zfs discuss - May 2007 - Need guidance on RAID 5, ZFS, and RAIDZ on home file server

Hello all,

Spent the last several hours perusing the ZFS forums and some of the blog
entries regarding ZFS. I have a couple of questions and am open to any hints,
tips, or things to watch out for on implementation of my home file server. 
I''m building a file server consisting of an Asus P5WD2 motherboard
(which utilizes the ICH7 south bridge, allowing RAID 5 through the embedded
Intel controller), an 80GB PATA system drive and four 500GB SATA drives.  This
will be serving media and personal data through Samba services to a couple of
desktops and a streaming media appliance.  The server will also have a dual core
2.8Ghz Pentium 4 and 2GB of system RAM.  The home network is all gigabit
ethernet.  With redundancy and data protection being the primary goal, and
performance the secondary, what combination of RAID 5, ZFS, and RAIDZ do you
folks recommend? Some, all...maybe none? ;-)  Anyone else doing something
similar?  What''s your experience?  Thank you for your time.
 
 
This message posted from opensolaris.org

John Smith wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> Spent the last several hours perusing the ZFS forums and some of the blog
entries regarding ZFS. I have a couple of questions and am open to any hints,
tips, or things to watch out for on implementation of my home file server. 
I''m building a file server consisting of an Asus P5WD2 motherboard
(which utilizes the ICH7 south bridge, allowing RAID 5 through the embedded
Intel controller), an 80GB PATA system drive and four 500GB SATA drives.  This
will be serving media and personal data through Samba services to a couple of
desktops and a streaming media appliance.  The server will also have a dual core
2.8Ghz Pentium 4 and 2GB of system RAM.  The home network is all gigabit
ethernet.  With redundancy and data protection being the primary goal, and
performance the secondary, what combination of RAID 5, ZFS, and RAIDZ do you
folks recommend? Some, all...maybe none? ;-)  Anyone else doing something
similar?  What''s your experience?  Thank you for your time.
>  
>   
What capacity are you after?  Is this a 64 ore 32 bit system?

I was going to build a system with 4 500GB drives as 2x2 way mirrors
giving 1TB of storage (I ended up using 4x2 way mirrors of 320GB drives,
mainly for cost/performance reasons).

Ian

The original thought was 3 of the drives as storage, and one of the drives as
parity.  So that would yield around 1.4TB of useable storage.  I hadn''t
given any thought to running 64 bit.  This system is being built from the ground
up.  I guess in the back of my head I had assumed it would be 32 bit due to
maturity of the platform as a whole (I''m speaking across all
OS''s) with drivers and such.
 
 
This message posted from opensolaris.org

John Smith wrote:
> The original thought was 3 of the drives as storage, and one of the drives
as parity.  So that would yield around 1.4TB of useable storage.
Then raidz is your only option.
> I hadn''t given any thought to running 64 bit.  This system is
being built from the ground up.  I guess in the back of my head I had assumed it
would be 32 bit due to maturity of the platform as a whole (I''m
speaking across all OS''s) with drivers and such.
>  
>   
That''s not the case with Solaris.  If the processor is 64bit, the OS
will run 64bit.  It was the processor I was asking about, you said dual
core P4, which confused me.

ZFS works best with a 64 bit processor and plenty of RAM.

Ian.

Sorry about that, the specific processor in question is the Pentium D 930 which
supports 64 bit computing through the Extended Memory 64 Technology.  It was my
initial reaction to say I''d go with 32 bit computing because my general
experience with 64-bit is Windows, Linux, and some FreeBSD.  Generally speaking
(this is a broad statement) 64 bit is not mature enough for me to consider
building a server that safegaurds my data when taking into account everything
has to be in alignment- hardware, OS, drivers, applications,etc.  It seems
there''s always some hidden gremlin to be discovered.   That said, I
know Solaris has a rich history of 64 bit computing and I''m certainly
willing to look into it.
 
 
This message posted from opensolaris.org

I''d recommend getting a second 80GB disk and mirroring your root as
well.....

UFS+SDS for root (don''t forget a live upgrade slice) and ZFS for the
other disks.

Probably RAID-Z as you don''t have enough disks to be interesting for
doing 1+0.

