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bwat47

Member

Registered: 2009-10-07

Posts: 638

PathScale Open-Sources The EKOPath 4 Compiler Suite

PathScale is announcing that they are open-sourcing their EKOPath 4 Compiler Suite. For those not familiar, EKOPath is a high-performance Intel 64 / AMD64 compiler for C99, C++ 2003, and partial support for Fortran 2003. Up to this point in development, PathScale's compiler has been proprietary and has carried a rather high price-tag with the licensing starting out at $1795 USD and going up from there. Of course, that's a small price to a large organization seeking to build their software for maximum performance, but is out of the price range for nearly any independent enthusiast or non-commercially-backed free software project. This code compiler is especially popular in super-computing environments. The open-source EKOPath 4 will be available to Linux, FreeBSD, and Solaris users free of charge. PathScale will also continue to offer commercial support for this compiler suite.

More here:
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=a … open&num=1

flamelab

Member

From: Athens, Hellas (Greece)

Registered: 2007-12-26

Posts: 2,160

Re: PathScale Open-Sources The EKOPath 4 Compiler Suite

Waitin' for pathscale to update their website and test a new PKGBUILD

ΕDIT: http://www.pathscale.com/ekopath4-open- … nouncement

Last edited by flamelab (2011-06-13 16:39:23)

el mariachi

Member

Registered: 2007-11-30

Posts: 595

Re: PathScale Open-Sources The EKOPath 4 Compiler Suite

oh yes! haven't seen any real desktop usage benchmarks though.. how do you guys think it will perfom with stuff like mesa, chromium, dwm

Cdh

Member

Registered: 2009-02-03

Posts: 1,098

Re: PathScale Open-Sources The EKOPath 4 Compiler Suite

More important: Will there be an official repostory providing packages compiled with the ekopath compiler for applications that definitely profit greatly?

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Octoploid

Member

From: Berlin, Germany

Registered: 2009-10-13

Posts: 64

Re: PathScale Open-Sources The EKOPath 4 Compiler Suite

You can run the following to get the source code:

git clone git://github.com/path64/compiler.git 

el mariachi

Member

Registered: 2007-11-30

Posts: 595

Re: PathScale Open-Sources The EKOPath 4 Compiler Suite

someone hinted in the  phoronix forums that the kernel could be compiled with this by applying a simple patch. anyone know about this? I'm kind of busy to look for it
Thanks for the link Octoploid !

MuPuF

Member

From: France

Registered: 2008-04-01

Posts: 15

Website

Re: PathScale Open-Sources The EKOPath 4 Compiler Suite

Crap, all of you are too fast !

Let this be clear. Path64 isn't EKOPath .... yet. The proprietary features from EKOPath 4 will land in path64 soon.

Waitin' for pathscale to update their website and test a new PKGBUILD

I already made a package for path64, http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=41846. Please test it and send patches if you think you can improve it

EDIT: I'm not an official from Pathscale. Let's just say I'm a community member.

Last edited by MuPuF (2011-06-13 17:45:22)

venky80

Member

Registered: 2007-05-13

Posts: 1,002

Re: PathScale Open-Sources The EKOPath 4 Compiler Suite

can someone explain in layman's terms what it all means ..how will it impact linux desktop packages etc?

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karol

Archivist

Registered: 2009-05-06

Posts: 25,440

Re: PathScale Open-Sources The EKOPath 4 Compiler Suite

can someone explain in layman's terms what it all means ..how will it impact linux desktop packages etc?

According to http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=a … inal&num=1

- This software component is especially helpful for computationally intensive workloads and where the code is able to scale to multiple cores.
- Likewise, those using intense applications should be able to benefit from this "Dirndl."
- This is not some software from a new corporate venture.
- This is not some magic bullet; most basic software applications will not find a sudden difference.

sovok_kpss

Member

From: Perm, Russia

Registered: 2009-08-11

Posts: 9

Re: PathScale Open-Sources The EKOPath 4 Compiler Suite

Crap, all of you are too fast !

