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Mandrake To Support AMD's Hammer
ruiner writes "Mandrake has announced their intention to support AMD's Hammer with a 64 bit version optimized for the new CPU. Redhat is also rumored to be following Suse's lead. 'This new generation of AMD Athlon and AMD Opteron processors is extremely exciting. A version of Mandrake Linux dedicated to these powerful 64-bit processors can certainly accelerate MandrakeSoft's growing adoption in the Linux corporate market' said Jacques Le Marois, CEO of MandrakeSoft."
from the hammer-time-joke-goes-here dept.
Followed by a press release from AMD and mandrake saying "can't touch this!"
Right, this is definitely offtopic, but why is MandrakeForum *never* the first to reveal this kind of thing? I switched to Debian for different reasons, but it has always amazed me that the community site for Mdk users is seemingly the last to have this information.
Given that Mdk is an avowedly newbie-oriented distro, one would think that the company would have a clear interest in getting this out to its 'channels', to the party faithful, *first*.
========================================
Death will come, and will have your eyes
-- Pavese
I'm not knocking Hammer, but why does everyone act like the Itanium and Hammer versions of Linux are the first 64 bit versions? I was running 64 bit Linux several years ago on my Multia!
Once you have GCC that will compile for the target arch, and you have the needed changes to Linux to support that arch, why is it more than bunch of builds to get a 64 bit version? Many (perhaps even most) apps are now 64 bit clean (unlike certain other criminal OS's).
Why does everyone ignore the MIPS and Alpha versions?
(and OT: When will a MIPS version of Linux with full support for the extra hardware in an Indy come out?)
www.eFax.com are spammers
For those who don't know, because its very unclear from the article, Suse was the first (or at least before Mandrake) linux distro to announce Hammer support.
Check it out here
-Spyky
Why do they allways use the word "exciting". Do they copy and paste from each other?
When his defense asked, "Which computer has Jon Johansen trespassed upon?" the answer was: "His own."
Why does Mandrkae have to crow about something that is actually being developed by Linus, Ingo and others?
I'm absolutely sure that Debian will also support AMD's Sledgehammer and so will Slackware and Redhat and SuSE.
What also bugs me is the security advisories from all these companies....it sounds like they are doing the work (for example in the case of Apache's fix, it came from Apache and all the distro's just need to have one consolidated announcement saying LINUX rather than Mandrake/SuSE/etc)
FreeBSD already announced report for x86-64 architecture a long time ago.
To provide customers with a powerful, scalable 64-bit Linux distribution with native 32-bit compatibility-
Atadena, Paris - June 27, 2002, MandrakeSoft today announced they are cooperating with AMD to port Mandrake Linux to the forthcoming eighth-generation AMD AthlonTM and AMD OpteronTM processor-based platforms.
Delivering on its commitment to innovative development in the Linux arena, the MandrakeSoft research and development team has begun work on adapting the Mandrake Linux operating system to run optimally on the upcoming AMD processors.
AMD is collaborating with MandrakeSoft to ensure rapid porting and commercial availability of Mandrake Linux for 64-bit AMD Athlon and AMD Opteron processors. AMD Athlon and AMD Opteron processors, based on x86-64 technology, have been designed to support large, intensive workloads providing high-performance solutions for desktops, workstations and servers. The new processors can benefit customers by providing 64-bit application support, while also offering optimized, native support for 32-bit Linux applications to provide a smooth transition from a 32-bit to a 64-bit environment.
"This new generation of AMD Athlon and AMD Opteron processors is extremely exciting. A version of Mandrake Linux dedicated to these powerful 64-bit processors can certainly accelerate MandrakeSoft's growing adoption in the Linux corporate market" said Jacques Le Marois, CEO of MandrakeSoft.
"The 64-bit version of Mandrake Linux optimized for the upcoming eighth-generation AMD Athlon and AMD Opteron processors can provide enterprise customers with a powerful, reliable and easy to install and use Linux distribution", said Robert Stead, Director of European Marketing, AMD.
