Julia 1.4 fails on startup (AMD Phenom on Linux)

[alea54]

uname -a
Linux odie 4.15.0-88-generic #88-Ubuntu SMP Tue Feb 11 20:11:34 UTC 2020 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

cpuinfo.txt
errjulia-1.4.txt

[jdadavid]

Similar error here, on AMD Turion :

uname -a
Linux qube.jdad.org 5.5.9-desktop-1.mga7 #1 SMP Thu Mar 12 08:02:44 UTC 2020 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

err-julia-1.4.0-turion.txt
cpuinfo-turion.txt

Attaching also versioninfo from (working) julia-1.3.1
julia-1.3-versioninfo-turion.txt

[ViralBShah]

Did you happen to try RC1 or RC2?

[benz0li]

Fails on startup (QEMU Virtual CPU):

$ julia
LLVM ERROR: 64-bit code requested on a subtarget that doesn't support it!

$ uname -a
Linux aa614eb95626 4.15.0-91-generic #92-Ubuntu SMP Fri Feb 28 11:09:48 UTC 2020 x86_64 GNU/Linux

cpuinfo.txt

---

Related to llvm/llvm-project@b7b353b?

[alea54]

@ViralBShah : Just tried. Both RC1 and RC2 start normally.

[fredrikekre]

Has to be the new llvm binaries then I guess? v1.4.0-rc2...v1.4.0

[fabmazz]

It fails to start also on my pc (AMD Phenom II X6 1075T) on system running fedora 31.
Running julia produces the following stack trace:
julia_err.txt

$uname -a
Linux desktopsopra 5.5.8-200.fc31.x86_64 #1 SMP Thu Mar 5 21:28:03 UTC 2020 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

[staticfloat]

It appears your machines are complaining at a palignr instruction. You can see in that linked webpage that the instruction is marked as "SSSE3", and that its opcode starts with 66 0F 3A 0F.

Our typical processor support mantra so far has been "core2 or greater", but what that actually means hasn't been that well-defined; we often used only older instructions, but newer instructions keep getting used by various tools in our toolchains, and they often give significant speedups (As an example, GMP and MPFR, the libraries behind our BigInt capabilities, recently had a 2x performance difference when restricted to only older instructions).

It appears that what's happened here is that the LLVM rebuild for 1.4.0 was done with a newer GCC version, which ended up using SSSE3 instructions where it previously didn't, and while that still passes the "core2 or greater" check (and thus was passed by our CI), it looks like you need a Bobcat/Bulldozer or later AMD processor to have SSSE3 support.

[fabmazz]

In the end I compiled everything from scratch using the instructions on the julia repo.
I've uploaded the package I created to: https://github.com/fabmazz/julia/releases/tag/v1.4.0-amd10
If you share the same microarchitecture (amd k10), it should work also on your computer.

[jdadavid]

Dear Fabio, many thanks ! it works for my Turion II M640 ! Le 23/03/2020 à 23:50, Fabio Mazza a écrit :

…

In the end I compiled everything from scratch using the instructions on the julia repo. I've uploaded the package I created to: https://github.com/fabmazz/julia/releases/tag/v1.4.0-amd10 <url> If you share the same microarchitecture, it should work. — You are receiving this because you commented. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#35215 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AH2XLAXJMJSOBFHYMR52N3DRI7RR7ANCNFSM4LRFB5WQ>.

[ViralBShah]

One of the things that this issue brings up is that we should probably formalize our informal min-CPU requirements. As @staticfloat says, we always assume something like core2 when we build all our binaries - and it sounds like some of these AMD systems are not compatible - since they don't have the newer instructions.

It may be that we have to drop older architectures and formalize what we require. I know it would be terrible for some users with systems like those in this issue - but perhaps we suggest they build from source. There are further ramifications beyond just Julia itself in the entire BinaryBuilder ecosystem where similar assumptions are perhaps being made.

[fabmazz]

I agree. I think it should be made clear which CPU instructions Julia's official binary requires in order to run properly, and how to check if one's CPU is supported. Providing other builds for older CPUs should be great, also. Il Mar 24 Mar 2020, 15:54 Viral B. Shah <notifications@github.com> ha scritto:

…

One of the things that this issue brings up is that we should probably formalize our informal min-CPU requirements. As @staticfloat <https://github.com/staticfloat> says, we always assume something like core2 when we build all our binaries - and it sounds like some of these AMD systems are not compatible - since they don't have the newer instructions. It may be that we have to drop older architectures and formalize what we require. I know it would be terrible for some users with systems like those in this issue - but perhaps we suggest they build from source. There are further ramifications beyond just Julia itself in the entire BinaryBuilder ecosystem where similar assumptions are perhaps being made. — You are receiving this because you commented. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#35215 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ADMONLPUABPVAWBD3W62BUDRJDCTLANCNFSM4LRFB5WQ> .

[alea54]

@fabmazz Thank you very much. Your binary did not work for me because your libc6 is too recent for my computer, but I recompiled with
MARCH=amdfam10
USE_BINARYBUILDER=0
in Make.user and it works.

[briochemc]

👍 Had the same issue when I updated to Julia v1.4 for running simulations on a HPC cluster that has some old AMD CPU (model: AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 6176).

It would be great if this could be solved so that noob users like me can use Julia v1.4 without trying to build from source with some flags that I don't understand to be honest (embarassed noob here 😅) I will personally be reverting to using Julia v1.3 because that's much easier for me. But it would be great to be able to not have to do that 😃

[alea54]

I agree with briochemc. K10 is not so old nor exotic. Forgetting these architectures would be very bad for Julia dissemination.

Meanwhile, you can use 1.4.0-rc2
https://sourceforge.net/projects/julia.mirror/files/v1.4.0-rc2/