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NetBSD Now Supports Dual Power PC Processors
djcdplaya writes: "DaemonNews is reporting that the good guys over at NetBSD have gotten dual PowerPC processors working on dual-G4 Apples. The NetBSD mailing can be found here."
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I see like 12 or so totally offtopic comments saying BSD is dead. Here is what I have to say about it.
:)
In the last month, as a hobbyist i've set up 3 BSD systems.
I like BSD, the install isn't bloated, the system boots up REALLY fast, and it really is a better place to start than Linux if you want to learn UNIX standards.
This message is coming to you through a transparent squid proxy
Now for some on topic stuff.
SMP on PPC? Cool beans!
--toq
30 FPS your eye can detect? Strange that a "Flicker Free" monitor is rated at 72 hz. If your eye can only see 30 fps, I'd expect that 30hz would be the line for a flicker free monitor.
Pardon my skeptism, but I think that as of right now a port of NetBSD in a dual ppc system is unnecessary.
Why would anyone in their right mind want a dual ppc NetBSD system when Apple already markets/supports and extends the leading OS for the platform: OSX?
Interesting that you didn't provide any benchmarks.
The "video editing" benchmark compares very different products on the two platforms-- one not supported at all by the maker, one highly optimized.
And SPEC is a set of benchmarks, you chose the one where the PowerPC looks worst... ignorign the fact that when it comes to FP operations, or the instruction mix of a modern app, the results would be much different.
The Photoshop comparisons are not unreasonable.
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
I don't quite see why this was modded as a troll. This AC has brought up a good point: Apple's marketting arm has been blabbing about increased performance with Motorola's G4s, when the truth is, the CPU doesn't shine in real-world applications, using compilers that are available on the market, and programs that *real* people use. Sure you don't need 2Ghz to browse pr0n, but still, if the company's claiming to be better, the least it could do is back it's claims with some hard facts.
I love Apple's UNIX push with MacOS X, but sometimes the truth hurts... x86s are simply cheaper and faster (Note: I didn't say "Better"; You make your own conclusions).
> As for the 497 day rollover, a Linux box with a
> 1.5 year uptime? Don't make me laugh. If the
> last paragraph implies that Solaris should be
> represented more, then you have a point.
I don't have any experience with Solaris, but when I hear about Linux kernels being called rock solid (at least the 2.2 series or even older) I do not see a reason why Linux could not be on this list as well. At least a bit more often than IRIX, just because of how popular Linux is compared to IRIX. Am I wrong? I thought Windows was the only major OS that is guaranteed to crash after a specific (short) uptime.
You don't kow much about human vision, do you?
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
you need twice the clock rate [much like with sound bandwidth].
If you can sample pictures at 30hz then you need 60hz of bandwidth [e.g. 60fps] to prevent frequency aliasing. Much like how you can't hear >22khz but you need to sample at atleast 44khz to get the nice 20khz of bandwidth.
Tux-ho!
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
When you get up to 1.5 years, it's not really the OS that will crash. Has your microwave ever crashed? But I bet it has flashed 12:00 sometime in the past 1.5 years.
No matter how good a server farm is, something will happen. Power failure. Fire. Mice chewing wires. A hard drive failure. When somebody guarntees 99.99% uptime, they mean that. They don't mean 100% because shit happens in the real world.
on my old 8500/120 (single CPU) last week. Exposing the boot loader was tricky, but after that it went ok. An "huzzah" seems in order for this news.
Yes, but this could happen to BSD as well. Or is the little BSD daemon the reason for this "shit happening in the real world"? :)
Get a life again.
I honestly can't believe you wrote all that shit that I don't care about.
Well as a linux fan I have to disagree.
I use OpenBSD for my firewall and I'm quite satisfied. Big telco company in Czech Republic uses FreeBSD for their mail and secondary servers and so on. *BSD is fine and (look for changelogs) not dying.
Cuba++ let's make ++ better
> By considering that only about 6% of the sites > are running BSDs, there SHOULD be a reason for > Linux not being in the top 50, only BSD Yes, it's in the FAQ. Looks like nobody can PROVE that there is no single Linux system that ran long enough to appear in this list since the uptime counter resets before.
It should have looked like this, of course:
> By considering that only about 6% of the sites
> are running BSDs, there SHOULD be a reason for
> Linux not being in the top 50, only BSD
Yes, it's in the FAQ. Looks like nobody can PROVE that there is no single Linux system that ran long enough to appear in this list since the uptime counter resets before.
I thought the point of this was so that the NetBSD portion of OS X's Darwin would finally be capable of utilizing dual CPUs. Am I missing something?
If previously NetBSD in OS X, et al was only cinlge CPU aware then OS X Server has been sub-optimal from it's inception as a server and now should see very nice performance improvements to such things as the TCP/IP stack and many other networking technologies.
I'm definitely curious to see what impact this will have for OS X Server. I assume that it was Apple's engineers that privided the 'last mile' details to get this working... nicde work people.
Maybe we'll be seeing TiVos with Dual G4 PPCs running NetBSD in the future or something too..
BTW, does anyone know if PPC Linux distros are MP aware?
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
Hell, I was karma capped for a while, I can live with the negative mods...
Take it tux
This is a joke, I've set up both Linux and FreeBSD, Linux has more apps, FreeBSD is cleaner. I've used Solaris, SCO, Tru64, AIX, HPUX, SunOS, even DG/UX on a Motorla 88K. Pick whatever works best for you and be happy with it.