Mandrake Linux 9.x for the upcoming 64-bit AMD Athlon and AMD Opteron processors is expected to be commercially available by the beginning of 2003.
About Mandrake Linux
Mandrake Linux is a powerful operating system that is available for the Intel Pentium®, AMD Athlon®, and PowerPC® processors. Mandrake Linux includes many graphical administration assistants & wizards that make it intuitive and fun to use while providing all the power and robustness of other Linux systems. Hundreds of included applications make it an ideal solution for both enterprises and individual users. Mandrake Linux is seen as the most feature-rich, multi-purpose Linux operating system ever made available.
About MandrakeSoft
MandrakeSoft provides a trusted interface between users of information technology and open source developers. The company offers its enterprise, government and educational customers a set of GNU Linux and Open-Source software and related services, and user-friendly and highly competitive information technologies. In addition, MandrakeSoft offers technologists committed to open software and courseware a trusted channel to offer their services.
The company has technologists in over 20 countries, and is traded on Paris Euronext Marche Libre (Euroclear code: 4477.PA; Reuters code: MAKE.PA) and the US OTC market (stock symbol MDKFF). "Born on the Internet'' in late 1998, MandrakeSoft has established headquarters in the U.S.A., Montreal, England and France. Please visit the Web site, http://www.mandrakesoft.com for more information.
About the AMD OpteronTM Processor
The AMD Opteron processor is based on AMD's eighth-generation processor core which is planned to mark the introduction of the industry's first x86-64 technology. This technology is planned to preserve companies' investments in 32-bit applications while allowing a seamless transition to 64-bit computing as those companies require.
The AMD Opteron processor is designed to deliver high-performance server and workstation solutions for today's most demanding enterprise applications. The processor is designed to be scalable, reliable and compatible, which can result in lower total cost of ownership. Key AMD Opteron processor innovations include an integrated memory controller, which reduces memory bottlenecks, and HyperTransport(TM) technology, which increases overall performance by removing or reducing I/O bottlenecks, increasing bandwidth and reducing latency.
About AMD
AMD is a global supplier of integrated circuits for the personal and networked computer and communications markets with manufacturing facilities in the United States, Europe, Japan, and Asia. AMD, a Fortune 500 and Standard & Poor's 500 company, produces microprocessors, Flash memory devices, and support circuitry for communications and networking applications. Founded in 1969 and based in Sunnyvale, California, AMD had revenues of $3.9 billion in 2001. (NYSE: AMD - News).
NOTE: Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. AMD, the AMD Arrow logo, AMD Athlon, AMD Opteron, and combinations thereof, and AMD-8151 are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. HyperTransport is a trademark of the HyperTransport Technology Consortium. Mandrake and Mandrake Linux are trademarks of MandrakeSoft. All other trademarks and copyrights are owned by their respective companies.
Mandrake needs to make the 64-bit version a more server-friendly design....and make it less desktop-ish....for now.... I mean, Mandrake's great in that I can get any member of my family to install linux or config their system or whatever with it, but it needs to "cut the fat" that comes with it being an all-inclusive desktop OS.....of course that's just my opinion...I could be wrong...
I've heard lots of bad stuff about the x86 architecture...
hacks upon hacks...
That's overstating things. Go to Intel's site and dowload the PDF file describing the Pentium II instruction set. It's absolutely huge. There are hundreds and hundreds of instructions, and the funny thing is that only minority--maybe 30%--really matter. The rest of them are things like MMX, old instructions that are no longer relevant, and lots of peculiar special purpose instructions that are rarely used. And this is only the Pentium II, so it doesn't include all of the SIMD instructions added with the P3.
So most of the cruft comes from old stuff that was relevant at one time, and now there's no way to get rid of it. It isn't because of hacks, per se.
If people wanted a clean architecture, they would have bought Alpha's. The thing is, the vast majority don't give a rats ass about computer architectures. They only want to know one thing:
Does it run my application?
x86-64 does, without re-compiling. People can move at their own pace, when they want to move. IA-64 is making the mistake of Alpha. Few apps, high price, force people to change to get on board.
