workload runs with nix

Configure, build, and run benchmarks reproducibly.

Getting started with nix

I like the Determinate Systems installer, as well as their Zero to Nix guide.

Usage

Each configuration for a run should have its own config file. For example, specrate_gcc.nix contains a basic configuration that runs all of the specrate suite with Rivos's GCC.

For a SPEC config, there are a number of buildable attributes.

• runsetup: Results of runcpu --action=runsetup, which builds and creates run dirs.
• icount: Runs the benchmark under qemu and collects instruction counts

Local builds

NOTE: All examples below be run from this directory.

To get icounts for all of specrate:

# for GCC
nix build '.#specrate_gcc.icount' --max-jobs 32

If you're interested in just a single benchmark, there's no need to edit the config file. Just build the benchmark attributes directly!

nix build '.#gcc.config.icount.pkgs."525.x264_r"' # The quotes are necessary!

Using a compiler at a custom revision

If you'd like to override the compiler, provide the --override-input flag to nix build. This uses flake reference syntax; see examples below.

Example:

# Use a local git checkout
nix build --override-input rvv-gcc /path/to/gcc \
          '.#specrate_rvv_gcc.config.icount.pkgs."525.x264_r"'