Paul
 
 
This message posted from opensolaris.org

John Smith wrote:
> Sorry about that, the specific processor in question is the Pentium D 930
which supports 64 bit computing through the Extended Memory 64 Technology.  It
was my initial reaction to say I''d go with 32 bit computing because my
general experience with 64-bit is Windows, Linux, and some FreeBSD.  Generally
speaking (this is a broad statement) 64 bit is not mature enough for me to
consider building a server that safegaurds my data when taking into account
everything has to be in alignment- hardware, OS, drivers, applications,etc.  It
seems there''s always some hidden gremlin to be discovered.   That said,
I know Solaris has a rich history of 64 bit computing and I''m certainly
willing to look into it.
>  
>  
>   
You''ll have to go out of your way and sacrifice ZFS performance to run
Solaris 32 bit on that platform.  If you value your data, use ECC
memory, I''d suggest 4GB minimum for a ZFS server.

Ian

> Probably RAID-Z as you don''t have enough disks to be interesting
for doing 1+0.
> Paul
How do you configure ZFS RAID 1+0 ?
Will next lines do that right? :
[b]zpool create -f zfs_raid1 mirror c0t1d0 c1t1d0
zpool add zfs_raid1 mirror c2t1d0 c3t1d0
zpool add zfs_raid1 mirror c4t1d0 c5t1d0[/b]
Any help/info is very welcome!
TIA
 
 
This message posted from opensolaris.org

With b62, he can do ZFS mirror for root in addition to the raidz for the
data....  but it would still require a second root drive...

Malachi

On 5/8/07, Paul Armstrong <sunsolve at otoh.org>
wrote:
>
> I''d recommend getting a second 80GB disk and mirroring your root
as
> well.....
>
> UFS+SDS for root (don''t forget a live upgrade slice) and ZFS for
the other
> disks.
>
> Probably RAID-Z as you don''t have enough disks to be interesting
for doing
> 1+0.
>
> Paul
>
>
> This message posted from opensolaris.org
> _______________________________________________
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> zfs-discuss at opensolaris.org
> http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss
>
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Onboard RAID solutions actually do all their work on your CPU, so you
won''t be using that for anything if you use ZFS.  You just want them
acting like regular SATA controllers.

Just run the Solaris hardware compatibility thinger (google it), or compare your
hardware to the supported hardware list.  If you''re good to go, you can
install the OS and create a raidz array with the 4 disks.  This will act like
RAID5, leaving you 3 disks worth of space.  Set up the Samba share and
you''re hopefully done...

If your hardware isn''t supported by OpenSolaris, you can try FreeNAS,
OpenFiler, or a Windows with RAID5 support.
 
 
This message posted from opensolaris.org

I would personally avoid the P4 chip. They are power hogs and will cost you more
money in the long run than getting a low-end core 2 duo - which should be faster
and not much more money. Make sure you keep power consumption in mind when you
pick up a power supply and video card too. The always on computer should be fast
but light on power usage.

Also, I would avoid the hardware raid. Raid/z on top of the raw disks will have
much better fault tolerance and will allow zfs to fix silent read errors. It
will also allow solaris to tell you which specific disk is giving you problems
and allow you to replace it where having zfs on top of hardware raid-5 will end
up hiding which disk is acting up.

I have a similar setup to what you are looking at. I have a sun ultra 20 with an
80GB system drive, 3 - 500GB eSATA externals in a raidz and an external 500 GB
usb drive setup as another zfs pool without any redundancy (I''ll mirror
it in a few months when I get more money). I do fine with 1GB of ram, but 2
would be better. My network is gigabit and the setup that I have serves multiple
computers easily streaming video and files. As others have said, I would avoid
32 bit. If you are worried about maturity of the platform, you may want to look
at AMD chips instead of Intel. They have been throughly proven out in 64
bit...although Sun will soon be selling Intel chips, so they will be proven out
too in short order.

Eric
 
 
This message posted from opensolaris.org

Thanks for the continuing flow of information.  I already have all of the
equipment.  I''m actually upgrading my main computer to a new Core 2 Duo
setup which is why this hardware is going to the file server.  I think
I''m going to try a 64bit install using the four 500GB drives in a
RAID-Z configuration. Wish me luck!
 