What's my Karma Mr. Burns? "Excellent"
Furthermore, the G4 is not really a 64 bit processor. The biggest difference between 32 bit and true 64 bit processors is that 64 bit processors use 64 bit pointers.
Apple puts out some nice hardware and software, but they are rarely the first with anything and they don't really do much research anymore either.
Talk about how people say MIPS and Alpha is dead (just a little trolling) - who honestly uses or knows of someone using a 386 anymore.
Why don't all distro companiesstart atleast compiling for 486 and also have at the least a distro that is compiled entirely for, say 586 (like Mandrake).
I don't understand why companies like RedHat (who make a great solid modern distro) don't make available for the more modern processors a distro optimized for it.
Why sacrafice new technology (speed) for the old and thus making the new run at the speeds of the old?
Also, FYI.. Athlon MP processors were used to make Episode II... not too shabby, for a 32-bit processor.
a tion/ 0,,30_118_756_759^566~31514,00.html
AMD Technology Used for Production in Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones
SUNNYVALE, Calif., Jun 27, 2002 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- AMD (AMD) today announced its collaboration with JAK Films and Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), a division of Lucas Digital Ltd. LLC, in the production of "Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones".
JAK Films used AMD Athlon(TM) MP processor-based workstations in its labs to advance the art of cinema storyboarding through digital pre-visualization. ILM used a high-performance cluster of AMD Athlon MP processor-based servers designed and manufactured by RackSaver.
"Our goal was to paint an accurate picture of what `Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones' would look like long before filming was even started," said Dan Gregoire, director of the pre-visualization lab, JAK Films. "Our AMD Athlon MP processor-based systems are ideal for running the powerful software we rely upon."
"Given the challenge of producing top quality visual imagery in a compressed time frame, we really appreciate the performance boost we got with our AMD Athlon MP processor-based systems," said Michael Kiernan, Manager of Systems R&D at ILM.
"We at RackSaver, with our expertise in design and manufacturing of high-density, high-performance computing clusters, are excited to have met the critical computing demands required in the production of `Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones,'" said David Driggers, CEO RackSaver.
"George Lucas is admired for the many technical advances he has contributed to the film industry. The innovative AMD technology used by ILM and JAK Films is no exception, " said Ed Ellett, vice-president of product marketing for AMD's Computation Products Group. "JAK Films pre-visualized literally every scene in `Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones,' which helped Lucas translate his vision to the big screen with exceptional accuracy. ILM is widely recognized in the film industry as a standard-bearer in visual effects and digital animation."
Customers using systems based on powerful AMD Athlon MP processors can experience tremendous productivity, and fast turnaround time on a variety of graphically intensive tasks ranging from creating complex special effects sequences to manipulating video, audio content and high resolution still images.
Note: For additional information about AMD's involvement in the production of "Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones" please visit: http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInform
I don't read or respond to AC posts
>Hell, as far as I understand it, Only IBM latest PowerPC processor outperforms the fastest Pentium 4's and Athlon processors.
that would be IBM's POWER4. PowerPC chips only went into very low ned RS/6000's (and i dont think its even used in the RS/6k line anymore) and into mac's (before they went G*).
Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
Intel's Itanium is different than AMD's 64 bit processor. It is a completely new RISC architecture and Intel and HP developed together. It does not build upon the x86 "hacks". Compatibility with existing x86 code is achieved with an on-chip x86 emulation unit.
"The defense of freedom requires the advance of freedom" - George W Bush
Uhm, the Alpha CPU still outperforms a lot of CPUs today. I don't know about the latest chips from Intel and AMD compared with the Alpha, but about a year ago there was a comparison between 64-bit chips and a few 32-bit chips, the Alpha won by a huge margin.
:).
MIPS is still being used by SGI, and you can not tell me SGI is dead. They provide a big chunk of the workstations and renderfarms used to render special effects in movies (yes yes, I know, Linux is taking over in many place
If I'm not mistaken, Samsung still produces the Alpha chips.
They're not crowing about the fact that they can compile for these systems, they're crowing about the fact that they are going to compile for these systems, and support them. Since compiling code into working binaries and supporting those binaries is what Mandrake does, I think they're justified in crowing about this. As a big AMD fan, I applaud Mandrake for this, even though I use and support Debian myself.
