care for a stock market update, but I'm just not going to believe anything this sketchy (from either source, actually). -- wli