 
This message posted from opensolaris.org

Hello Michael,

Tuesday, May 8, 2007, 9:20:56 PM, you wrote:
>> Probably RAID-Z as you don''t have enough disks to be
interesting for doing 1+0.
>> Paul
MC> How do you configure ZFS RAID 1+0 ?
MC> Will next lines do that right? :
MC> [b]zpool create -f zfs_raid1 mirror c0t1d0 c1t1d0
MC> zpool add zfs_raid1 mirror c2t1d0 c3t1d0
MC> zpool add zfs_raid1 mirror c4t1d0 c5t1d0[/b]
MC> Any help/info is very welcome!


Yep, above is correct.
However you can do it in one shot:

zpool create -f zfs_raid1 mirror c0t1d0 c1t1d0 mirror c2t1d0 c3t1d0 mirror
c4t1d0 c5t1d0


-- 
Best regards,
 Robert                            mailto:rmilkowski at task.gda.pl
                                       http://milek.blogspot.com

I have a scenario where I have several ORACLE databases.  I''m trying to
keep system downtime to a minimum for business reasons.  I''ve created
zpools on three devices, an internal 148 Gb drive (data) and two
partitions on an HP SAN.  HP won''t do JBOD so I''m stuck with
relying
upon HP to give me a clean partition and do all the dirty work in the
background.  On the SAN I''ve got slow disk and fast disk.  Hence,
I''ve
created the following: 

data/zfs1
data/zfs2
fastsan/zfs3
fastsan/zfs4
slowsan/zfs5
slowsan/zfs6

I''ve got a script that brings down the databases, does a snapshot, then
brings the databases back up.  I''m left with

# zfs list -t snapshot
NAME                   USED  AVAIL  REFER  MOUNTPOINT
data/zfs1 at nightly     7.34G      -  7.34G  -
data/zfs2 at nightly     7.34G      -  7.34G  -
fastsan/zfs3 at nightly   368M      -  1.59G  -
fastsan/zfs4 at nightly  3.57G      -  3.57G  -
slowsan/zfs5 at nightly  3.57G      -  3.57G  -
slowsan/zfs6 at nightly   658M      -  1.13G  -

Then I use Legato Networker 7.3.2 to back up the server.  As ALL tends
to ignore the snapshot directories, I''ve hard coded the locations to be
backed up including:

/
/usr
/opt
/var
/export/home
/data/zfs1/.zfs/snapshot/nightly
/data/zfs2/.zfs/snapshot/nightly
/fastsan/zfs3/.zfs/snapshot/nightly
/fastsan/zfs4/.zfs/snapshot/nightly
/slowsan/zfs5/.zfs/snapshot/nightly
/slowsan/zfs6/.zfs/snapshot/nightly

On restore, I''ll just drop the files into their correct locations.

Note that I am NOT backing up the databases directly.  There''s no
point,
they''re up and running again.

Is this workable?

I don''t have enough disk to do clones and I haven''t figured
out how to
mount snapshots directly.

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On Thu, 10 May 2007, Bruce Shaw wrote:
>
> I don''t have enough disk to do clones and I haven''t
figured out how to
> mount snapshots directly.
Maybe I''m misunderstanding what you''re saying, but
''zfs clone'' is exactly
the way to mount a snapshot.  Creating a clone uses up a negligible amount
of disk space, provided you never write to it.  And you can always set
readonly=on if that''s a concern.


Regards,
markm

Mark J Musante [mmusante at east.sun.com] wrote:
>Maybe I''m misunderstanding what you''re saying, but
''zfs clone'' is
exactly
the way to mount a snapshot.  Creating a clone uses up a negligible
amount
of disk space, provided you never write to it.  And you can always set
readonly=on if that''s a concern.

So something like:

zfs snapshot fastsan/zfs3 at nightly
zfs clone fastsan/zfs3 at nightly fastsan/zfs3/night
zfs set readonly=on fastsan/zfs3/night

...do backup...

zfs destroy fastsan/zfs3/night

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zfs-discuss-bounces at opensolaris.org wrote on 05/10/2007 02:19:17 PM:
> I have a scenario where I have several ORACLE databases.  I''m
trying to
> keep system downtime to a minimum for business reasons.  I''ve
created
> zpools on three devices, an internal 148 Gb drive (data) and two
> partitions on an HP SAN.  HP won''t do JBOD so I''m stuck
with relying
> upon HP to give me a clean partition and do all the dirty work in the
> background.  On the SAN I''ve got slow disk and fast disk.  Hence,
I''ve
> created the following:
>



