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Cheap PPC Linux Machines From IBM
ksheff writes "According to this story, IBM is planning on introducing low-end SMP servers and deskside machines based on the PPC970. The machines would be able to run Linux and AIX. A 4-way machine is expected to cost less than $3500! IBM expects a 20x increase in the number of PPC Linux servers by 2006."
That cheap beowulf boxen are better in general. And if 1 component in Beowulf fales, it's a "Plug'N'Chug" for a new box.
1 Word. Cheap.
And since it's running linux (if it was Macos, it'd be from apple), why does hardware platfor matter? I thought the Linux branches to X hardware platforms were something Linux-kiddies always yelled?
Nice. But irrevalent.
Unless I'm missing something, this could definately serve as a linux workstation. The power of the new G5 with linux, what could be better?
Now if I only had a spare $3,500 to spend on it...
In linux libertas
- Identify a product which is not being provided, but which there is a demand for.
- Sell that product to consumers at a price which is reasonable, but higher than what it costs you to produce each unit.
- Profit!
Hmm, that sounds different from normal somehow. Maybe they're on to something here.A 4-way machine is expected to cost less than $3500! IBM expects a 20x increase in the number of PPC Linux servers by 2006."
With those sorts of prices, they're going to get it, too! The cheapest Itanium 2 system money can buy (HP zx2000) costs $3500, more or less, and would run like a dog compared to e.g. a 4-way 1.6GHz PPC970 system.
Looks like Intel's competition is going to be coming more and more from IBM, not AMD...
I'd rather spend $3000 and get a dual 2Ghz PPC970 in two months rather than waiting for the IBM that probably won't even run Panther.
We just heard on Slashdot that the new 3 billion plant wasn't living up to expectations, so IBM has to capitalize on this oppurtunity.
This is also a good thing for the mac community because now the G5 will get a lot more "work" done on it, because IBM will have to compete with other 64-bit manufacturers on a broader stage than just the Mac arena.
Error 407 - No creative sig found
It'd be nice to have like a sub-$1200 chunk of hardware running on PPC970. It probably wouldn't even dent Apple's market share unless someone figures out how to run OS X on it.
Quad proc OSX in MOL on IBM? Sounds tasty to me!
I wonder if this will push Apple to stick a couple more chips in the Power Macs? Maybe IBM's plan was to put together a cheap system to get Apple to buy more chips from them.
I wonder how difficult it would be to run OS X on a machine like that described in the article.
If a dual processor G5 is $3K and a 4-way IBM PPC970 workstation is $3500, it seems like a no-brainer over which one to pick.
-Alex
They could probably be made to run OSX without too much work. There are existing non Apple PPC boards which are reputed to run OSX either stand alone or through MacOnLinx.
The problem is licensing. The EULA for OSX stipulates that OSX may only be run on Apple hardware.
Now wash your hands.
It would be interesting to see how they compare with the PowerMac. With a 4 way system that costs only $500 more then apple's two ways this could provide some good competition for in the scientific/heavy compute PPC niche. Maybe this will show the way for 4 way xservs/highend workstations from apple.
Could IBM pose a challenge to Apple in the notebook market with PPC-driven machines? Since the new PPC chip runs cooler while drawing less power, it might fit the bill. Perhaps someone more familiar with PPC architecture could discuss the technical viability of such a beast.
As for economic/consumer viability, right now nearly all the software I use is source-available (currently through Gentoo, on my Compaq Intel notebook). Nevertheless, iin the future, if I need to use pre-compiled, 3rd party software like Mathematica, IDL, etc. PPC+Linux might prove to be too small a market even with IBM's backing -- vendor "lock-out."
Unless it's prices significantly lower than Apple's offerings, I wouldn't bet on it as a workstation. MacOSX already offers a great kernel with an even better GUI, and right now I wouldn't put money on Linux against that for a work desktop.
The server market, on the other hand will definitely get a great boost. Cheap PPC970 and 64-bit = heaven for databases, web, and app servers.
The memory bus speeds seemingly leave Intel in the dust. Pair those chips with a nice SATA RAID storage solution and a really fast PCI bus and those should be some seriously fast machines. Do they have linux working on the G5 yet?
I think it's clear from this just how much IBM fears SCO!
:-P
Belief is the currency of delusion.
... Wouldn't it be valid to say that G5's
(1) Before too long *will* be less than $3500, if they aren't already
(2) Will quite soon be able to run Linux [hop over to Debian, you'll see that Debian is quite into porting their systems]
(3) If they're able to run Linux, will also be able to run AIX?
I wonder if this is what IBM is thinking as well, in general. But I'd bet that these low-end servers either will be a lot like a Mac, or else they'll actually be more expensive than a Mac before three years runs out. Mac, though they don't sell like M$, still has a ton of sales every year.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
If Intel and MS proceed to only allowing signed software this could provide a nice escape path for Linux users
Don't they know that SCO 0\/\/n0R5 both Linux and AIX?
</HUMOR>
HUMOR tags added for the humor impaired, to comply with the ADA.
The only reason we have the rights we have is that people just like us died to gain those rights. -- Cheerio Boy
OS X/Darwin is entirely optimized for ppc and is developed entirely towards that end. ppc Linux is a port from something else (albeit a good one)
NextStep was originally written for the 68k, thence ported to SPARC, x86, and PA-RISC. So PPC was the fifth architecture the basic underlying system has been ported to. So if you don't like ports, you had better throw away your Mac and switch to Windows now (oh wait sorry...the NT kernel was actually developed for the i860 first).
And remember, Linux will be a native, fully supported OS for these machines alongside AIX -- the firmware will be designed to boot Linux, and all the hardware will be fully supported.
"(Man) tries to live his own life as if he were telling a story. But you have to choose: live or tell." --Sartre
Does anybody else think that "quad PPC" sounds like some kind of super-weapon?
Just a reminder: OSX/Darwin is a port of the NeXT OS and a Mach kernel originally written for 680x0 CISC processors.
Matt Slot / Bitwise Operator / Ambrosia Software, Inc.
So either you don't own an iBook, haven't used OS X and are just lying about blue beachballs, or you do own an iBook and see the beachball so little you don't even know what it looks like.
Which is it?
It also says AIX will run on it. I wonder if IBM will concentrate more on AIX than Linux. But seeing as this is coming from IBM, who usually don't turn out flakey products, especially quad way servers, I'd say they'll do a pretty good job of making the prefered OS for this beast run pretty well.
-phish
You are on crack. There are no boards for a quad xeon on pricewatch for under $500. Try 'dual' not four. There is a big difference last time I checked. Besides 4 xeons on a shared bus run like dogs. I believe the word is contention. Especially when they are only running 533 bus speeds. You would almost have to turn off prefetching to get any scalability.
Uh, sorry to piss on your cornflakes, but Linux is already faster than OS X. Besides, I think that IBM knows a thing or two about systems optimization, I think that if they can't get performance-related PPC patches into the kernel proper, they'll just fork and release their own sets of patches. Remember, you're dealing with IBM here, and they don't fuck around when they release a system.
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses
...is that you're comparing a build-it-yourself solution to an OEM solution. The OEM solution means you don't have to spend the time and effort to build the machine, that there is a (hopefully) semi-intelligent person on the other end of an 800 number to provide support, and that if the machine goes berserk, they will be there to fix it under warranty. Two very different situations, IMO.
...for a machine that will kick the crap out of this great machine IBM will release...
Based on everything I've read thus far, it seems to me the PPC970 cheaps are substantially more efficient than their P4 counterparts at the same clock speed. Because of that, I hardly doubt a quad Xeon 2.4 system would "kick the crap out" of a quad PPC970 2.0 system. It seems you're exaggerating a bit--or perhaps you have something to backup your claim?
And when Opteron comes out...
Opteron has been out for close to 3 months now. Machines are available from several vendors. Google is your friend.
