Unable to build on CentOS 6.5

[dgotwisner]

Nothing in the documentation indicates what platforms are supported, or minimum requirements (which is an advantage of using autotools or cmake). What minimum version of G++, etc.?

Platform is running Linux 2.6.32-431.23.3.el6.x86_64, and the code fails to compile from doing a make from the release directory. The actual failure is the code in huge_malloc (huge_malloc.cc) as MADV_HUGEPAGE and MADV_NOHUGEPAGE don't exist. Since it explicitly sets one mode or the other, the assumption is the default on my system is no huge page support, so I commented out the entire block to get it to compile.

Now, I get further. But still no go. When compiling huge_malloc.cc:
g++ -W -Wall -Werror -O3 -flto -ggdb -pthread -fPIC -mrtm -std=c++11 -I../release -I../src -c ../src/huge_malloc.cc -o ../release/huge_malloc.o

Gives the following error:
/tmp/ccX5VXF3.s: Assembler messages:
/tmp/ccX5VXF3.s:1614: Error: no such instruction: xbegin .L37' /tmp/ccX5VXF3.s:2237: Error: no such instruction: xabort $9'
/tmp/ccX5VXF3.s:2267: Error: no such instruction: xend' /tmp/ccX5VXF3.s:2381: Error: no such instruction: xbegin .L28'
/tmp/ccX5VXF3.s:2407: Error: no such instruction: `xabort $9'
make: *** [../release/huge_malloc.o] Error 1

If I comment out most of this file, we get a similar error building large_malloc.cc:
g++ -W -Wall -Werror -O3 -flto -ggdb -pthread -fPIC -mrtm -std=c++11 -I../release -I../src -c ../src/large_malloc.cc -o ../release/large_malloc.o
/tmp/ccYsHMMz.s: Assembler messages:
/tmp/ccYsHMMz.s:2681: Error: no such instruction: xbegin .L74' /tmp/ccYsHMMz.s:2838: Error: no such instruction: xbegin .L66'
/tmp/ccYsHMMz.s:2869: Error: no such instruction: xabort $9' /tmp/ccYsHMMz.s:2881: Error: no such instruction: xend'
make: *** [../release/large_malloc.o] Error 1

[dgotwisner]

I got it building on centos 7. Also need to install valgrind-devel which is not documented, in order to build the benchmarks.
This is from the zip file downloaded within an hour of getting these issues.

[kuszmaul]

Can you provide more information about how the centos 6.5 install failed? I don't have a centos 6.5 installation, and it seems strange that g++ would accept -mrtm and then fail to understand the resulting xbegin assembly instruction. What version of gcc and gas does that installation use?

[dgotwisner]

6.5 behavior:

1. cd release
2. make
   ../src/huge_malloc.cc:109:36: error: \u2018MADV_HUGEPAGE\u2019 was not declared in this scope
   madvise(c, n_chunkschunksize, MADV_HUGEPAGE); // ignore any error code. In future skip this call if we always get an error? Also if we are in madvise=always we shouldn't bother.
   ^
   ../src/huge_malloc.cc:114:44: error: \u2018MADV_HUGEPAGE\u2019 was not declared in this scope
   madvise(c, n_whole_chunkschunksize, MADV_HUGEPAGE);
   ^
   ../src/huge_malloc.cc:118:6: error: \u2018MADV_NOHUGEPAGE\u2019 was not declared in this scope
   MADV_NOHUGEPAGE);
   ^
   make: *** [../release/huge_malloc.o] Error 1

Note, uname -a returns:
Linux nfw-devperf-01.newwireless.com 2.6.32-431.23.3.el6.x86_64 #1 SMP Thu Jul 31 17:20:51 UTC 2014 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

On a newer system (CentOS 7), "man madvise" indicates that MADV_HUGEPAGE and MADV_NOHUGEPAGE are available starting in 2.6.38.

I am using g++ 4.8.1, which is newer than the stock C++ compiler on 6.5 (we needed C++11 features).

To get around the MADV issue, I commented out the block dealing with it in the huge_malloc() function: starting on the line after the MADV_DONTNEED, and going up to (and not including) the chunknum = address_2_chunknumber(c) statement.

That gets me further, now I get the following block:
set -e; rm -f ../release/huge_malloc.d;
g++ -MM -W -Wall -Werror -O3 -flto -ggdb -pthread -fPIC -mrtm -std=c++11 -I../release -I../src ../src/huge_malloc.cc -MG -MF ../release/huge_malloc.d.$$;
sed 's,(huge_malloc).o[ :]*,../release/\1.o ../release/huge_malloc.d : ,g' < ../release/huge_malloc.d.$$
| sed 's,generated_constants.h,../release/generated_constants.h,' > ../release/huge_malloc.d;
rm -f ../release/huge_malloc.d.$$
g++ -W -Wall -Werror -O3 -flto -ggdb -pthread -fPIC -mrtm -std=c++11 -I../release -I../src -c ../src/huge_malloc.cc -o ../release/huge_malloc.o
/tmp/cc0m2Emj.s: Assembler messages:
/tmp/cc0m2Emj.s:1614: Error: no such instruction: xbegin .L37' /tmp/cc0m2Emj.s:2237: Error: no such instruction: xabort $9'
/tmp/cc0m2Emj.s:2267: Error: no such instruction: xend' /tmp/cc0m2Emj.s:2381: Error: no such instruction: xbegin .L28'
/tmp/cc0m2Emj.s:2407: Error: no such instruction: `xabort $9'
make: *** [../release/huge_malloc.o] Error 1

[dgotwisner]

CentOS 7 appears to build and run clean now (I added the MADV code back in).