SVN Revision to Release Cross-reference / Building with PAE-i386

[jason.rohm]

I have a need to rebuild the i386 version with PAE support for my older hardware. The current SVN trunk has a script error that prevents me from running as-is. I'd prefer to build with an identical revision as the current release instead of today's version anyhow. However, I don't know which SVN revision the 8.3.2p2 release is.

1.) Is there any easier way.
2.) Is there a cross-reference I can use to find this out so I can build from a known-good/same version?

Thank you.

 

[cyberjock]

I may be wrong, but I read something last year that PAE support in FreeBSD isn't that stable because the release of 64 bit processors solved so many problems and PAE was only meant as a stop-gap until 64 bit arrived.

So you may be better off just getting 64 bit hardware than try the project you are trying to get into.

 

[jason.rohm]

I agree in principal, but I have a 32-bit four-core Xeon box with 16GB of RAM and a decent PCI-X 12 port hardware array card sitting here at no cost. Hard to justify pitching it just because I can't get the latest build script to work.

 

[cyberjock]

You can't drop in one of the xeons from that era that is 64 bit?

I was doing a little more reading and one person said that PAE was functionally removed with FreeBSD 8. Not really sure what that means exactly, but I'm really not seeing that you'll be able to get PAE to work with FreeNAS.

Quite honestly, I'd have expected that if PAE was supported at all FreeNAS' default compile for 32 bit would have supported it.

Edit: The release notes for FreeBSD 8.0 says PAE is supported. Keep in mind you are still limited to 4GB per process. I'm assuming you plan to use ZFS but even with 16GB of RAM you may find ZFS won't be able to use more than 4GB.

If you search for the FreeBSD man page for "pae" you get results for FreeBSD 8.2 and prior. Since FreeNAS uses 8.3 I think that means PAE isn't an option. Recompiling FreeNAS to work with FreeBSD 8.2 is far from trivial, so I don't think that's an option either.

 

[jason.rohm]

Okay. PAE would buy me 4GB per thread instead of 4GB for the whole box. Not optimal, but was willing to live with it for a $0 investment.

May be buggered on this mission. No sense in spending any money on this box. I could make it work for free, that is one thing, but putting upgrades into a six year old server is silly.

 

[cyberjock]

Well, considering that your system is not the latest generation, getting a new CPU might be dirt cheap. I wouldn't give up on it until you check ebay. :P

 

[jason.rohm]

I liked your Ebay idea, but it looks like my board doesn't support them. This box has a Supermicro X5DP8-G2 with a E7501 chipset. Looks like you need an E7520 or E7525 family minimally to support a 64-bit socket 604 Xeon. Bummer.

In any case, the system works just fine running the non-PAE build, I just wanted to squeeze that extra ounce of speed out of it since it has the ram to do it.