Perl - $Just @when->$you ${thought} s/yn/tax/ &couldn\'t %get $worse;
is anyone buying itanium chips? I think most of intel's fire in the server market comes from Xeon sales. The Opteron competes against the Xeon, not the itanium.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
As we all know, .... x 1
$3500! = 3500 x 3499 x 3498 x 3497
That's reeeally expensive!
What's really important is if we see IBM release a real compiler for the 970. gcc is a complete joke on PPC.
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
Bah. Ya'll ruined my joke.
i'll do you one (well, four) better... build a cluster of these ibms! i'd suggest black lab project from terrasoft (makers of yellow dog linux). if you are building a cluster, really, black lab is an awesome tool: automated node building, an automatic "life sign" monitoring system for nodes, a migration tool so that you can put shared libraries on nodes over the cluser resulting in having nodes that don't even need to have a hard drive and it's altivec optimized to take advantage of the vector processing in the g4/5.
if you ran one of these clusters, you wouldn't need hookers. the babes would comt to you.
2 1337 4 u!
IBM expects a 20x increase in the number of PPC Linux servers by 2006
So that's like how many? 20 PPC servers in 2006?
(no no, seriously I do like the idea, it's just hard to tell if $3500 is going to get me more than a similarly equiped Intel/AMD system)
Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
Someone will have to figure out how to get a Mac boot ROM onto a non-apple PPC box. This could be fairly tricky... however if you give a bunch of *nix geeks some cheep PPC 970's, someone WILL figure this out.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
First IBM doesn't bat an eyelash over SCO's threats, then SCO offers some kind of deal to Linux users so SCO won't sue them, and now IBM is steamrolling over them.
Yeah, yeah, I know, NextStep, blah blah blah... Linux WILL NEVER BE NATIVE on the ppc as long as more than 50% of its developers do its primary development on another processor. Argue with me as much as you want but I still think it's a silly idea to market a ppc server with Linux.
BTW, I take offense to the "So if you don't like ports, you had better throw away your Mac and switch to Windows now" comment. I port software betweeen Windows and Mac for a living every day, and it's a bitch. You can argue about that with me too and I promise I will not reply.
If a top tier manufacturer mentions that they are going to offer more cpus at the same price as the older systems, this should really get an IT manager excited. Up the megahertz and mention that it's a new design... and it should sell even more. Who really cares where the 4way numbers (SPECfp_rate2000,SPECint_rate2000) come in at... IT managers just need one database benchmark quoted, and they're ready to buy. IBM marketing finally woke up. Intel has been doing that for 4 years now...
ppc development was a joint effort of the AIM (Apple, IBM, Motorola) alliance.
Soong sez:Ummm....well then (from the article):Yah. RTFA.
IBM developed the chip, which means they developed a mobo along with it for testing. Apple had to make their own design, and they had to make it look good, and be quiet, home-friendly, and stylish. IBM gets to stamp out big ugly boxes, because really, unless you're talking about a secretary, no one in the office ever says "That is a nice lookin' rack!"
This leads me to believe the 2U model will be priced even lower. No mention is made, however, about clock speeds, although I'm, sure IBM will make nice fast ones avalible, a $3500 base configuration for the 4U probably means four-way 1GHz. Why would the fastest chips come in the base model?
All in all, however, these will be nice machines, and if you've ever wanted to escape the x86 world, PPC is a nice place to do it (speaking from experience). They are slightly ahead of Apple's current offerings, however IBM has the advantage there, the 970 being their own.
And if you want to run Mac OS X, you'll be disapointed.
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
Granted its version 4.2 but it can be done.
Link to the list of available platforms.
If these do well I see no reason for Wolfram to ignore it or treat it like a second class system. The fact that it exists shows there was enough demand already for it. Plus IBM will undoubtedly port a good chunk of their software titles to it.
I hope you die painfully and alone.
The objective was to keep costs down. If Apple wants to sell a quad-PPC system with OSX on it, that's their business. Just don't expect it to be (as) cheap.
Besides, maybe IBM knows a thing about the PPC architecture as well and can modify Linux and AIX to perform well for servers?
Once mortal enemies, IBM and Apple are strategic partners now. In the deepest sense of the phrase.
Isn't that weird for two companies who were mortal enemies less than 20 years ago?
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
That's an excellent product idea. I know I'd buy
an IBM pda just for the cool black case with the
IBM letters on it. That would become a geek fetish
item overnight. Expecially if it rocked and was
actually useful.
For every annoying gentoo user, are three even more annoying anti-gentoo crybabies. Take Yosh from #Gimp for example.
>Come on now, $3500 for a quad server isn't anything close to "cheap". Checking pricewatch, you can buy a quad Xeon board for under $500, and Xeons@2.4GHz for under $250. That leaves you with $2000 to spend on a power supply, hard disks, etc, for a machine that will kick the crap out of this great machine IBM will release sometime in the future.
No, the serious flaw in your comparison is you are comparing 32 bit Xeon processors with 64 bit PowerPC processors. If you need a 64 bit address space your comparison is completely invalid...the Xeon just can't do it. Think really big databases. Really, really big.
The reality is that $3,500 for a complete quad processor 64 bit server is a GREAT price.
Of that I have no doubt, IBM's reputation precedes them. I'm skeptical about their reasoning behind marketing Linux on ppc though. I think that's a flakey business move. There is a much more powerful OS available for that processor than Linux ppc. I think it's just a move based on the hype of the word Linux. I hate to make it sound so stupid but...
>Checking pricewatch, you can buy a quad Xeon board for
>under $500
I think you are referring to a board (AC450NX or the SC450NX) that takes 4 old Pentium II-style Xeons. All slot-2 connectors--it was produced in 1998.
The boards I've found on pricewatch which are 4-processor Pentium 4 Xeon boards are all $1500+ (please feel free to correct me, I'd like to know). You can get dual opteron mobos for closer to what you are thinking.
Then, four processors on top of that, we're looking at $2500+ and we haven't even broke into hard drive(s), graphics, a case, power supply, or any of the other niceties.
>and Xeons@2.4GHz for under $250.
Which would get summarily smoked, considering I *think* those Xeon Mobos use a shared pipe for four processors. Not even talking about the processors themselves.
>That leaves you with $2000 to spend on a power supply,
>hard disks, etc, for a machine that will kick the crap out
>of this great machine IBM will release sometime in the
>future.
Any guaruntees that your choices will be better than IBM's or that they won't beat you in all of these areas?
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
It is better to be silent and remain a fool than to speak and remove all doubt. I think that was a Confuscious quote but don't quote me. Correct me if I'm wrong. Heeheee!~
and since when did we start caring about the EULA?
Jisho - A Japanese English German Russian French Dictionary for the rest of us.
IBM already shoulders the enormous design costs of POWER4 for their high-end pSeries unix boxes. The tweaks necessary to make the PPC 970 for Apple have already been done at Apple's behest. It costs IBM very little additional R&D money to make low-end servers based on a chip they already design and manufacture for other reasons.
This makes PPC the only competitor to x86 in the commodity server space, except Sun, but Sun's product lineup grows more stale and outclassed by the day. Using IBM's compiler the 2GHz PPC970 performs approximately equivalently to a 2.8GHz p4 using icc, which is far beyond the performance offered by the in-order execution (!!) 1.05 GHz UltraSparc iii.
Having an alternative to x86 in the server space is desirable, because PPC will always have better heat dissipation and power consumption at a given level of performance. These are important considerations especially in the blade server market. In addition these are 64-bit boxes which will allow going beyond the 4GB memory barrier without using the "segmented memory" hack of the 36-bit memory addressed Xeons.
In short, this could work.
The base configuration of a 4-way server is probably 1 CPU.