Slackware and Redhat and SuSE may or may not support this platform directly, I don't know. It's certainly not guaranteed. There are plenty of platforms they don't support, even though they could. It's probably going to depend on whether they think they can make enough money off of it.
And yes, Debian will almost certainly support the Hammer as soon as we get our hands on some. But then we're insane, and support everything we can. Who else still supports m68k and ARM? Who else is _adding_ support for HPPA and Super8? We do it because it's fun, not because we're trying to make money.
(As for the thing about security advisories, that's a bit off-topic, but I will say that Debian's security list is intended for Debian's users, so that they know when officially supported packages are available, and it's not our fault that bugtraq decided to subscribe to our list. Complain to bugtraq if it bothers you that much.)
>'A version of Mandrake Linux dedicated to these powerful
>64-bit processors can certainly accelerate MandrakeSoft's
>growing adoption in the Linux corporate market' said
>Jacques Le Marois, CEO of MandrakeSoft.
*swat* Bad CEO! Bad, bad! AMD is not doing very well in the corporate market. PHBs just don't like it. Sure, the grunts that take care of the machines like it, but they (we) just don't have the pull when it comes to writing a check. Imagine this conversation:
Me:"Hey boss, if we went with Corp_PC-A instead of Corp_PC-B, we would save about $200 per computer!"
Boss:"Really? What's the difference between the two?"
Me:"Corp_PC-B uses an AMD processor instead of an Intel."
Boss:"Whoa, now. The processor is pretty important, right? I don't think that we want to skimp there. We better 'go long' on the processor and trim the fat on memory and disk space. Oh, and stick a Trident video card in there for good measure! Silly hacker, what do you know about corporate responsibility. Go fix me turkey pot pie!"
OK, a little creative leeway. The point is that Intel has the aura of a rock-solid performer, while AMD has a hacker/gamer hippie case-modder feel.
Besides, AMD lost it's underdog luster to me when they struck a deal with Microsoft to testify on their behalf for an endorsement.
Matthew
In or near St. Louis? Hire me
/. finds me to be 20% Troll, 80% Funny
This, and some other advantages of compiling from source, make this distro much faster than any other I've tried.
The install process is definitely not for the inexperienced, so your point about precompiled distros still applies, but once it is installed, it is very easy to administrate, and one of the first to get new security packages (I woke up after OpenSSH 3.4 was released and typed 'emerge rsync openssh' and it was installed).
Sorry to come across as yet another offtopic smug evangelising gentoo user... I guess I am :P</rant>
Free Java games for your phone: Tontie, Sokoban
You're right about SGI not using Sparc or PowerPC processors but SGI is attempting to depreciate the MIPS. The latest Origins can have either MIPS or Itanium modules in them, and the Itanium configuration is described by them as the "high performance" option while MIPS is for "legacy configurations".
How many users there are business/IT managers?
Get your Unix fortune now!
(I'm joking of course. I'm pretty sure it's "Mean Time To Recovery" or "Mean Time To Repair", from other Google results.)
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
Yeah, I was just thinking that as I read this article. I thought, "Debian supports every practical platform and then some... whats the big news about some other Linux distro supporting a non x86 platform?"
For those that want to experiment with a auto-hardware detecting graphical user-friendly installer for Debian should try the new (this is a beta release!!! be careful) Progeny Graphical Installer ISO images. This installer is based on the now defunct Progeny Linux installer. Good Linux software doesn't drop dead, but instead gets reincarnated.
Remember, Debian is not commercial and is purely community based. Helping beta test this new installer on all sorts of various systems will help.
You should reread the post that you just called ignorant. He mentions that Mandrake comes compiled for the Pentium and wonders why everybody doesn't do the same thing.
That which does not kill me only makes me whinier
I'll be surprised if the Intel Itanium or even the AMD Hammer chips will compare favorably to comparable Alphas on floating point performance, which is very important in many high end applications.