[editor's note: in the following text, former FreeBSD developer Mike Smith gives his reasons for abandoning FreeBSD]
When I stood for election to the FreeBSD core team nearly two years ago, many of you will recall that it was after a long series of debates during which I maintained that too much organisation, too many rules and too much formality would be a bad thing for the project.
Today, as I read the latest discussions on the future of the FreeBSD project, I see the same problem; a few new faces and many of the old going over the same tired arguments and suggesting variations on the same worthless schemes. Frankly I'm sick of it.
FreeBSD used to be fun. It used to be about doing things the right way. It used to be something that you could sink your teeth into when the mundane chores of programming for a living got you down. It was something cool and exciting; a way to spend your spare time on an endeavour you loved that was at the same time wholesome and worthwhile.
It's not anymore. It's about bylaws and committees and reports and milestones, telling others what to do and doing what you're told. It's about who can rant the longest or shout the loudest or mislead the most people into a bloc in order to legitimise doing what they think is best. Individuals notwithstanding, the project as a whole has lost track of where it's going, and has instead become obsessed with process and mechanics.
So I'm leaving core. I don't want to feel like I should be "doing something" about a project that has lost interest in having something done for it. I don't have the energy to fight what has clearly become a losing battle; I have a life to live and a job to keep, and I won't achieve any of the goals I personally consider worthwhile if I remain obligated to care for the project.
Discussion
I'm sure that I've offended some people already; I'm sure that by the time I'm done here, I'll have offended more. If you feel a need to play to the crowd in your replies rather than make a sincere effort to address the problems I'm discussing here, please do us the courtesy of playing your politics openly.
From a technical perspective, the project faces a set of challenges that significantly outstrips our ability to deliver. Some of the resources that we need to address these challenges are tied up in the fruitless metadiscussions that have raged since we made the mistake of electing officers. Others have left in disgust, or been driven out by the culture of abuse and distraction that has grown up since then. More may well remain available to recruitment, but while the project is busy infighting our chances for successful outreach are sorely diminished.
There's no simple solution to this. For the project to move forward, one or the other of the warring philosophies must win out; either the project returns to its laid-back roots and gets on with the work, or it transforms into a super-organised engineering project and executes a brilliant plan to deliver what, ultimately, we all know we want.
Whatever path is chosen, whatever balance is struck, the choosing and the striking are the important parts. The current indecision and endless conflict are incompatible with any sort of progress.
Trying to dissect the above is far beyond the scope of any parting shot, no matter how distended. All I can really ask of you all is to let go of the minutiae for a moment and take a look at the big picture. What is the ultimate goal here? How can we get there with as little overhead as possible? How would you like to be treated by your fellow travellers?
Shouts
To the Slashdot "BSD is dying" crowd - big deal. Death is part of the cycle; take a look at your soft, pallid bodies and consider that right this very moment, parts of you are dying. See? It's not so bad.
To the bulk of the FreeBSD committerbase and the developer community at large - keep your eyes on the real goals. It's when you get distracted by the politickers that they sideline you. The tireless work that you perform keeping the system clean and building is what provides the platform for the obsessives and the prima donnas to have their moments in the sun. In the end, we need you all; in order to go forwards we must first avoid going backwards.
To the paranoid conspiracy theorists - yes, I work for Apple too. No, my resignation wasn't on Steve's direct orders, or in any way related to work I'm doing, may do, may not do, or indeed what was in the tea I had at lunchtime today. It's about real problems that the project faces, real problems that the project has brought upon itself. You can't escape them by inventing excuses about outside influence, the problem stems from within.
To the politically obsessed - give it a break, if you can. No, the project isn't a lemonade stand anymore, but it's not a world-spanning corporate juggernaut either and some of the more grandiose visions going around are in need of a solid dose of reality. Keep it simple, stupid.
To the grandstanders, the prima donnas, and anyone that thinks that they can hold the project to ransom for their own agenda - give it a break, if you can. When the current core were elected, we took a conscious stand against vigorous sanctions, and some of you have exploited that. A new core is going to have to decide whether to repeat this mistake or get tough. I hope they learn from our errors.
Future
I started work on FreeBSD because it was fun. If I'm going to continue, it has to be fun again. There are things I still feel obligated to do, and with any luck I'll find the time to meet those obligations.
However I don't feel an obligation to get involved in the political mess the project is in right now. I tried, I burnt out. I don't feel that my efforts were worthwhile. So I won't be standing for election, I won't be shouting from the sidelines, and I probably won't vote in the next round of ballots.
You could say I'm packing up my toys. I'm not going home just yet, but I'm not going to play unless you can work out how to make the project somewhere fun to be again.
= Mike
--
It's a Mach microkernel with a FreeBSD kernel modified to run as a daemon. There is also a BSD-like layer (filesystem, some APIs, etc.). 70% of the userspace tools are from NetBSD, and I wouldn't doubt that they have some security code right out of OpenBSD.
Darwin is the underlying OS (sans GUI and iApps) of OS X. OS X and OS X Server are both SMP-aware/capable-Mach-mk-under-BSD based OSs (really the same OS, the server version has more chrome). NetBSD is not supplying the SMP for OS X and Darwin, it's there already. There are no major performance problems with the server portion of OS X (although there are some lingering GUI performance issues and, of course, some Mac architectural issues).