Four-way means 4 processors. That's 4 CPU's. :)
Okay, first, I didn't ever imply that supporting the Linux/Linux community was silly. What I was saying is that MARKETING LINUX ON THE PPC IS SILLY. Linux is kickass! How did you read that wrong? Second, I'm probably next in line to be the last person to ever discourage an effort to remove Wintel from dominating the lemmings of the world. I'm also a realist, not a fatalist, and I still think IBM could choose more wisely. Ironically, I AM a moron game developer! Never been to a conference though because those guys really are morons, I agree. And to make matters worse, I'm typing this on a kick-ass, top-of-the-line Mac! Why? Because my Win2k machine sucks! Why are you giving me shit?!!! Back off dude!
VisualAge C++ (xlc) for Linux
From the title of the story it seems like we can only run Linux on these chips?
What's wrong with putting a / between other OS's?
Besides, won't this thing be able to run NetBSD and OpenBSD as well (as Linux and AIX)?
No shit. But when vendors call something a "4-way server", they mean that model can be configured to hold 4 CPUs. Most of the time it can also be configured to hold less. You will never get a 4-processor PowerPC 970 system for $3500, mark my words.
By the time it ships, it will run SCO!
Why can't IBM sell a quad-ppc system with OSX on it? IBM knows EVERYTHING about the ppc achitecture, they designed it. Is it just because Apple makes the board? Did IBM even ASK Apple? I'm not suggesting Linux wouldn't be modifiable to perform well on the ppc, I'm saying that Apple already did it and they AIN'T Microsoft so why not use OS X? What is this with the idea that everybody thinks anything out of Apple/by Apple has to cost the price of the universe!?!?!...~~ Jesus! If it isn't with Linux and against M$ then screw you? And Apple too? Common! Apple's on a roll! Give them a chance on the ppc at least. Why is it that since it says Linux it MUST be better than what Apple could POSSIBLY do with the ppc? Dude, you guys, Linux is primarily developed on the x86 processor, think about this for a bit. Please?
Compare it to a Dell 6650 4-way Xeon with 2.0Ghz chips and only 4GB of ram, $12,288 according to Dell.com. Even the lowest speed (1.6Ghz) PPC970 will blow this out of the water, for about 1/4th the price! Don't compare it to a homebuilt, compare it to other top tier vendors (this was a stripped down server from Dell with their lowest level of support and only a single small HDD and no addons)
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
WTF? A 4U system can definitly be 4-way, people cram 4 power hungry Xeon's into a 2U case so there is no reason IBM would have any problems putting 4 PPC970's into a 4U case.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
I wonder if the new Amiga OS4 that is about to be released could eventually run on one of these?
The G5 is nothing other than Apple's name for the 970, so the processor should be compatible. But doesn't the new Amiga OS need some kind of special encrypted ROM to work? Also, this is being marketed as a server, so there is no telling whether it will actually support such frivolancies as graphics adapters or keyboards.
"(Man) tries to live his own life as if he were telling a story. But you have to choose: live or tell." --Sartre
Why did I have feeling that there's gonna be a "PPC Jr powered by Linux/2"?
Why are you so defensive of Apple here? Apple's using the chip, and so is IBM. Big deal. Apple seems to be leaning towards one part of the market, that of the "creative" pro, while IBM seems to be leaning more towards the small server/professional workstation market. Let the market decide who has the better product. If Apple's use of the 970 sucks comparatively, then too bad, so sad. The marketplace is a harsh mistress.
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses
OS X/Darwin is entirely optimized for ppc
I'm sorry to disappoint you, but Mac OS X 10.3 Panther will not be a 64-bit OS (here's a more detailed article).
So much for ''entirely optimized for PPC''.
ppc Linux is a port from something else
But Linux already runs natively on 64Bit hardware. So do AIX, NetBSD, and other operating systems (even Windows), but not Mac OS X.
Apple drives the market for the ppc architecture and develops hardware. They push the product. No Apple, no ppc. No IBM, no ppc. No Motorola, no ppc. IBM develops POWER architecture. Motorola pushes the architecture for Apple and makes a deal with IBM. IBM says it has a better idea. Motorola produces first. Motorola stops pushing architecture. IBM takes up new idea that it has and tells Apple "we'll make a better version". Apple says, "ok" but let's do it like this. IBM says, "ok". Now what? By far, the biggest influence on the ppc design is Apple, IBM, and Motorola. Blanks filled in as per your request. That was even easier than signing the paperwork on a bloody urine sample.
But Linux, AIX, NetBSD, and other operating systems (especially Windows) are NOT designed to run primarily on ppc. It doesn't disappoint me that 10.3 will not be 64 bit because that wasn't the argument I made. Even if it was, it still wouldn't disappoint me because it isn't my primary os. My argument is that there is a better os for the ppc than Linux and that IBM is just barking about Linux to make noise.
The little parapragh said :
The ULE models, which will run Linux and IBM's AIX OS, will ship in 2U two-way and 4U four-way configurations. A base configuration of the 4U is expected to cost less than $3,500, sources said.
If "four-way" doesn't mean 4 processors, that's another story
"Checking pricewatch, you can buy a quad Xeon board for under $500, and Xeons@2.4GHz for under $250."
I don't know where you found a quad Xeon board for that price, but I can tell you that those Xeons won't work. Those will be dual-processor capable Xeons. For a quad board, you need the Xeon MP - which is much more expensive.
"It's better to stay silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt"
Oscar Wilde
That was classic intercourse!
A computer is a tool, not a home, it's not a fashion statement. OS X gets this right. Trivial time-wasters like themes--while they may keep you from getting bored--really don't have much practical value.
/. stuff, volunteering to run some free community network centers/labs
That's bull. Mac OS X only helps "just getting work done" if you're functionally computer illiterate.
I'm a creative pro (supposedly Mac's main market) and yet I do all my photo processing (which is extensive) in Linux.
Why? Becuse it's about 100x faster in Linux due to the degree that I have been able to optimize my workflow:
1) Focus-follows-mouse, always shunned by non-Unix systems and now even by Unix systems (OS X, GNOME) saves endless point-and-click strokes (find titlebar, click to focus) when you have dozens of image windows open. Each one of these is a savings of several seconds. If you're performing hundreds or thousands of manipulations on a single task in multiple windows, that adds up to hours saved, not just minutes, on focus policy alone.
2) Fast cut/paste. Here again, the reviled behavior of X (highlight with left button, move to another window that focuses automatically, middle click where you want it to paste) saves incredible amounts of time versus the OS X or Windows behaviors (highlight with left button, hit CTRL-C, click on titlebar of destination window, click where you want to place cursor for paste, hit CTRL-V). The combination of focus-follows-mouse and keystroke-free copy/paste here again saves hours, not just minutes, when performing reptitious tasks.
3) Floating windows are my call. Once again I can keep GIMP tool windows, layer/channel dialogs, a kcalc, my conferencing window and others on top at my discretion, rather than always having to hunt down and raise some windows (by clicking on a taskbar or a dock) that I know I will need over and over again or being stuck with others on top that I don't want there and that just take up screen real estate. And when I am done with them, I can release them from forceed raise behavior.
4) Ability to turn of automatic raise when windows receive a click (done by combining focus follows mouse + titlebar-raise-only). I can have one window partially obscuring another and be working (inputting) in the "lower" (partially obscured) window while referring to one or more upper windows that partially obscure it. No need to "raise this one, look, raise that one, work, raise this one, look some more, raise that one, work some more, oh hell, just make a hardcopy, hmm, where shall we set the hardcopy..."
6) Scriptability/rapid application development. Yes, the dreaded command line shell. Many of my most intense post-production tasks (i.e. laying out posters with their captions, borders, copyright notices, anti-aliasing, interpolating to proper sizes, etc.) are database driven and processed through command line tools like ImageMagick. This allows me to do things like "makeposter 20x16 img_2525.crw" and in a single pass have the image automatically fetched from archive, converted from Canon raw, edited, captioned, matted, etc. according to a list of edits and captions I've saved ahead of time for images in my database, then sent to post-production (i.e. output). Don't tell me that there is a "makeposter" command in Mac OS X that will automatically query my database of images and perform these tasks for me, or that Apple will be willing to write me one.