At the moment, only the new 1.0GHz Alpha EV68 chips are faster then the current P4 processors, and the Itanium and Athlon are right up there as well. The rather substatial lead in FP performance that the Alpha used to have has virtually disapeared these days when compared to x86 chips. The very fastest EV67 chips are slower then the fastest x86 chips (note: I'm using Spec CFP2000 for comparison here, if you know of any FP benchmarks that run on both platforms I'd like to hear about them).
As for the future, Alpha's time on this planet is very limited. EV7 is still supposed to come out, and I've heard from reliable sources that it should post some very impressive scores for floating point due to it's HUGE memory bandwidth. However Intel's Itanium 2 is also supposed to post some rather impressive scores (they're talking about 1300-1350 in Spec CFP2000, which would put it ahead of the current champion Power4 processors from IBM). AMD's Hammer won't be any slouch either, as it's on-chip memory controller should boost it's score quite nicely.
Like it or not, Alpha is dead. It's been sold many times and basically salavaged for scrap (Intel now owns most of the old Alpha technology). You're mentioning Titanic is actually quite approriate, because that was the last gasp for Alpha. If you look at new movie production, they're moving to x86, just like all the rest of the world. MIPS might have a future in the embedded space, where it's currently second to ARM. Alpha technology might have a bit of a future in Intel's IA-64 (though I'm skeptical as to how well they'll be able to integrate the pure-RISC Alpha technology into the VLIW IA-64 technology), but as a product on it's own, stick a fork in it.
There is a common misunderstanding here about PowerPC chips. For a technical paper from the IBM Watson facility on the Power4 architecture, read here.
This research paper clearly indicates that the Power4 processor utilizes the 64-bit extensions of outlined by the original PowerPC consortium. It also indicates that The Power4 refers more to the architecture of processor interconnects than the processor itself. Since the days of IBM writing OS/2, they have always rightly believed multiprocessing and multithreading provides the best performance.
IBM did the vast majority of the work on the PowerPC processor, and owns the name to it. The reason Motorola processors are now called G* is because they do not own the rights to the title. The G3 was to be the PowerPC 670 proccessor as I recall. In all honesty, I amazed that people here think the G3 is not a PowerPC processor. How ludicrous is that? It was a pain apple's ass to get people to dump the 68k series in 1993, could you imagine what would have happened if a whole new archicture was used only five years later with the first G3? Apple would be out of business.
I only wish I had the links on current benchmarks to refute the lunacy that the antiquated DEC Alpha is still the fastest processor but oh well.
I don't read or respond to AC posts
Mandrake isn't just for newbies. There have been lots of polls before and the majority of apache sites are running the Advanced Extranet Server tuned version from Mandrake. Actually I think it's either the second or third most popular server distro. Mandrakeforum has talked about this alot and other sites/polls have confirmed it.
Mandrake has alot going for it actually. Decent security out of the box, the advanced apache server, good samba, etc. etc. plus it runs on damn near anything.
And a 10 cpu cluster is called...
*drumroll*
A decathlon! Thank you, I'll be here all week. Remember to tip you waitstaff.
Please replace Mandrake with OpenBSD in your post. Thank you.
http://saveie6.com/
All -- that LEAP-CF post is mine. That is not a "rumor" but just my "recommendation" to RedHat. Nothing more.
-- Bryan "TheBS" Smith
Independent Author, Consultant and Trainer
MTRR == Memory Type Range Register
/proc/mtrr.
Used to set different policy (uncacheable, write-back, write-combing) to address ranges. Eg, for address ranges that correspond to PCI addresses (ie memory mapped IO addresses), by setting these ranges to write-combining the CPU will try to gather writes up into big writes to make most efficient use of IO bus bandwidth. (ie get higher MB/s out of your AGP or PCI - important for graphics).
see linux/Documentation/mtrr.txt and
I use Friend/Foe + mod-point modifiers as a karma/reputation system.
AMD Hammer/Opteron is completely IA32 (ie normal 32bit x86) compatible - all IA32 OSes boot on it, it has a standard IA32 BIOS, applications will run fine on it. If you run a x86-64 OS, then you will be able to run both 32bit and 64bit x86-64 software (side by side).