Let this be clear. Path64 isn't EKOPath .... yet. The proprietary features from EKOPath 4 will land in path64 soon.

Waitin' for pathscale to update their website and test a new PKGBUILD

I already made a package for path64, http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=41846. Please test it and send patches if you think you can improve it

EDIT: I'm not an official from Pathscale. Let's just say I'm a community member.

A guy from PathScale shares some information about path64 and friends: http://phoronix.com/forums/showthread.p … post214137

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metre

Member

Registered: 2011-03-13

Posts: 130

Re: PathScale Open-Sources The EKOPath 4 Compiler Suite

So, have our Developers to recompile all the packages using it?

Last edited by metre (2011-06-13 19:01:59)

el mariachi

Member

Registered: 2007-11-30

Posts: 595

Re: PathScale Open-Sources The EKOPath 4 Compiler Suite

I highly doubt it they will. Some stuff won't be faster, and some won't compile at all. This isn't a GCC replacement 100%.

metre

Member

Registered: 2011-03-13

Posts: 130

Re: PathScale Open-Sources The EKOPath 4 Compiler Suite

I highly doubt it they will. Some stuff won't be faster, and some won't compile at all. This isn't a GCC replacement 100%.

I see, thank you

bwat47

Member

Registered: 2009-10-07

Posts: 638

Re: PathScale Open-Sources The EKOPath 4 Compiler Suite

Will probably see some kernel builds and such with it in the aur eventually though I am sure. Apparently it just takes one patch to build the kernel.

Last edited by bwat47 (2011-06-14 04:51:18)

6xx

Package Maintainer (PM)

Registered: 2006-11-26

Posts: 22

Website

Re: PathScale Open-Sources The EKOPath 4 Compiler Suite

You can run the following to get the source code:

git clone git://github.com/path64/compiler.git 

This is not EKOPath, which is being open sourced. However, binaries can be downloaded from http://c591116.r16.cf2.rackcdn.com/ekop … taller.run

However my software crashes when compiled with EKOPath.

EDIT: I also found a stable (?) version I found at http://c591116.r16.cf2.rackcdn.com/ekop … taller.run, but it doesn't work either.
EDIT2: it seems that other applications can be compiled correctly.

Last edited by 6xx (2011-06-14 08:40:28)

firewalker

Member

From: Hellas (Greece).

Registered: 2006-06-05

Posts: 557

Re: PathScale Open-Sources The EKOPath 4 Compiler Suite

This is only for 64-bit?

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alexj

Member

From: Canary Islands

Registered: 2010-04-22

Posts: 23

Re: PathScale Open-Sources The EKOPath 4 Compiler Suite

This is only for 64-bit?

I think so, look at the forum thread in Phoronix.

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kfgz

Member

From: Supraśl, Poland

Registered: 2009-03-02

Posts: 114

Re: PathScale Open-Sources The EKOPath 4 Compiler Suite

And here is the PKGBUILD. Need some review.

# Maintainer: kfgz <kfgz at interia dot pl>
# Contributor: 6xx

pkgname=ekopath-bin
_real_name=ekopath
pkgver=4.0.10
pkgrel=1
pkgdesc="A high-performance Intel 64 / AMD64 compiler for C99, C++ 2003, Fortran 90/95 and partial 2003"
arch=('x86_64')
url="http://pathscale.com/ekopath-compiler-suite"
license=('GPL')
options=(!strip)
source=(http://c591116.r16.cf2.rackcdn.com/ekopath/nightly/Linux/${_real_name}-${pkgver}-installer.run)
md5sums=('9fb5f6f5160ee13c1400fb54e4f9557a')

package() {
  install -dm755 ${pkgdir}/usr
  
  cd "${startdir}"

  chmod +x ${_real_name}-${pkgver}-installer.run
  ./${_real_name}-${pkgver}-installer.run  --mode unattended --prefix "${pkgdir}/opt/ekopath"
  
  cd "${pkgdir}/opt/ekopath"
      
  mv bin "${pkgdir}/usr/"
  mv include "${pkgdir}/usr/"
  mv lib "${pkgdir}/usr/"
  
  cd "${pkgdir}"
  rm -r opt
}

Last edited by kfgz (2011-06-14 17:54:30)

el mariachi

Member

Registered: 2007-11-30

Posts: 595

Re: PathScale Open-Sources The EKOPath 4 Compiler Suite

After so much hype around the Dirndl thing, this seems dead :S
Has anyone put it to any good use?