I do not get it -- your goal is to keep downtime to a minimum and you are
forgoing hot (online) backups? Even with snap/clones you are still
thrashing the same volume and db performance will be degraded as the data
is read from disk for the backup,  you really gain little going to cold
state.



http://orafaq.com/faqdbabr.htm#HOW



Networker has an oracle hot backup extension -- or you can do it on the
cheap with a pre/post script (google rman).

http://software.emc.com/products/software_az/networker_module_for_oracle.htm



-Wade

Bruce Shaw wrote:
> Mark J Musante [mmusante at east.sun.com] wrote:
> 
>> Maybe I''m misunderstanding what you''re saying, but
''zfs clone'' is
> exactly
> the way to mount a snapshot.  Creating a clone uses up a negligible
> amount
> of disk space, provided you never write to it.  And you can always set
> readonly=on if that''s a concern.
> 
> So something like:
> 
> zfs snapshot fastsan/zfs3 at nightly
> zfs clone fastsan/zfs3 at nightly fastsan/zfs3/night
> zfs set readonly=on fastsan/zfs3/night
> 
> ...do backup...
> 
> zfs destroy fastsan/zfs3/night
Yep.  Don''t forget to destroy the snapshot as well, if you want your 
space back (''zfs destroy fastsan/zfs3 at nightly'').

That said, if it works to point Legato at the .zfs/snapshot/nightly 
directory, then that seems like less steps.

--matt

Machine    MB K/sec %CPU K/sec %CPU K/sec %CPU K/sec %CPU K/sec %CPU
/sec %CPU
/fastsan/zfs3 (with 3 snapshots and a clone)
          100  5414 98.8 31819 58.9 46620 95.4  2895 98.8 100516 99.8
7490.8 172.3
/fastsan/zfs3 (with 1 snapshot and a clone)
          100  5316 97.5 65448 99.7 50097 99.0  2871 98.5 99271 99.5
8379.9 192.8
/fastsan/zfs3 (no snapshots)
          100  5394 98.3 63724 99.7 48285 98.1  2884 98.5 98892 99.5
8396.3 192.8

I''m using bonnie on a test server with no load other than what
I''m
doing.

As far as I can tell, I get better performance the more snapshots I
have.

Huh?

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> Sorry about that, the specific processor in question
> is the Pentium D 930 which supports 64 bit computing
> through the Extended Memory 64 Technology.  It was my
> initial reaction to say I''d go with 32 bit computing
> because my general experience with 64-bit is Windows,
> Linux, and some FreeBSD.  Generally speaking (this is
99% of Windows is 32 bits.
As is Linux and FreeBSD.  64 bits is a special case.

Solaris is 64 bits with support for 32 bits.  I''ve been running 64 bit
Solaris since Solaris 7 as I imagine most Solaris users have.  I don''t
think any other major 64 bit OS has been in general use as long (VMS?).
> a broad statement) 64 bit is not mature enough for me
> to consider building a server that safegaurds my data
> when taking into account everything has to be in
> alignment- hardware, OS, drivers, applications,etc.
> It seems there''s always some hidden gremlin to be
> discovered.   That said, I know Solaris has a rich
> history of 64 bit computing and I''m certainly
>  willing to look into it.
I can''t remember the last time I had a 32 vs 64 bit issue in Solaris. 
In Windows XP or Linux I think it''s common.
 
 
This message posted from opensolaris.org

On Wed, May 23, 2007 at 08:03:41AM -0700, Tom Buskey
wrote:
> 
> Solaris is 64 bits with support for 32 bits.  I''ve been running 64
bit Solaris since Solaris 7 as I imagine most Solaris users have.  I
don''t think any other major 64 bit OS has been in general use as long
(VMS?).
IRIX, AIX, pretty much any commercial OS written for something
that didn''t have an Intel CPU in it. ;)
> I can''t remember the last time I had a 32 vs 64 bit issue in
Solaris.  In Windows XP or Linux I think it''s common.
64-bit is relatively new to the x86 platform as compared to the other
CPUs which have had it for, well, crap, almost 15 years at this point?
64-bit is extremely mature on all those systems.  Linux and Windows
(as well as the BSDs) are all relative newcomers to the 64-bit arena.

