[Beowulf] Feedback on large pages in Linux

[Valerie Henson]

Hello all,

We are doing some work on large page support in Linux.  Large page
support lets applications use hardware support for page translations
in sizes larger than the system base page, thereby reducing TLB
pressure and improving performance for many workloads.  We're looking
for feedback from current or future users of large pages in Linux, and
we suspect the HPC community might be interested in this topic. :)

The survey is included below, and also available at:

http://linux-mm.org/HugetlbUserFeedback

Please reply directly to me, unless you have something to share with
the whole list.  Thanks!

-VAL

Thanks in advance for answering our questions. This information will
be shared with many Linux developers, so please be as detailed as you
can in your answers. We don't need to know the name of your
organization or application, but we would appreciate it if you could
tell us that as well. If you want your response to be discussed at the
2006 OLS large pages BOF (see
http://www.linuxsymposium.org/2006/view_abstract.php?content_key=289),
please return your answers by July 10, 2006. Also, please consider
attending the large pages BOF if you will be at OLS. Thanks!

1. What does your organization do?

2. What does your application do?

3. How are large pages useful to you?

4. What is your experience with the Linux hugetlbfs implementation of
   large page support?

5. Does Linux's large page support affect your decision whether or not
   to use Linux? If so, how?

6. What would make large page support in Linux better for your application?