Grinch

Member

Registered: 2010-11-07

Posts: 265

Re: PathScale Open-Sources The EKOPath 4 Compiler Suite

Well I tried to compile alot of stuff back when it was first 'released' (as in binary nightly snapshots) and very little of the stuff I tried actually managed to compile with it and from the few things that did compile they weren't faster (in fact a few were slower). Anyway, I figured I'd wait until I could try a proper release rather than in-development snapshots (which can be all kinds of bad) before I made my judgement and actually haven't thought about it since then until I saw your post here Maybe it's time to download a new version from AUR and do some tests. I wonder if the migration to open source has been fully done yet or if the git version still lacks alot of functionality compared to the proprietary one.

el mariachi

Member

Registered: 2007-11-30

Posts: 595

Re: PathScale Open-Sources The EKOPath 4 Compiler Suite

Dunno.. I only tried the nightly one "back in the day" and very briefly. And yeah, same results as you more or less..

Gusar

Member

Registered: 2009-08-25

Posts: 3,606

Re: PathScale Open-Sources The EKOPath 4 Compiler Suite

After so much hype around the Dirndl thing, this seems dead :S

That's what you get with hype. Lots of excitement, but it's all empty. Then the reality sinks in.

codestr0m

Member

Registered: 2010-03-18

Posts: 4

Re: PathScale Open-Sources The EKOPath 4 Compiler Suite

Something to think about
1) Bug reports describing the problem otherwise upstream will never know about it
2) Read the userguide to see about best compiler flags - http://www.pathscale.com/docs/3.2.99/UserGuide.pdf (Still relevant for current version)
3) Send a patch and your problem is fixed

The only reality that sinks is people who complain, but don't do anything about it..  I don't mean specifically you gusar, but in general.  Historically the PathScale compiler does well on AMD processors for HPC code.  (Imagine something that runs on a supercomputer)  We're working on improving our general code (C++) performance, but it's going to take some time.  We also need feedback and help.  The HPC community will usually invest compiler flag tuning, but if the general public is too lazy or time constrained maybe we should adapt.  Right now the default is basically a conservative -O2.  I work at PathScale and even though I'm biased I do my best to make sure people get accurate information without hype.  We were delighted about the Phoronix community publishing about our compiler, but now we need to set proper expectations.  We need help and feedback to make general code faster.  Maybe it all boils down to better docs on tuning.. Please let us know

We don't normally monitor distro forums

Other community support options if you don't get help here
http://lists.pathscale.com/mailman/listinfo
#pathscale - irc.freenode.net

If you're *really* serious about performance send a direct email to PathScale and the problem *will* get fixed.

Cheers

JohannesSM64

Member

From: Norway

Registered: 2009-10-11

Posts: 623

Website

Re: PathScale Open-Sources The EKOPath 4 Compiler Suite

Wait what, from $1795 to FOSS?

Cdh

Member

Registered: 2009-02-03

Posts: 1,098

Re: PathScale Open-Sources The EKOPath 4 Compiler Suite

Well I tried to compile alot of stuff back when it was first 'released' (as in binary nightly snapshots) and very little of the stuff I tried actually managed to compile with it and from the few things that did compile they weren't faster (in fact a few were slower).

If you have an i3/i5/i7 CPU you may have been hit by this bug:
https://github.com/path64/compiler/issues/34
It causes this CPU not to be recognized and many, many optimizations not working. So you have to set -march=... for your CPU.

That so many software doesn't compile seems to often be the fault of the makefiles and configure scripts...

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