[Perhaps AppleScript is capable of this stuff, perhaps not... I don't know AppleScript. But I will happily refuse to buy arguements that as well as my system works for me, I should switch to Mac OS X simply because AppleScript just "gets it right" or is "just more elegant" as scripting languages go. You'll have to give me real benefits, not techno-spiritual ones.]
7) The X-factor. I take pictures and I write prose. Those are the things I do for a living. I have other things that I do as hobbies (i.e. the
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Apple's EULA is a license agreement. That means that it is negotiable, it wasn't written by God ( although I'm sure Jobs has identity crises like that once in a while ). Did IBM even ASK Apple if it would be willing to deal? We may never know that. Linux IS better than OS X in CERTAIN tasks on the ppc. OS X is the most widely used and developed os specifically for the ppc. Linux is not. This logic is just messing me up here. Windows doesn't work on the ppc, it works on the x86. Windows runs on over 90% of the computers in the world. Why then would it be beneficial for IBM to try to market a server on a processor that is used in less than 10% of computers worldwide using an operating system designed primarily for a processor that comprises the other 90%? Mac OS X has way more development effort put forth towards its efficiency on the ppc as its primary os. Why am I being so defensive of Apple here? I don't think I am, at least I'm not trying to be. I'm simply thinking that IBM is choosing poorly simply for the fact that yelling "Linux" will grab some attention. I don't know, it just doesn't seem right to me. The Mac is not my primary platform BTW.
You haven't a clue... you can't build a 1 CPU based off of the next generation PowerPC 970 from IBM. Each chip has two CPUs.
With IBM's fabrication costs, I could see how they could see a 4way box for $3500. Probably 256-512MB ram and a 40-80GB drive along with a CD. Probably very similar to the Sun X1 when it was released.
If IBM ends up making a market for these chips with x86 users and then opens that market up to clone vendors, that would be a good thing. Since IBM is probably going to maintain control of the chips and since the use of those chips will probably require the use of IBM-authored software running on any system using these chips I am going to stay away. Have you ever used IBM Software? It is terrible. It is almost never intuitive and never adheres to usability standards that most other software vendors follow. And from the hardware side - do you remember when IBM had control of the computer industry? Entry level PCs were beyond the reach of everyday people and serious computing power was available to a smaller community than those who can fly into space today. IBM has survived in spite of itself all these years, not because of innovation or ingenuity. If this idea were brought forward by any other company (save RIAA, SCO, and DirecTV) I would be excited about this product.
With the source code available, most any application is portable between x86 and PPC. I do it manually all the time. I'm sure IBM could pay some monkeys to do it too.
Linux WILL NEVER BE NATIVE on the ppc as long as more than 50%
I'm sorry, did you hit the crack a little hard perhaps? You would probably never consider Linux to be native on Alpha, MIPS, HP-PA, 680x0, Sparc, ARM, or IBM mainframes either.
The truth is that Linux is 'native' on all these and more.
BTW, I think that your BTW to the previous poster is hilarious and probably unintentionally ironic. I have used ported software, and most can toungue my sack from across the continent.
this can actualy be done with a 32 bit CPU, just more slowly.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I am a Linux user first and foremost... but the thing is, no matter HOW much time I put into customizing things, I can not make a Linux desktop as clean and easy to use as a Mac OS X desktop.
It's not just that having Only One Way To Do Things (tm) makes the easy desktop experience, but it's the fact that the One Way is thoroughly thought-out and streamlined. In Linux, we have tons of disparate pieces to put together in countless concatenations... but in the end, what we unavoidably get is an unstreamlined construct of disparate pieces.
I understand the appeal of customizing, and I do think Mac OS X could stand to allow a little more customizing without sacrificing the benefits of the OS. Linux will remain dominant on my PC desktop, and it will be dual-booted on my soon-to-be-purchased PowerBook, but the main reason I am getting the PowerBook is for Mac OS X and its ability to stay out of the way. The best OS is the one that interferes with my work the least. Mac OS X does that. Linux, when configured and tweaked to my liking and all that, does a good job by way of being stable and such, but some of those disparate pieces irritate. (Windows, of course, constantly interferes by being unstable and generally a source of irritation).
Ideally, I'd like to see Linux meet OS X halfway. Choice is good, but not when the choices are 15 different mediocre options. Can't we get 4 really good ones instead?
Actually, The market does exist. There are already IBM compilers ported to Linux (xlf 8.1 and VisualAge C++ 6.0) and they both work quite well and are a big help in porting code from AIX. There are other people interested in switching from AIX as well.
:-)
I would also like to mention that the PPC64 toolchain and kernel is heavily developed. If you're interested in information relating to the ppc64linux development I suggest visiting penguinppc64.
And on a personal note....I would love a cheap ppc64 linux machine such as this. Over the past month or so I've been building a 64bit debian distribution for our IBM pSeries clusters(both power3 and some power4 machines). Preliminary results have some of our programs running a bit faster under linux than in AIX. Hopefully we'll have some more results soon.
Especially MAYA!!!!
From Earth to AC, we are talking about linux users here.
here
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Ahhh, nifty - I had been contemplating buying a G5 over an AMD-64 for a while now, because of the 'it's different' factor. It might also not require me to install a commercial heat extraction system in my apartment :o)
This however is better, as I can get the hardware without paying the OS X tax or the 'shiney things' tax. Not that IBM kit doesn't have a beauty of it's own, I love their pure black evilness way more than the Apple cheese grater effect.
After all, I have no need for OS X as I find Linux less irritating to use, more flexible and more powerful. I also don't need any OS X software, so that's fine.
The only problem I can see is that Linux games tend to have x86 binaries only (like UT2k3) which might push me into buying a SMP AMD-64 system instead. Although most Linux apps will work on PPC just fine, there might be the odd one that makes me less than keen.
Still, as far as servers and corporate workstations and desktops goes, it sounds like IBM might have a winner on their hands.
Beep beep.
Weapon of Mass Computation (WMC)
For the longest time I have been listing to the faint mumblings of the once so-called PowerPC Reference Platform.
/Dread
I for one, would be seriously interested in another platform besides Intel (wintel) where the hardware specs are as open as possible.
- Slower clocked RISC chips seem still to outperform the Intel line, although RISC perhaps is an outdated acronym.
- Couple this with a basically organically grown Intel MoBo based PC, with archaic Need To Have's like the floppy disk.
- Add to this a brilliant company (Apple) constantly being marginalized by having an 'incompatible' plaform.
(Apple does not want apple clones, but they sure would want to profit from the techno push the PC plaform gives to hardware)
It could end up in a faster evolving hardware platform, where software (think linux) and hardware (like Prep) evolve at the same speed (think Edsgar Dijkstra)
I, however, would not hold my breath.
Then you can run Linux userland, with all the million different ways and all. But - will I be able to use your Linux or fink desktop after your exersize of complete control? Sure I can change back the KDE theme, but what about gnome applications, xmms and so on? Since the article is about business workstations/servers rather than your hobby desktop, MacOSX on those 4-CPU machines would be a good idea indeed.
On the other hand, I have no idea what Apple is doing with Panther. Half of the windows are metal but the worst thing is that new Aqua looks kind of like metal. Perhaps a good theme manager is needed to stop this kind of abuse.
No, it sounds Awesome.
Wrong. I don't know where you got this myth but it is, indeed, a myth. That's your point 3 as well - completely misguided and misinformed.
Then the Beowulf comments, now those are really clueless. Obviously you don't understand what a Beowulf cluster is. It's a protocol for building a distributed supercomputer using multiple linux boxes. You could make a Beowulf cluster with these, if you wanted to, but talking about the performance of a PPC970 versus that of a Beowulf cluster in general is simply nonsense. You're just horribly confused, or trolling.
