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Mandrake 9.0 for AMD 64-bit Technology
Wister285 writes "Mandrake Linux has released a version of their operating system that is compatible with AMD's 64-bit x86 architecture. This version is based upon Mandrake 9.0. In addition to this, Mandrake announced Corporate Server 2.1 for AMD64 to be released in April 2003 and MandrakeClustering for Opteron in June 2003. Although they say that you can download the operating system now, I cannot find any FTP servers. The press release is located on Mandrake's website."
With so much and so many on board with the x86-64 platform, it's fascinating that the industry leader [Intel] has all but written it all of as so much hype. Intel's line has never been that the Itanium is in the same league, which they consider to be nothing more than an extension of the 32 bit market. Intel's position on that is clear. Faster P4/Xeon, more cache, that's all anyone needs. (please resist the urge to throw in the old 640k quote) Itaniums are for bigger servers.
The irony is that IBM once, rather cavalierly, dismissed the PC, they learned the hard way, Intel seems bent on making a similar choice.
Do you need a 64 bit AMD? Well, hell yes, if your budget can afford it. Even /. drools a trough over the latest hi-tech toys and you know once the 64 bit systems hit shelves in the <$2000 range the floodgates will be open. Intel's best bet was/(may still be) Yamhill, but their pride would take a bruising following their little brother.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Microsoft announces development of AMD's x86-64 Hammer solutions. Mainstream Linux distro's follow suit. Software companies are looking at Microsoft and saying, "We're going to follow Microsoft, they have the money."
PowerPC
Which explains perfectly why Linux runs on the following architectures yet Windows does not, and I can say with a large degree of certainty, never will:
Alpha
ARM
IA64
M68K
MIPS
MIPS-64
PA-RISC
IBM S/390
SH (a.k.a Hitachi H8)
SPARC
SPARC64
"Gold still represents the ultimate form of payment in the world." - Alan Greenspan, 1999
But Windows is a desktop OS, so there's no real reason to port it to any of those platforms. It surely could be done, but why?
Do I want the 6 foot high HP 3000 in the server room sitting on my desk? Nah, let it sit back there running MPE, or HP-UX.
Windows CE runs on some of those architectures as well.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
The OS is ready for download? What good does that do anyone when we won't see the processor until at least SEPTEMBER?!
Ahem. Of the 12 CPU architectures you listed, the NT OS (3.51 and 4.0) has already been ported, boxed, shrinkwrapped and shipped to three of them (Alpha, MIPS and PowerPC), and if you think MS isn't going to ever ship an IA64 version of windows at some point, I have some prime real estate that I'd like to sell to you.
Granted that the MIPS and PPC versions of NT were effectively footnotes, but there they were.
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
opteron == April
AMD64 == June
The whole idea behind x86-64 is that it is compatible with the x86 instruction set -- 32-bit processors. I'll assume they just mean that it was compiled/coded specifically FOR a 64-bit platform, since that would be the LOGICAL conclusion. (Since this is /. though, I figured I'd post this anyway.)
[insert witty comment here]