PowerPC Linux Beats Apple To Full G4 SMP Support

dburcaw writes: "PowerPC Linux developer Troy Benjegerdes just released the first patch adding SMP support for the brand new dual processor Power Macintosh G4 systems just hours before Steve Jobs is set to release the Mac OS X Public Beta at Apple Expo in Paris. This makes PowerPC Linux the first available operating system to contain full SMP support for the new machines. The patch and test binary kernel is available here."

Comments

Clarification: LinuxPPC, our claims, AltiVec

[haaz]

Hi all, this is Jason Haas, one of the co-founders of LinuxPPC Inc. I'm mostly famous for alost having been killed by this drunk fuck in a massive SUV back in March. ;-)

LinuxPPC is not making any claims about Apple. We are not making any claims about our alleged "superiority" over Apple. We're thousands of times smaller than Apple, for one thing. Linux _might_ be superior to the MacOS, performance-wise, but Linux in general still has a ways to go before ease of use becomes more standard. We never compare ourselves to Apple. Never have, don't plan on doing that in the future.

Second, we're not announcing the SMP support. It will soon be on our FTP server, however.

Third, AFAIK, AltiVec (a.k.a. "Velocity Engine") has kernel support in some kernels, and Motorola has released patches for gcc, though I don't know if they've been intergrated yet.

Personally, I think it has a limited future. What would it help under Linux, anyway? ;-) (I honestly don't know!)

Last, I am doing much better despite Jerk Boy's efforts to kill me (literally). He didn't try hard enough. ;-)

Best,

Haaz: Co-founder, LinuxPPC Inc., making Linux for PowerPC since 1996.

Hmmm

[scrutty]

This suddenly makes the macintosh a far more enticing prospect as a hardware platform. Nicely built non-intel SMP linux box = good thing.

However I wonder how good the actually support is. I mean intel SMP under linux sucked for quite a while and this is only an initial patch. I would not be surprised if the MacOS X beta had the performance edga, at least for a while.

What I really pont in BeOS on multiprocessor G4s. That would rock.

Wow.

[Darchmare]

Apple beats LinuxPPC to a halfway usable user interface by around 16-17 years.

*yawn*

I'm impressed by LinuxPPC. I order each release they put out, and it's not bad given their marketshare. But bragging about SMP support when Apple has a lot more fish to fry is kind of stupid.

Other people have beaten Apple to the punch in other stuff. It's not really that big of a deal. I'm more concerned at this point that Apple isn't going to fix some of the ... erm ... interface oddities in the OSX release.

- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)

Re:Wow.

[AustenDH]

I agree and I don't. First of all:

'Apple beats LinuxPPC to a halfway usable user interface by around 16-17 years.'

Sure. But the whole point was to give apple users a different option of UI on the hardware they liked.

'I'm impressed by LinuxPPC. I order each release they put out, and it's not bad given their marketshare. But bragging about SMP support when Apple has a lot more fish to fry is kind of stupid.'

Why is tackeling SMP stupid? If Apple is going to be able to compete in any way against the way things are going with Intel, AMD, Alpha, etc. SMP is crucial. Apple has some incredible hardware and software to show for itself. If they didn't tackle SMP then they would be breaking their wounds. The power output per machine is not just the CPU ability, but the CPU ability to work when there are more than one present. PC's do it, and now single PC machines can outperform even the fastest Mac G4's.

I think Mac SMP is far from stupid.

And last:

'Other people have beaten Apple to the punch in other stuff. It's not really that big of a deal. I'm more concerned at this point that Apple isn't going to fix some of the ... erm ... interface oddities in the OSX release.'

I know some of the people working on OSX. Don't worry about them. OSX is in good hands. I'm sure that these people are smart and resourceful enough to find and work out 'oddities.'

But why complain at all? You want to talk about 'oddities?' When was the last time you used Win2K?

And for crying out loud, OSX is still *beta*

Re:Wow.

[Darchmare]

---
Sure. But the whole point was to give apple users a different option of UI on the hardware they liked.
---

I know, and I'm cool with that. As mentioned, I use LinuxPPC as well. But what I'm saying is that crowing about having SMP would be a lot more impressive if they had the other stuff Apple has been working on as well.

---
Why is tackeling SMP stupid?
---

I think I must have misrepresented myself. Tackling SMP is not stupid. Making a big deal over the fact that LinuxPPC has it first is what I think is kind of stupid. LinuxPPC is lacking some very important things as well - and Apple isn't crowing at them about it.

Plus, I imagine OSX's SMP implementation has had more thorough testing just within Apple itself than LinuxPPC's has. They can call it 'released' as much as they want, but so far I haven't seen a lot of people relying on it yet.

Maybe my problem is more with Slashdot thinking this was an actual story.

---
But why complain at all? You want to talk about 'oddities?' When was the last time you used Win2K?
---

If you want to set that as your optimal user interface benchmark, then Apple has nothing to worry about. :>

---
I'm sure that these people are smart and resourceful enough to find and work out 'oddities.'
---

My main concern may not be 'oddities' in the traditional sense - this has little to do with bugs. I'm confident that Apple will come up with lots of bug fixes. It's the intentional stuff that gets me. Dropping the Apple menu and replacing it with the dock is not a 'bug' according to Apple, it's a feature. Despite the fact that multiple folders in it look identical and you have to wave your mouse around like a ouija board just to get file names. That's an example of the main fundamental flaw in the OSX design goals: look cool first, usability second.

And no, I have no problems with the dock concept. I have problems with that dock. For instance, the BeOS implementation of the same concept is actually quite nice from a usability perspective.

It just seems sadly ironic that Apple risks going from the most usable consumer OS with the worst core foundation to the consumer OS with the best core foundation and the worst usability.

I hope they make some major changes between now and final release - but we've already hit beta and only minor interface fixes have been made. I try to have faith, but this is the same company that sold a puck mouse and chiclit keyboard for two years and is waiting until OSX to fix some major interface fuckups with QT4 and Sherlock...

- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)

Meaningless

[Th3 D0t]

PowerPC Linux Beats Apple To Full G4 SMP Support

See, Apple probably does these little thing called testing and bug-fixing before the release.
---

Nice kit, shame about the cost.

[WhyteRabbyt]

Here in the UK, a dual-500Mhz G4 costs around 2400 pounds of our dodgy UK money. In comparison to a dual-Intel system (say dual 800 PIII's, around 1400-1600 UKP max??). Meanwhile, I cant just pull the motherboard out of my blue'n'white G3 and replace it with a dual G4-capable one. The best I can do is a single-G4 daughterboard, and compromised performance on that because of the older motherboard.

Its one hell of a price premium on a shiny box and a fancy front end, especially if you wind up not actually using OSX anyways. Plus peripherals cost more, high-end consumer graphics boards for the Mac are impossible to find, and less likely to be supported. So even although I think they're dead pretty, and high on Cool Points, I'll pass.

Next revision of my system is an Abit VP6 (when it comes out) and twin Celeron II's running as fast as I can get them to go. I'll save about 2 grand.

Pax,

White Rabbit +++ Divide by Cucumber Error ++