The power consumption statement definately makes me lean towards trolling. That's marvelously clueless, totally reversing the actual relationships. The PPC lines run very cool compared to Intel and AMDs offerings, but you claim the opposite.
So yes, you definately deserve the modslapping, and another one as well. If you don't know something that's no shame, but if you don't have a clue and start spouting off whatever comes into your head pretending to be an expert, that is shameful indeed.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
But Linux, AIX, NetBSD, and other operating systems (especially Windows) are NOT designed to run primarily on ppc.
Who cares? If 64Bit Linux peforms better than 32Bit Mac OS X on 64Bit PPC CPUs then Linux is better for this situation (servers) than Mac OS X.
My argument is that there is a better os for the ppc than Linux and that IBM is just barking about Linux to make noise.
There's also AIX, not only Linux.
well, you better believe it, as the article actually say:
...
"The ULE models, which will run Linux and IBM's AIX OS, will ship in 2U two-way and 4U four-way configurations. A base configuration of the 4U is expected to cost less than $3,500, sources said."
And it is actually believable as it also points out:
"IBM will stress better performance than Xeon-based servers, 32- and 64-bit compatibility with no migration costs or penalties, and linear price scaling from two-way to four-way systems."
This is a key feature of power4's design: the ability to have low cost multi processor systems (apple ships 1-way 1.8Ghz at $2.4K and 2-way 970s at $3k -- same configuration)
>Of course, if they ever DID come out with a 4-way
>PPC system for $3500, you'd better believe it would increase
>the hell out of how many people run Linux on PPC.
>I'd sure as heck buy one!!
tell me about it
Washington bullets will simply be known as the "Bulle
ah oh ignorant one OPenBoot or the forth firmware on PPCs can boot any OS you want including shudder winNT..
read up on the PCI spec sometime you might get an education..
The only other company besides IBM and Apple to fully support PCI spec is Sun..
Notice Intel and MS are not in that group
Don't Tread on OpenSource
IBM gets to stamp out big ugly boxes, because really, unless you're talking about a secretary, no one in the office ever says "That is a nice lookin' rack!"
My God man! You made me laugh so hard, I swear a little pee came out!
I doubt this is connected at all with Apple's 970 offerings. IBM is already moving their AIX heritage to allegedly scaleable Linux, which is cool in concept (if unproven), and they are replacing their own Power architecture with PPC 970 - this is simply IBM staying in the UNIX server market - within their own strategic initiatives. A move I welcome, as it gives me at least a hope of a second non-Itanium based UNIX vendor 5-10 years from now.
They can pry my MIPS based Irix boxes from my cold, dead fingers - but someday I'll feel differently (when those boxes are really old and no longer supported). When that time comes, I'd prefer not to run Itanium (I still don't trust Intel for serious server work) and I'd prefer not to run Solaris/UltraSPARC - I trust Sun even less than I trust Intel - at least since they got all corporate.
What I REALLY hope, is that HP decides to offer HP-UX on either Itanium or PPC in the future - giving customers like me a choice not to use Itanium... HP has dealt with IBM before - and it worked (LVM is feature starved, but rock solid).
The desktop discussion (Apple or Amiga clones) is really non-sequitor - though it could be an interesting side-benefit of the new servers...
The 64bit offerings from AMD look more compelling to me: they give you comparable performance, cost less, and are fully backwards compatible with existing x86 software. You can already buy high-end dual-processor systems, and the desktop versions are going to be out later this year. If you are going to run Linux, they seem like a better choice.
I do wish that non-x86 platforms, like PPC, would become more widely used so that the Penguin's eggs aren't all in one basket, but realistically, I don't see it happening. Linux runs quite well on PPC, but some things just don't work: some compilers and JITs don't have a PPC backend, the AltiVec macros screw up some compilation, etc. But it's nice that IBM is trying; maybe if the get really aggressive on the pricing, they will make some inroads. $3500 for a 4x machine might do it, although AMD will do 4x as well at a reasonable price.
But it doesn't actually say that the base configuration comes with 4 cpus at this price. It's very common for IBM and others to offer a lower price configuration with empty cpu sockets for later upgrades.
Its worth mentioning that Linux was designed to be able to run on multiple platforms with very little effort.
Its not like it got to where it is today, at say kernel 2.4.20 and someone decided to make it compile on a SPARC cpu instead of an x86 - the code is written and designed to compile on multiple platforms.. so i'd say the Linux kernel is optimised to run on any of its supported platforms!
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
You are of course wrong, it's not just the motherboard that is much more expensive than that, it's also the actual processors, which will cost a hell of a lot more for a 4-way system (simple xeons won't work)
there is absolutely no way you can do it under $8K -- more than twice the price of IBM's-- and you *will* be slower and 32-bit.
to sum up:
>$3500 for a quad server isn't anything close to "cheap".
You have never *EVER* seen prices for 4-way systems, you don't understand why this is huge news.
Washington bullets will simply be known as the "Bulle
You can't find today a quad processor system under $5k anywhere, not even for 32bit machines:)
You also can't build any such system at this price, the above post is just clueless.
In reality to buy a fully equipped quad-xeon you would need something like $15k -- for a base version around 10k -- check anywhere. You can buy two ibm's for this price, plus it will be propably faster, and 64bit.
Washington bullets will simply be known as the "Bulle
There is a much more powerful OS available for that processor than Linux ppc
:> so , i would like to point out that linux is a rational choice as there is much more software for it and it evolves much faster... It is the "natural successor" to AIX, so it's only natural to use it. AIX might still have some strong points vs. linux but not on that level of hardware.
i assume you are reffering to AIX
Washington bullets will simply be known as the "Bulle
The GCC community was contacted by an IBM
representative last Thursday with a plan
for adding automatic vectorisation to
the GCC "middle" end (i.e., the machine
independent optimization passes).
Toon Moene, current GNU Fortran maintainer.
much, much more than $3500
In addition to NetBSD and OpenBSD, even FreeBSD will soon be runnable on the PPC.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I think the most important thing this announcement portends is a shift away from the architecture consolidation we've seen for several years now.
We have lost or are losing several hardware platforms: HP PA RISC, Compaq Alpha, and a recent SGI presentation I attended hinted MIPS is on the way out in favor of Itanium.
IBM's commitment to a non-Intel architecture is will help prevent this slide into x86 uniformity.
Not only that, but different arch's are _interesting_ in and of themselves. Try picking up a used SparcStation or SGI machine and install Linux or Unix on it. It will make you appreciate that you have choices other than ia32/64.
I work for a company that has IBM doing the support for our Netfinity and eServer server systems in the field.
In short, their support is atrocious. Their techs are awful and their parts have some of the worst build quality I've ever seen. The techs are constantly calling US about hardware issues. They come and go like crazy because IBM hires and fires them without a second thought.
Maybe the PPC970 hardware situation would be different. Maybe it's a different division. But I dunno if I'd count on it.
FYI.
+++ATH0
There is another serious flaw here as well. IIRC, the Xeons you can buy for $250 are the dual-proc capable Xeons. The Xeon MP's, which are designed for use in 4-way boxes and up are considerably more expensive...
why not? let's do the math:
you can get a 2-way system with great graphic cards and combo drives etc under $3k from apple...
the difference between 1-way 1.8ghz and 2-way 2ghz is $600 with the same configuration, again from apple. forget that it's a better processor (1.8-->2ghz), the difference should be say 300 (?) for the actuall second processor, and $300 for the dual mobo.