-brian
-- 
"Perl can be fast and elegant as much as J2EE can be fast and elegant.
In the hands of a skilled artisan, it can and does happen; it''s just
that most of the shit out there is built by people who''d be better
suited to making sure that my burger is cooked thoroughly."  -- Jonathan
Patschke

> On Wed, May 23, 2007 at 08:03:41AM -0700, Tom Buskey
> wrote:
> > 
> > Solaris is 64 bits with support for 32 bits.  I''ve
> been running 64 bit Solaris since Solaris 7 as I
> imagine most Solaris users have.  I don''t think any
> other major 64 bit OS has been in general use as long
> (VMS?).
> 
> IRIX, AIX, pretty much any commercial OS written for
> something
> that didn''t have an Intel CPU in it. ;)
You''re right of course and lots of people use them.  My point is that
Solaris has been 64 bits longer then most others.  I think 64 bits in AIX got 64
bits after Solaris and Linux (via Alpha) did.  Irix was 64 bit near the same
time as Solaris but the end of the Irix is visible.  Did they port it to
anything other then MIPS?  OSF1 or Digital Unix or Tru64 on the Alpha was the
1st commercial 64 bit OS but it''s pretty much gone nowadays. 
I''m not sure where VMS or HP-UX stand.
> > I can''t remember the last time I had a 32 vs 64 bit
> issue in Solaris.  In Windows XP or Linux I think
> it''s common.
> 
> 64-bit is relatively new to the x86 platform as
> compared to the other
> CPUs which have had it for, well, crap, almost 15
> years at this point?
> 64-bit is extremely mature on all those systems.
>  Linux and Windows
> as well as the BSDs) are all relative newcomers to
> the 64-bit arena.
The 2nd non-x86 port of Linux was to the Alpha in 1999 (98?) by Linus no less.
And it was 64 bits.  However, linux distributions seem to be 99% x86-32 and
everything else has limited distribution support; you have to roll your own for
other platforms.  x86-64 is probably the best supported non x86-32 platform. 
Everything else seems to disappear after awhile.

Linux the kernel has been 64 bit for a long time, but the popular distributions
are mostly 32 bit userland on a 64 bit kernel.  Web plugins are generally only
available for the 32 bit web browser, etc.
 
 
This message posted from opensolaris.org

>You''re right of course and lots of people use them.  My point is
that
>Solaris has been 64 bits lon ger then most others.  I think 64 bits in
>AIX got 64 bits after Solaris and Linux (via Alpha) did.
>Irix was 64 bit near the same time as Solaris but the end of the Irix
>is visible.  Did they port i t to anything other then MIPS?  OSF1 or
>Digital Unix or Tru64 on the Alpha was the 1st commercial 6 4 bit OS
>but it''s pretty much gone nowadays.  I''m not sure where
VMS or HP-UX
>stand.
IRIX was much earlier than Solaris; Solaris was pretty late in the 64 bit
game with Solaris 7.

Casper

Casper.Dik at Sun.COM wrote:
>
> >You''re right of course and lots of people use them.  My point
is that
> >Solaris has been 64 bits lon ger then most others.  I think 64 bits in
> >AIX got 64 bits after Solaris and Linux (via Alpha) did.
> >Irix was 64 bit near the same time as Solaris but the end of the Irix
> >is visible.  Did they port i t to anything other then MIPS?  OSF1 or
> >Digital Unix or Tru64 on the Alpha was the 1st commercial 6 4 bit OS
> >but it''s pretty much gone nowadays.  I''m not sure
where VMS or HP-UX
> >stand.
>
> IRIX was much earlier than Solaris; Solaris was pretty late in the 64 bit
> game with Solaris 7.
And Alpha did not have a real 64 bit port as they did implement ILP64.
With ILP64 your application does not really notice that it runs in 64 bits
if you only use sizeof().

