Cyc
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Hardware and Software Requirements for Cyc
This page details the hardware and software requirements for running CYC. Since there is a tenuous connection between the OS and the hardware, we organize this page by architectural bitwidth, operating system, and then present the hardware details.
Some Rules of Thumb
There are some general rules applicable to spec-ing out a machine that will run a CYC image.
- CYC is massively processor and memory bound. Therefore, raw clock rate, raw bus speed and raw cache size (L0, L1 and L2) matter significantly more than people might expect. Splurge on GHz, bus speed and amount of RAM — you will be happier!
- CYC does almost no floating point math. Don't spend on floating point math.
- CYC does no graphics. Don't spend on graphics.
- CYC does not need that much disk (esp. if the RAM size is adequate).
- Most of the CYC ports Cycorp provides as of January of 2006 can only make partial use of native multi-processing. This has to do primarily with the garbage collector being stop-and-go at this point in time and with many of the threading implementations being green-threaded. Therefore, as of January of 2006, don't spend on multi-processor boxes.
- There is as of right now no evidence for or against hyperthreading being any help.
32-bit Systems
Intel-compatible Linux Systems
These systems include RedHat 7, RedHat 9 and RedHat 10 as well as SuSE 9.2.
Recommended configuration:
- the fastest processor and bus that money can buy
- 1.5GB of RAM (the more, the better; the faster, the better)
- about 4GB of swap space
Note that it is possible to configure a 64-bit AMD Opteron system (see also below under 64-bit systems) as a 32-bit Linux system. In our experience, these systems will outperform a native 32-bit Intel-compatible system by as much as a factor of two (given same clock rate, etc).
64-bit Systems
64-bit AMD Opterons
Currently, SuSE 9.1 is supported. Additional systems are being tested.
Recommended configuration:
- the fastest processor and bus that money can buy
- 2GB of RAM (the more, the better; the faster, the better)
- about 6GB of swap space
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