** REMEMBER the article: "IBM will stress better
performance than Xeon-based servers, 32- and
64-bit compatibility with no migration costs or
penalties, and linear price scaling from
two-way to four-way systems"
linear, that is the 4-way mobo will cost something like $300-$600 more and 2 more 970's something like $600 more. (maybe the motherboard cost more, and the processors less, maybe the opossite -- who cares?)
now take out the great graphic card, the design, the superdrive, use the 1.6ghz models etc. doesn't that sum up around $3,5k?
Washington bullets will simply be known as the "Bulle
Ender-
Nothing to see here
Really, where is the market for these boxes? Linux on non-x86 is a fringe market...and I mean a fringe of a fringe. There isn't enough interest there to market to.
I applaud them for trying to create competition but I think outside of very high end and vertical installations, the Power architecture is going to be limited to Apple boxes when it comes to desktop users.
I am wondering if this posturing and the Apple deal will put any of the Opteron or other deals with AMD in jeopardy considering this server is squarely in the market / price range of the Opterons.
[RIAA] says its concern is artists. That's true, in just the sense that a cattle rancher is concerned about its cattle.
> IBM gets to stamp out big ugly boxes
Actually, IBM usually makes remarkably nice looking boxes. As for desktops, the Aptivas looked pretty good. The two Netfinities I've seen are damn good looking, a whole not better looking than the Compaqs of the same time period. Likewise, the older AS/400s are damn nice looking too. They tend towards a solid black, but I like that.
Now, I admit that's all based off slightly older boxes, because those are what I have in the living room, but they are most definitely not 'big and ugly.'
The $3,500 USD is not the price of a 4-way capable, 4 rack unit system fully configured with 4 CPUs. From the article:
"A base configuration [emphasis added] of the 4U is expected to cost less than $3,500, sources said."
The $3,500 USD is likely the price of a 4-way capable, 4 rack unit system configured with only one CPU (a typical base configuration). Assuming about $1,000 to $1,500 USD for the server chassis, LVD SCSI boot disk, and memory, the PPC970 CPU is going to run for around $2,000-$2,500 USD per processor.
A fully configured 4-way PPC970 server will probably cost about $10,000 USD.
Sun and Wintel both have an advantage with blades. They may not be as fast as IBM's offerings but they cost only %15 as much. 100k for an AIX RS/6k despite the advantages is unacceptable to all but a selected few who are now cutting costs.
However these machines are not workstations but blade servers. If you want a fast risc powerpc workstation I would suggest the new Apple G5's. They have more software, 6.4 ghz internal bandwith, serial ATA, PCI-X 800 mhz bus, and other goodies. Not to mention you can run MS-Office, games, and other apps.
Linux on anything non intel really just includes OSS software. Not really worth it if your willing to spend big bucks.
http://saveie6.com/
According to http://www.hardmac.com/niouzcontenu.php?date=2003- 07-17#198
:
"We have demonstrated yesterday that Panther can support n processors, and really large amount of RAM.
Several different sources have confirmed the circulating rumor that we already had received in the past
Apple and IBM could be associated to developp and manufacture computer with n processors, where n could go til 64 G5! The project is internally named "Dark Star".
Each processor will have 4 memory slots, for a maximum allocated RAM of 16GB (when the 4 GB RAM modules). The 64 processors-based configuration will support up to 1 TB of RAM.
It will be possible to install in those computer many ATI graphic cards, and to use them in paralell, in order to allow a very high quality rendering.
Prototypes based on 8, 16, 32 and 64 processors are already working fine.
those machines will be available with an enclosure similar that to the G5' one.
The pre-production should start next month, but the availability should only be at the end of the year together with Panther Server.
Price will vary from 12 000 $ for the 8 CPUs version to 50 0000 $ for the top version including all the optionis.
Some people will probably consider this as a risky project. However, it seems that Apple and IBM could have already pre-sell some of those machines to prioritized clients, such as:
- Industrial Light and Magic
- Raytheon
- General Dynamics
- Genentech
- Amgen
- Pixar
- NASA
There are other names such as large american administrations."
I won't dispute that you're more productive running straight 'NIX rather than OS X; that's your call and your work environment. However, I've moved from x86 with Linux to MacOS X primarily because I need MS Office to exchange Excel spreadsheets with my CPA. She won't waste time fiddling with Open Office and she happens to be a great accountant. That's a straight home business decision.
At work I'm seeing a pretty fast transition from Linux to MacOS X among professors and professionals. They like the ease of use and access to commercial applications, combined with the traditional 'NIX toolbase, that OS X offers. Cheap desktops for students remain running Linux. This too, doesn't surprise me - Linux makes for a very cheap desktop solution when scaled up in large deployments. I expect to see our older Suns and DEC Alpha systems completely replaced with either PCs running Linux or Macs. I also expect to see us run a cost/compute comparison between the G5 and Opteron for clustering.
IMO Apple has successfully reinvigorated their software and hardware product line such that they are now producing very desirable products, and this is reflected in the purchasing decisions across my lab. Whatever you may think of the OS X UI I see a large number of highly qualified professionals and academics jumping to the platform primarily because they don't want to spend time learning hardcore 'NIX; they're too busy conducting research and writing papers.
So, what doesn't work for you seems to work well for them. Customizability is a tradeoff for sure, but these people transitioning to OS X are certainly not stupid or children; they are professionals who prefer to focus on their specialty rather than the near unlimited customizability of X (X Window System). A personal choice, in opposition to yours, which is equally valid.
Cheers,
--Maynard
The multitude of X86 cheap stuff doesnt work on these platforms. You probably pay 3-6 times what you'd normally pay for NICS and GFX cards. Apple does this all the time.
That's funny -- I just got back from CompUSA, where I paid all of $15 for a D-Link 100baseT NIC that will work with both Macs and PCs. The exact same trick works with most SCSI cards, several flavors of NVidia and ATI graphics cards, and Creative's Soundblaster line.
It's been many, many years since PCI cards for Macs cost substantially more than their PC counterparts. Like, almost a decade now.
And here's the thing: in many cases, those Mac cards will work unmodified in Linux-on-IBM/PPC servers and workstations. Also, occasionally, in Sun kit. Reason is, the "BIOS" in the PowerMacs, IBM's e-Servers and all of Sun's hardware is the same: OpenFirmware, AKA OpenBoot. Once you've set up your PCI card to support OpenBoot on one platform, it supports them all, and all the platform vendor has to do is write an OS-level driver for the card.
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
Their choice, if it makes them more productive is completely valid.
.twmrc and do everything from the '$' prompt!
My argument is that Linux makes me much more productive, and not simply because I'm "used to it" -- there are real, hard, numbers-based reasons why I work faster in Linux than in other systems. It has to do with saving (i.e. reducing the number of) clicks and keystrokes and minimizing (i.e. making less obvious or visible) distracting widgets when they're interfering with my visual workflow, thereby reducing unneeded eye movements.
I didn't post to try to run down the decisions of others... I posted because I'm tired of hearing:
"The irony is, the lack of costume features is part of what makes OS X a much better platform for just getting work done. A computer is a tool, not a home, it's not a fashion statement. OS X gets this right. Trivial time-wasters like themes--while they may keep you from getting bored--really don't have much practical value. " [From the parent post to my post.]
It's a basic argument that I hear nearly all the time now from Mac OS X enthusiasts that I know: preferences are crap, Linux preferences doubly so.
I'm not sure why the Mac OS X crowd feels the need to try to convince everyone that preferences only exist for geeky elitist people to dote over. I don't change my preferences every five minutes, I change them all once when I install, and make additional tweaks very rarely and if needed as I am working. Geeky elitist people don't need preferences, they just build a good
I don't have any geeky elitist pride, I use KDE!
One of my biggest worries (and irritations that led to my original post) is that GNOME is no longer in the same league. They've taken out most of the preferences, including traditional X preferences like focus-follows-mouse. Why? They feel that there are "right" choices (click to focus) and "wrong" choices (focus follows mouse) and they want it to "just be right" without the user having to worry about it.
