I’ve been running dnetc since RC5-64 days. I complete a few blocks in the Haiku client each day so that Haiku appears to be a living OS on the stats page, but the lack of a 64-bit client has bugged me. The source code wouldn’t compile until changes were made to remove the assumption that Haiku is a 32-bit OS. The final snag was that I had to disable OGR support, which isn’t important at the moment with no OGR projects running. Once that was done, I was able to run it with the AVX2 core in 64-bit Haiku running in VirtualBox. I’ve contacted distributed.net about getting an official 64-bit Haiku port out the door.
The 32-bit client is very old and predates the addition of the AVX2 core that provides a 2-3x performance boost. cpuid appears to show that OSXSAVE is not enabled in the 32-bit version, so the only benefit from updating the existing client would be to automatic processor detection for CPUs released between 2010 and 2016. Developers: please confirm that AVX is not available in 32-bit Haiku.
In the meantime, I encourage everyone who participates in distributed computing projects to run dnetc in Haiku at least occasionally - particularly the 64-bit client once it becomes available.
2 Likes
Ok, if someone want help, where and how to download and install the software?
I could not find it in HaikuDepot yet
EDIT: On the distributed.net are only old BeOs X86 files!?
Use the one that says [Haiku/x86] for 32-bit Haiku. What I’ve built can’t be put on HaikuDepot because it doesn’t have the ability to request or submit work. Per the FAQ on distributed.net:
Can I build a working distributed.net client with this source?
This source will only allow you to compile a harness for testing and benchmarking the performance of cores. It does not have the network or file buffer capabilities necessary to create a full client.
If I get my source to compile, does that mean there will be a client for that now?
Look at the porting page and follow directions there.
I have emailed them to let them know that I got dnetc to compile for 64-bit Haiku and am waiting for them to contact me about wrapping the client with the secure protocols necessary for an official release.
Confirmed, please upvote ticket #19804 if you need it.
2 Likes
I compiled the latest source for 32-bit Haiku and the good news is that dnetc will check for OSXSAVE and prevent the AVX2 core from being used. It would be great if AVX would be supported in the future for the massive performance boost it offers.
1 Like
Were you able to get in touch with the dnet folks about getting access to the private source tree? I wrote the AVX512 core (KS-SPMD) and it would be a delight to see it running on Haiku.
2 Likes
No response yet. I’ve used the AVX512 core in v2.9116.525, which is still only available on the pre-release beta clients page. It wasn’t included in the v2.9114.523 source that I used to compile for Haiku. AVX512 gives me another massive increase in performance.
I guess I should have curbed my enthusiasm. I’ve submitted a pull request, but other pull requests have been sitting as far back as 2017. People have ported the client to Macs with Apple Silicon and RISC-V, but there have been no new clients since 2018. It is unlikely that there will be a 64-bit client for Haiku any time soon. Sorry if I got anyone’s hopes up. Please do continue to use the 32-bit client when you can and join Team Haiku.
2 Likes
On the contrary, your enthusiasm is wonderful - and the current state of distributed.net is really unfortunate.
