32-bit python on Opteron, Solaris 10?

[ross lazarus]

The answers depend entirely on the cpu in my experience. I'm staring 
at http://www.sun.com/servers/index.jsp and I can't see anything 
called a T2100. I have 3 X2100 servers which are opterons. Psyco only 
runs on x86 cpu hardware. Python cannot use psyco on opterons at all - 
32 bit mode or otherwise. Pypy may fix this soon. The T2000 has a new 
cpu for which I have no data about python performance. I am sure it 
will run, but it may or may not be super fast if that's important to 
you. On the ultrasparcs I have had an opportunity to fool with, python 
runs  "fast enough" for computationally intensive tasks (ie it's 
useable) but relatively slowly compared to the x86 hardware I have 
access to - particularly if psyco is available. I was once told that 
python was more at home on CISC than on RISC CPU architecture and 
being a trusting soul, accept this since it's consistent my own 
limited experiments.

If you can benchmark your own code on a target machine, on solaris, 
linux or windows, you can quickly figure out if it's "fast enough". 
Exactly what means depends on the throughput you require and a stopwatch.

Your mileage may vary and there may be sun mavens on the list with 
more reliable information than mine.

Gary Robinson wrote:
> I'm in the market for a server to run some python code which is 
> optimized via psyco.
> 
> Sun T2100 servers come with Solaris 10, which comes with python 
> pre-installed. 
> 
> Since those servers use the 64-bit Opteron box, I would assume that the 
> Python is a 64-bit version. (Does anyone know whether this is 
> true/false?)
> 
> The Psyco documentation says that for psyco to work, Python needs to be 
> compiled in "32-bit compatibility mode". I've never compiled Python, or 
> tried having multiple versions running on Solaris. I looked at the 
> README for the Python source and didn't see anything about "32-bit 
> compatibility mode", though I may have missed it. Or is it a matter of 
> choosing a 32 bit compiler to compile against? Any info would be 
> appreciated.
> 
> Finally, I'm wondering if anyone could give any feedback about 
> problems/roadblocks in compiling Python in "32-bit compatibility mode" 
> and running it alongside the pre-installed Python that comes with 
> Solaris 10.
> 
> Any input or tips would be greatly appreciated.
> 
> Thanks
> Gary