I mean, if removing a choice (GNOME) or never offering a choice (Mac OS X) is a way of "getting it right" then I suppose there's an implication that every time I've selected a non-default preference over the years, I've been doing it "wrong". Which seems clearly untrue to me. I have no problem if people don't like my choices, but I remain convinced that they make me more productive beyond mere "I like it that way!" value.
I only hope KDE doesn't follow GNOME and remove every preference, locking the user into a basic set of Windows-like or MacOS-like management and appearance preferences. Then I might be stuck with TWM!
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
1. OSX is unix. Click terminal.app, you're looking at a tcsh shell. Bash is bundled. So is perl, python, tcl and, yes, AppleScript. There's even a full-fledged IDE for AppleScript.
2. ImageMagick compiles quite happily on OSX. You can get binary packages from Fink.
3. AppleScript is merely the most visible frontend to what Apple calls the "Open Scripting Architecture" or OSA. You know all that neat process-automation you can do with the GIMP because it has a scripting language built-in? You can do that in almost every MacOS Classic and OSX application ever written in the last decade via OSA, and you can do it in not only AppleScript, but any scripting language that supports the OSA interface. Which, at last check, is just about all of them.
From the sounds of it, you've got your workflow pretty well optimized for your needs, so I wouldn't suggest that there's any overwhelming need for you to change it. But by saying things like "OSX only helps the computer illiterate" when by the looks of things you haven't the faintest clue what OSX is, you only make yourself look like yet another troll.
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
Mac zealots are so predictable: any posting that says OS X is less than spectacular gets modded down. Which brings me to another disadvantage of OS X: the zealots in the user community. Zealotry is one of those things that keeps OS X from improving: after all, if it's already perfect, how could it possibly be improved? The Mac user community is another reason why OS X has little place in an enterprise or in a scientific or engineering environment.
that would be pretty cool. all it would take is for windows to get onto the PPC....which they might do since they want to compete with Linux in every zone.
:-)
also, Apple culd exist fine in this eco system, infact, it would help Apple since all that software would suddenly be a lot easier to port.
it would also be nice to have a PPC windows box
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Its probably unlikely, but you have to wonder if maybe we are going to see IBM go after Apple and its horde of cash. Otherwise wouldn't this be in direct competition to Apples servers? That might be an even stranger relationship than the current laptop competition (with different cpus).
4U means the physical size of the server. 4-way means that there can be as many as 4 CPUs in the box. It doesn't mean that there are 4 CPUs in each server. Base configuration means the bare minimum of equipment (cards, memory, HD) and software (Linux, AIX) that will ship with the box. Mostly likely the $3500 box will have 1 CPU as a starting point. Companies then can estimate the final box fully loaded.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
However all the big engineering apps, CRM apps, and databases like Oracle only exist in x86 Linux or AIX. ;-)
I think for many applications if will be relatively easy for IBM to convince s/w vendors to port to this box. I've read somewhere a rumor that IBM some time ago just said to Cadence (the main EDA player, and IBM buys A LOT of licenses from them) not to release the next version of their suite for Suns unless Linux/x86 version is released simultaneusly -- here it goes, ic5.00-linux!
Seeing IBM to strong-arm or sweet-talk MS into releasing office on PPC would be a bit too far-fetched, but, who knows, maybe MS would want to expand beyond Intel/AMD...
Paul B.
Sometimes I despair of Slashdot. Here's IBM offering us a quad processor system at a price we can afford and we go off maundering about Mac OS X. This is not about Mac OS X. It's about a quad processor machine that you can afford to put under your desk. Isn't anyone else excited about that?
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
Ummmm...bzzzzt. I just bought a Power4+ "base system" with AIX 5L. Lowest price pSeries Power4+ they sell. $5,7xx.xx.
"Base System" 615-6E3 includes:
Desk-side tower
1.2GHz Power4+ w/8MB Cache
36GB Hot Swap SCSI
1GB ECC Chipkill RAM
Dual Ethernet (1x10/100 1x10/100/1000)
Dual channel Ultra 320 SCSI
6 Hot Plug 64bit PCI-X slots
Total of 5 hot swap SCSI drive bays
1 year on-site warranty
AIX 5L installed w/1year update & support
Seems a whole lot nicer than the crap I could get from Dell for that money (in fact I'd love to put it head to head with whatever Dell/Compaq has for that money). Just my two cents though, as you are obviously an IBM expert with the authority to belittle us IBM ignoramuses.
Nope, it means you can plug up to 4 CPUs into the board(s).
It means nothing about how many are in the stripped down bare configuration.
Go to any vendor that sells dual systems, there is always a selection box for if you want just one for now, or both right away.
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
That's funny because Apple was still using Nubus a decade ago. Their first PCI systems were introduced in 1995. If, as you allude, there was some stretch of time when Macs didn't support non-OF card and OF cards were more expensive, it certainly wasn't more than ten years ago.
Funny how I said "almost ten years", and yet somehow you saw "more than ten years."
You might want to consider seeing a doctor about this problem.
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
That's the most stupid and pompous statement I have ever heard.
Well, it's true. Learn to differentiate between shades of meaning.
The original post said that OS X helps in "just getting work done". Any competent computer user can "just get work done" on any platform. If OS X allows user Y to "just get work done" while they can't "just get work done" on other systems, then they aren't terribly computer literate.
ON the other hand, if OS X is the platform that some prefer, then I have absolutely no problem with that, as I've said multiple times in this thread. I only object when others say that my preferences prevent me from getting work done. They don't. They help me to get more work done.
What the hell do you mean by advanced methods?
I mean that from a purely clicks/keystrokes perspective, or from an eye motion perspective, traditional X environments are some of the most efficient methods in existence.
Five mouse/keystrokes for a given task is less advanced than two or three mouse/keystrokes for the same task because reducing the number of operations required to complete a given tasks saves time for repetitive work. The learning curve argument in this case is moot because 1) a learning curve only applies once, and 2) the learning curve for two new mouse/keystrokes to replace five old mouse/keystrokes is negligible.
Similarly, the appearance of OS X, while more intuitive and easier to grok for the beginner, has higher contrast levels and more colors. this increases the number of apparent objects in the field of vision and forces widgets into the group of perceived objects. If you are not familiar with computers and these objects are likely to be missed, this is beneificial behavior. If you are familiar with these objects and can find them easily when needed, then the increased visibility only serves to compete with more important elements in your field of vision (i.e. content).
For these reasons, I would argue that customization capability is good and that the "just right" features of OS X are intended primarily to aid the functionally computer illiterate.
This does not mean that only functionally computer illiterate users will use OS X, as you seem to have interpreted me to say. Far from it. But for the very computer literate, I argue that more customization can be, and indeed almost always is, helpful.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
I'm looking for a new architecture, but haven't found one priced suitably. I need a computer specialized in extracting 53 14MB rar archives, and also being able to burn and still use a newsreader program while the discs are burning. My celeron 366 SHITS when burning a CD. Not to mention while extracting files. I don't understand why even when I niced a rar extraction process my computer craps with lots of IDE writing activity.
"The exact same trick works with most SCSI cards, several flavors of NVidia and ATI graphics cards, and Creative's Soundblaster line."
You are quite wrong on this point. VGA cards and SCSI cards need an onboard BIOS to be able to boot from. The x86 cards will not work on a PPC platform. Period.
You can get BIOS-less SCSI cards, but you cannot use them as your boot device. As for the VGA cards, there is no such thing as a dual platform one (you might be able to find a hacked BIOS for it that allows you to bood it on a PPC machine, but it probably isn't worth your time). on VGA cards, the mac card is usually slightly more costly (because they are less common)
For sound cards and NIC's, you have a point.
Two infinite things: your stupidity and mine. But I'm not sure about the latter. If my sig offends you, I'm sorry.
