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MLton runs fine on NetBSD. <h2 id="head-f540b96714cb4fb53f52a3c6b891109f21c9ec21">Installing the correct packages for NetBSD</h2>
<p>
The NetBSD system installs 3rd party packages by a mechanism known as pkgsrc. This is a tree of Makefiles which when invoked downloads the source code, builds a package and installs it on the system. In order to run MLton on NetBSD, you will have to install several packages for it to work: 
</p>

    <ul>

    <li>
<p>
 <tt>shells/bash</tt> 
</p>
</li>
    <li class="gap">
<p>
 <tt>devel/gmp</tt> 
</p>
</li>
    <li class="gap">
<p>
 <tt>devel/gmake</tt> 
</p>
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    </ul>


<p>
In order to get graphical call-graphs of profiling information, you will need the additional package 
</p>

    <ul>

    <li>
<p>
 <tt>graphics/graphviz</tt> 
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<p>
To build the documentation for MLton, you need <tt>htmldoc</tt>. 
</p>
<h2 id="head-94491c2cf063e8b634a4582f510f3a6735669262">Tips for compiling and using MLton on NetBSD</h2>
<p>
MLton can be a memory-hog on computers with little memory.  While 640Mb of RAM ought to be enough to self-compile MLton one might want to do some tuning to the NetBSD VM subsystem in order to succeed.  The notes presented here is what <a href="JesperLouisAndersen">JesperLouisAndersen</a> uses for compiling MLton on his laptop. 
</p>
<h3 id="head-3bf1043eef710e5b57c1d91fccdbbd6535c8e3e0">The NetBSD VM subsystem</h3>
<p>
NetBSD uses a VM subsystem named <a class="external" href="http://www.ccrc.wustl.edu/pub/chuck/tech/uvm/"><img src="moin-www.png" alt="[WWW]" height="11" width="11">UVM</a>. <a class="external" href="http://www.selonen.org/arto/netbsd/vm_tune.html"><img src="moin-www.png" alt="[WWW]" height="11" width="11">Tuning the VM system</a> can be done via the <tt>sysctl(8)</tt>-interface with the "VM" MIB set. 
</p>
<h3 id="head-53250437dad54a0be46b79ac843e8ef296be4249">Tuning the NetBSD VM subsystem for MLton</h3>
<p>
MLton uses a lot of anonymous pages when it is running. Thus, we will need to tune up the default of 80 for anonymous pages.  Setting 
</p>

<pre>sysctl -w vm.anonmax=95
sysctl -w vm.anonmin=50
sysctl -w vm.filemin=2
sysctl -w vm.execmin=2
sysctl -w vm.filemax=4
sysctl -w vm.execmax=4
</pre><p>
makes it less likely for the VM system to swap out anonymous pages. For a full explanation of the above flags, see the documentation. 
</p>
<p>
The result is that my laptop goes from a MLton compile where it swaps a lot to a MLton compile with no swapping. 
</p>
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<p>
<hr>
Last edited on 2005-12-02 01:34:02 by <span title="ppp-71-139-183-221.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net"><a href="StephenWeeks">StephenWeeks</a></span>.
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