/guess/)
/emulated/ in silicon and hence slow
c le.pl?sid=02/06/26/0116225
Ie x86-64 is:
- IA32 (8086 mode et al too - i
- standard IA32 BIOS
- additional x86-64 mode
Apparently 32-bit Linux and Windows booted almost first time on early silicon, and they've had absolutely no 32bit compatibility problems - it all works. then it took just a week for AMD to get linux to boot into x86-64 mode (iirc from the talk linked below).
IA64 / Itanium on the other hand is a completely new architecture:
- completely different instruction set
- completely different ABI
- new weird "look it does everything" BIOS (EFI)
- IA32 is
There's a good talk by an AMD engineer on the AMD Hammer arch. given at the recent kernel summit at:
http://ksmp3rep.sf.net/KSMP3s/amd64.mp3
found amongst other kernel summit talks at:
http://linuxkernel.foundries.sourceforge.net/arti
I use Friend/Foe + mod-point modifiers as a karma/reputation system.
Itanium is /not/ RISC. Go read up on VLIW (Very Long Instruction Word), which is what Itanium is. (as is the Transmeta Crusoe silicon).
I use Friend/Foe + mod-point modifiers as a karma/reputation system.
good news:
Hammer in 64bit mode:
- double the number of registers.
- linux ABI will use the SSE registers for fp (apart from double double), AMD are strongly encouraging people not to use x87 for FP in 64bit mode.
I use Friend/Foe + mod-point modifiers as a karma/reputation system.
http://saveie6.com/
At the moment, only the new 1.0GHz Alpha EV68 chips are faster then the current P4 processors, and the Itanium and Athlon are right up there as well. The rather substatial lead in FP performance that the Alpha used to have has virtually disapeared these days when compared to x86 chips. The very fastest EV67 chips are slower then the fastest x86 chips (note: I'm using Spec CFP2000 for comparison here, if you know of any FP benchmarks that run on both platforms I'd like to hear about them).
.18um process. Alpha still gives more performance with fewer engineering resources than any other chip, and EV7 will only widen the gap.
As for the future, Alpha's time on this planet is very limited. EV7 is still supposed to come out, and I've heard from reliable sources that it should post some very impressive scores for floating point due to it's HUGE memory bandwidth. However Intel's Itanium 2 is also supposed to post some rather impressive scores (they're talking about 1300-1350 in Spec CFP2000, which would put it ahead of the current champion Power4 processors from IBM). AMD's Hammer won't be any slouch either, as it's on-chip memory controller should boost it's score quite nicely.
This is a good summary, except that ignorant slashdotters reading this might not realize how far ahead P4, Alpha, Power4 and Athlon are in front of all other CPU architectures (i.e. PA-RISC, US III, Itanium1, MIPS, and most especially G4*) in single-CPU SPEC performance. Just to be clear: Alpha's performance is still at or near the top.
* no, there's no official G4 SPEC entry (because Apple is too chicken), but c't benchmarked it and boy does it suck. SPECint performance on par with a 933 MHz PIII, and SPECfp on par with a 500 MHz one.
Second, you probably haven't seen the leaked slide of SPEC scores for the 1250 MHz EV68 (they should be official at spec.org real soon now), which put it almost precisely equal to 1.3 GHz Power4 SPEC scores, despite not having the dubious advantage of 128MB L2 cache (under normal operation the Power4 cache is shared amongst 4 or 8 cores, but for SPEC one core gets it all).
Third, EV7 will have a substantial lead in SPECfp upon release (and might briefly take SPECint as well), although there's no doubt that Power4 and P4 will continue to improve, and Itanium2 on SPECfp and Hammer on SPECint will also be contenders.