You are quite wrong on this point. VGA cards and SCSI cards need an onboard BIOS to be able to boot from. The x86 cards will not work on a PPC platform. Period.
Really? That will come as a shock to Adaptec, who have been selling SCSI cards that support PCs and Macs for years now. (Admittedly I've never personally tried to boot from one, but the product detail page makes no mention of any such restriction.)
Video cards are in general stickier, but not entirely: several manufacturer's flavors of GeForce 2MX will work perfectly well in both Macs and PCs, and I believe the same goes for the Radeon 7500. Not entirely sure about later-generation cards.
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
When you're finished, you might take a look at mac OSX and discover that Apple provides an X11 server for it, with which you can run the Gimp. Not only this but, surprise, MacOSX has a thing called a, wait for it... shell. Even bigger will be your surprise to discover that ImageMagik has been compiled for OSX, and that you can do all your commandline shell business just the same as you do it in Linux.
But I suppose it's fun to be able to vent from time to time isn't it?
Not too shabby. The more compiler hackers that use PPC, the better gcc will become, no? Maybe this new machine will add some motivation.
Yeah, maybe "Duncan3" can get his company to help if indeed "Duncan3" reall is Adam L Beberg that spends, "Most of my waking hours are spent working on Cosm, one of the projects of my company Mithral Communications & Design, Inc. Cosm is a set of protocols for doing cross platform development and large scale distributed computing." That would be a lot better than bitching about how sucky a free thing is.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
It's a joke...you tightass...laugh! Read the submission guidelines, for what they're worth... :)
"Really? That will come as a shock to Adaptec, who have been selling SCSI cards that support PCs and Macs for years now."
Wow, one whole Adaptec card that works on both PC and Mac. I guess you didn't look at Adaptec's entire product line. Here is a clue. The 2906 does not have a BIOS. it is specifically ment for SCSI scanners, Zip drives, and hard drives that aren't the boot drive. You cannot boot off a SCSI card unles it contains a BIOS. This card does not. Not a SINGLE Adaptec SCSI card with BIOS contains a PC and Mac BIOS in the same card. Not only this, but they do not offer a download for the Mac BIOS if you already have the PC card. You must purchase seperate cards for seperate platforms. period.
As for the AGP cards, there is not a SINGLE manufacturer I can find that produces a card that will work in both Mac and PC. It just isn't there. You must have a different BIOS ROM on the card to use it in different platforms. In fact, two of the most popular and available nVidia card mfg's don't even support Mac on any of their cards: www.evga.com www.bfgtech.com In fact, I can't even find a manufacturer that has a card with PPC BIOS in it. This completely changes how "commodity" video cards are for the mac. They simply are harder to find, and thus, more expensive. I do know that ATI branded cards have a Mac product line (but they are different cards than the PC cards), but there are no ATI 3rd party cards with Mac support. Even then, walking into Best Buy and looking for a new video card for your mac is probably the wrong angle to approach getting a new 3d card for your mac.
The same goes for SerialATA cards, and for IDE Raid cards, and that is why you don't find many inside G4 machines.
In short (and this has always been true, and will be true for the near future), any PCI or AGP card containing a BIOS must contain a ROM specifically for the platform you are using it in. There is no such thing as a dual platform BIOS because x86 ROMs cannot run on PPC machines. and PPC ROMs cannot run on x86 machines. Until card manufacturers stop being cheap and include a ROM chip big enough to contain both BIOS's and a fancy way for the card to select which one to present to the host machine (probably in the form of a jumper or dip switch), everything you have said above is incorrect, untrue, and just plain wrong.
Two infinite things: your stupidity and mine. But I'm not sure about the latter. If my sig offends you, I'm sorry.
Awesome! I have an old PowerPC 850 that is running potato on it. It's pretty good for a webserver (considering I got it for free). It would be great when the new PPC comes out.
Wow, one whole Adaptec card that works on both PC and Mac.
You made a categorical statement. A single counterexample is all that is needed to disprove such a thing, and I granted that you may have been correct about boot support.
As for the AGP cards, there is not a SINGLE manufacturer I can find that produces a card that will work in both Mac and PC.
You are correct that no manufacturer officially supports it or admits to it. However, it is nonetheless true that on a PowerMac G4 running G4 firmware 4.1.8, it is possible to drop a standard PC GF2MX card into the slot and have it boot. (Usually only in a few low resolutions though -- to get full support for the card's features, you do in fact need to flash it with the Mac-specific BIOS. Results also appear to vary wildly depending on how far the manufacturer strayed from the nVidia's reference design.) I have personally done this.
I have yet to see an official explanation from Apple, nVidia or any of nVidia's resellers as to why this is so: either the G4 firmware has some stub code to specifically to handle the case of a reference gf2mx card in the AGP slot, or nVidia figured out some cute way to handle platform detection in firmware. (Certainly the former seems more likely.)
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
IBM was pushing to our organization for a while that Linux will run on existing F50 RS/6000s. We where seriously considering moving some of services onto existing pSeries machines and possible continue with that trend for new hardware. Then the truth came out when it was tried... Linux on pSeries can not see any SSA hard drives. When we pointed out to our sales rep. that they had pushed SSA as being better than SCSI and wanted to know when IBM would make drivers for SSA controllers available for Linux they refused to respond. As a result, the project of using Linux on pSeries was killed and the only option handed down from the top of the organization is that Dell should be used for all Linux services. The general feeling seems to be that IBM lied/over-hyped it's support of Linux on pSeries. It also does not help that our requests for /dev/random and iptables in AIX seem to also have been ignored since AIX 5.2 fails to provide either. I would like to consider myself as an advocate of IBM but cutting through the hard felt feelings here to ever get IBM's foot back in the door is going to be difficult. Hopefully they are for real this time so they don't turn other organizations away like they did mine.
It could be labeled as a weapon of some sort. This earlier slashdot story mentions a story about the PS2 being a possible weapons platform. Or course with computers getting so fast everyone is going to have a super computer sooner or later.
"VGA cards and SCSI cards need an onboard BIOS to be able to boot from. The x86 cards will not work on a PPC platform. Period.
Really? That will come as a shock to Adaptec, who have been selling SCSI cards that support PCs and Macs [adaptec.com] for years now. "
See, your contradictory example did not contain a BIOS SCSI card. That card you mention is not capable of BOOTING your machine. So my argument stands
As for the AGP cards, you still need firmware updates for the card, which most cards don't support. I believe nVidia may post BIOS ROM's on their website for Mac support, but no MFG officially supports it, and you admitted that you did not get one working without hax. So my argument still stands here.
You have not refuted a single point I have made about your argument all night.
Two infinite things: your stupidity and mine. But I'm not sure about the latter. If my sig offends you, I'm sorry.
And exactly how is the parent flamebait?
You like your new Mac more than you like me, don't you, Dave? Dave? I asked...She said Yes.
Does anybody who knows, know if they will be using Yellow Dog Linux as the distro for these machines, or will they roll their own? I presume IBM, when they say linux-on-intel, mean "Red Hat", and I've heard that YDL is pretty much RH but on PPC. So does it stand to reason that that'll be their choice, or are they going to reinvent the wheel?
Sure would be big boon to YDL if true, methinks.
--
$tar -xvf
Good: while that table compares apples and oranges, it contains the data we need. What it tells us is that:
So, we have to conclude that the idea that PPCs are particularly power efficient is a myth.
Yipes the Linux boxen will smoke! 3500 US ok as long as it doesn't run windows I do not care. This could make it possible for a small company to finally make money renting compile time! To individuals who want to test source in a hurry and find that their old 64 bit dev platform is too small and slow. Time shares on real smokers is expensive, this could change things big time, good stuff IBM, keep it up and Open Source will finally start making quantuam leaps past the M$ world.
OH THE SHAME I fell off the wagon and use sigs again!
Are you smoking crack? AIX was running on Power PC chips before gay ass apple ever did.
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