J?rg

-- 
 EMail:joerg at schily.isdn.cs.tu-berlin.de (home) J?rg Schilling D-13353 Berlin
       js at cs.tu-berlin.de                (uni)  
       schilling at fokus.fraunhofer.de     (work) Blog:
http://schily.blogspot.com/
 URL:  http://cdrecord.berlios.de/old/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily

>Casper.Dik at Sun.COM wrote:
>
>>
>> >You''re right of course and lots of people use them.  My
point is that
>> >Solaris has been 64 bits lon ger then most others.  I think 64 bits
in
>> >AIX got 64 bits after Solaris and Linux (via Alpha) did.
>> >Irix was 64 bit near the same time as Solaris but the end of the
Irix
>> >is visible.  Did they port i t to anything other then MIPS?  OSF1
or
>> >Digital Unix or Tru64 on the Alpha was the 1st commercial 6 4 bit
OS
>> >but it''s pretty much gone nowadays.  I''m not sure
where VMS or HP-UX
>> >stand.
>>
>> IRIX was much earlier than Solaris; Solaris was pretty late in the 64
bit
>> game with Solaris 7.
>
>And Alpha did not have a real 64 bit port as they did implement ILP64.
>With ILP64 your application does not really notice that it runs in 64 bits
>if you only use sizeof().
ILP64?

AFAIK, Alpha had int as a 32 bit type and L and P as 64 bit types;
even ILP64 would be a proper 64 bit OS if a tad difficult to port
some code to.

That''s why time_t was a 32 bit value (oops).

ILP64 is what HAL used in the shortlived Solaris64 OS and what Sun
originally proposed for the SPARCv9 ABI; but DEC, starting from
scratch, picked LP64 and when Sun finally got around to doing 64 bit
the whole industry (meaning SGI and DEC) had decided an LP64 so
we ditched ILP64 and went for LP64.

(If I dig deep enough I can probably still find the "Why we are
doing ILP64" and "Why we''re doing LP64 afterall" papers
someplace.
The first one basically said "we think it''ll make porting
easier" and
the second one was "we''re following the industry".)

Casper

On 24-May-07, at 6:51 PM, Casper.Dik at Sun.COM wrote:
>
>> Casper.Dik at Sun.COM wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>> You''re right of course and lots of people use them. 
My point is
>>>> that
>>>> Solaris has been 64 bits lon ger then most others. ...
>>>
>>> IRIX was much earlier than Solaris; Solaris was pretty late in  
>>> the 64 bit
>>> game with Solaris 7.
>>
>> And Alpha did not have a real 64 bit port as they did implement  
>> ILP64.
>> With ILP64 your application does not really notice that it runs in  
>> 64 bits
>> if you only use sizeof().
>
> ILP64? ...
>
> (If I dig deep enough I can probably still find the "Why we are
> doing ILP64" and "Why we''re doing LP64 afterall"
papers someplace.
> The first one basically said "we think it''ll make porting
easier" and
> the second one was "we''re following the industry".)
My spidey sense says LONG OT THREAD AHEAD. :-)
>
> Casper
>
> _______________________________________________
> zfs-discuss mailing list
> zfs-discuss at opensolaris.org
> http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss

Casper.Dik at Sun.COM wrote:
> >> IRIX was much earlier than Solaris; Solaris was pretty late in the
64 bit
> >> game with Solaris 7.
> >
> >And Alpha did not have a real 64 bit port as they did implement ILP64.
> >With ILP64 your application does not really notice that it runs in 64
bits
> >if you only use sizeof().
>
> ILP64?
>
> AFAIK, Alpha had int as a 32 bit type and L and P as 64 bit types;
> even ILP64 would be a proper 64 bit OS if a tad difficult to port
> some code to.
>
> That''s why time_t was a 32 bit value (oops).
OOps, you are right :-)

Is it possible that I confused this with Linux an Alpha?
GCC was not 64 bit clean until GCC-3.x If you compiles a GCC-2.x you did
get more than 10000 warnings for bad printf format strings and people have been
very upset for not being able to use gcc to compile 64 bit sparc binaries.

J?rg

-- 
 EMail:joerg at schily.isdn.cs.tu-berlin.de (home) J?rg Schilling D-13353 Berlin
       js at cs.tu-berlin.de                (uni)  
       schilling at fokus.fraunhofer.de     (work) Blog:
http://schily.blogspot.com/
 URL:  http://cdrecord.berlios.de/old/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily

On 5/24/07, Tom Buskey <tom at buskey.name> wrote:
> >  Linux and Windows
> > as well as the BSDs) are all relative newcomers to
> > the 64-bit arena.
>
> The 2nd non-x86 port of Linux was to the Alpha in 1999 (98?) by Linus no
less.
In 1994 to be precise. In 1999 Linux 2.2 got released, which supported
few more 64 bit platforms.

--
Tomasz Torcz
zdzichu at gmail.com