But the most shocking part of all this is that, unlike Athlon/Hammer, P4, Itanium and Power4, Alpha is achieving all this performance on someone else's standard fab process (rather than tweaking the process to fit the chip design, which is a huge huge help; compare performance of those architectures where the designer owns the fab--P4, Athlon, Power4, Itanium--to those where it doesn't--PA, MIPS, SPARC). And, unlike current Athlons, Hammer, P4s since January, and Power4, it's an old
Like it or not, Alpha is dead. It's been sold many times and basically salavaged for scrap (Intel now owns most of the old Alpha technology). You're mentioning Titanic is actually quite approriate, because that was the last gasp for Alpha. If you look at new movie production, they're moving to x86, just like all the rest of the world. MIPS might have a future in the embedded space, where it's currently second to ARM. Alpha technology might have a bit of a future in Intel's IA-64 (though I'm skeptical as to how well they'll be able to integrate the pure-RISC Alpha technology into the VLIW IA-64 technology), but as a product on it's own, stick a fork in it.
Again, you're correct. But the death of Alpha is entirely to do with marketing and zero to do with performance. Before Power4, Alpha was the clear single-CPU performance leader in the 64-bit market, and if the Alpha team had gotten more resources and support from Compaq, Alpha's performance lead would still be huge.
That said, all of this seems slightly academic considering that for the past year and the forseeable future, the SPECint leader has been and will be a commodity x86 chip costing ~$600 (against 64-bit competition costing 100x that per CPU). The P4 seems to have taken on the Alpha mantle: world-beating SPEC performance with a high-clocked small-die chip utilizing innovative microarchitectural features and excellent circuit-level design. That it has done so despite being hobbled with the x86 ISA is even more impressive.
Really? OpenBSD ships with Apache Advanced Extranet Server with Thawte enhancements just like Mandrake? Wow I learn something new every day.
I would happily downgrade to my old p166 for broadband in an instant. If you pirate oops I mean sure mp3's all day long then the connection is the most important bottleneck in regards to performance. Infact many new portable discplayers like the sony I am using now easily has enough cpu power to decode mp3's. Hell, even a 486 could has enough power to do it. However your 200mhz system is useless for video games and quite painfull under linux when you actually need to compile anything. I remember waiting for 45 minutes to compile one of the 2.2 kernels. My current system ( pIII700) can compile the bigger 2.4 kernels in around 20-25 minutes and I played with an athlonXP1800 which could do it in around 5 minutes. My guess is your system would take at least an hour if not more to compile just the more recent 2.4 linux kernels. Unless your happy playind doom1 and doom2 and quake my guess is that your system is quite useless for anything modern besides playing cards. Go to asus's website and find a local reseller for a cheap AMD duron motherboard or an intel celeron motherboard if you are worried your powersupply could cause problems. You can get a great cpu/mobo combo for like $160. Add another $125 for 256 megs of DDram. Then buy a pny el-cheapo geforce3mx for like $70. Whats great about the newer motherboards is that they will fit in your case. So for $350 you could have a brand new computer that will play quakeIII, run kde and gnome fine in Linux and you will still have money left over for broadband. I never buy new computers anymore. I just build them.
I am in an interesting diloma myself. I want to try gentoo Linux which compiles all your apps automatically when you have a dependency problem. This would be a big royal pain in the ass with my old pIII700 when I have gigs and gigs of apps installed. So I am looking for an athlonMP2000 dual cpu system which would make me cream in my pants. The problem? Money. How often would I do a gentoo style "emerge world"? About maybe once a month. But I need to buy a new car and money problems are hurting me. So thinking wisely I will only upgrade modestly and just do an "emerge world" at night. So I know exactly how you feel. Life sucks but we have to make smart choices and use what we have.
http://saveie6.com/
With AMD's announcement that they will be supporting the DRM push by building in DRM features into CPUs / motherboards, I wonder how long can the Linux community tolerate (and contribute to) their AMD Hammer architecture.l > & gt;
Surely these hardware embedded cyber-cops will require closed-source, patented drivers and will dissolve the usefullness of the GPL and Linux.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/54/25905.htm
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/25891.html
Isn't it time to do something about this now?
Do we really trust AMD to do the right thing, or will they take advantage of Open Source developers right until the last nail is hammered into our coffin and then run all the way to the bank?
HINT: AMD is an American for-profit corporation.