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Gentoo/PPC64 Beta Live CDs Released
pvdabeel writes "Gentoo/PPC developer, IBM employee and former PPC64 kernel maintainer Tom Gall has announced beta-level live CDs and stages for ppc64. The hardware supported by gentoo-ppc64 is PowerMacintosh G5, IBM pSeries, older IBM 64 bit RS/6000s
(such as the model 260, 270, F80, H80, see linuxppc64.org for a complete list) and soon IBM iSeries hardware.
Gentoo-ppc64 is the other side of the ppc equation, it is a 64-bit kernel as well as a 64 bit user space. We are the first linux distribution to offer a 64-bit top-to-bottom solution which is not a toy environment. This is a significant and exciting step as there is interest in cluster computing circles, users of java, and more generally those who have needs of large address spaces. It's fairly exciting to be on the forefront and continue to push the capabilities of linux on ppc64 forward."
Kind of defeats the purpose of all computing, which is to run on LEGO.
Let me know when you have a 64-bit top-to-bottom solution which is a toy solution, and I'll know 64-bit computing has finally arrived (think about it).
Now all I need is that G5 :-)
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They've had PPC64 versions for a while, and they seem to work.
Apple never advertised fastest computer, they clearly said the 'first 64-bit/fastest personal computer ever'
in that sense they are right, Sun, Alpha never made PC's.
And depending on who's benchmarks you look at, they are the fastest pc's.
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Get some perspective.
I don't quite understand why IBM doesn't want to create something like a G5, only "more serious". I'm sure the pSeries machines are excellent, but if they could just lower the price a bit by dropping some of the enterprise features that drive the price up, they could sell quite a lot of them. For people like myself, it's a chance to use a superior architecture in a not-quite-so-proprietary setting (Apple hardware is very proprietary in some areas). We could benefit from the commodity market for all the standardized components and interconnects (DDR RAM, SATA, PCI-X, PCI Express, AGP, USB, IEEE 1394, whatever) without being forced to buy Apple hardware or pay the MS tax. Commodized G5 system running an open source operating system like Linux or *BSD... that's where it's at.
I know I would like to buy such a machine for myself, and try to convince my employer to buy one for me...
Which is worse: ignorance or apathy? Who knows? Who cares?
For servers there's the JS20. If you're talking about an IBM Linux PPC workstation, give up already; that market's even smaller than Apple's.
Why, exactly, do you find this so disturbing? Go use Windows or Linux or whatever you prefer and quit stressing. ;-)
Apple's marketing hype aside, the G5 is a really sweet machine. It'll be even nicer when OS X is 64-bit native. In the meantime, it will be fun trying some of these 64-bit PPC Linux distros in dual boot.
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
Them's fightin' words, mister.
While I'm proud to hear that Linux has come a long way and now supports more architectures and most other OSes, I'm starting to wonder what's the point. We have Sparc, iAMD64, Power, Itanium, PA and another dozen uncommon architectures out there - and the further you get away from the "standard" i386 the worse support gets. Look at Fedora Core 2 for AMD64 - mysql is 32bit... Try get a JDK1.4 for Sparc Linux... How about Oracle for Linux/Power4?
While we have dozens of distributions there is not a single 64bit Linux out there that is even close to being as full-featured as debian, fedora, redhat, mandrake,... on i386 are...
Since 64bit porting is pretty much the same for all platforms, wouldn't it make sense for the distributions to work together in that aspect?
The flashing lights... SO PRETT... Ack! *has seizure*
I think the PPC 970's architechture specs are open. I think this means a company, with enough resources and ambition, could create a PPC 970 mobo, bundle it with the CPU, and put it out on the market. I don't think this has been done (well, outside of apple), but i think it is doable. I've wanted a POWER-esk chip for at least a couple years now, and i'd be in the market to buy something like this. I wonder how much a PPC 970 system would run without all the apple branding and sleek design overhead.
I finally have something other than AIX to run on the 8 H80s I have sitting in the closet!!!
User-space utilities don't need to be 64 bit native. In fact, taking Solaris as an example, there's a lot of utilities that are 32 bit apps. Why? They're faster that way. If you only need to manipulate 32 bit numbers, compiling them in 64 bit mode means moving twice as much data as you need to, be it for pointers, integers, or similar.
It's a different story on x86. There, you have a paucity of general purpose registers; because the 64 bit platform brings additional registers to the table, you gain by compiling in 64 bit mode in order to be able to access those registers. That's the only reason, though. POWER, PowerPC, and SPARC were all designed in such a way that there's no drawback to using 32 bit mode in this regard; they already have adequate registers available.
In short: know what the cost/benefit of something is before you jump on it, body and soul. Having 64 bit capability is good. Knowing when to use it, and when not to, is better.
Also regarding Apple's claim, the Opteron had been out for a while, and it's hard to think of any good metrics for distinguishing between workstations and PCs that would exclude Opteron-based machines and include the G5.
Lastly, the G5 may be a 64-bit processor, but one can't call OS X a 64-bit operating system, at least not yet.
Apple is your best bet for a non server workstation.
Yes IBM, SUN, SGI, and HP all have taxes on proprietary hardware. Either way your screwed and are paying a tax. Hell I remember installing HP kayaks and telling the user they would have to wait for 3 weeks for special tracks just to mount the cd-rw drives?? (The cdrom-rw was also made by HP)
Ask anyone who bought ram for an SGI or Sun workstation?
I was under the impression that new world macs are more open. Jobs saw to that to make more peripherals available to the macs when he returned. This is why Linux runs on them and not older world macs.
The trick to save money is this. Don't buy the upgrade options from Apple's website. By the ram at compusa or from micron direct. If you want gigantic storage, buy a mac with teh smallest hard drive and purchase the big ones seperately.
All the macs have affordable 3d opengl cards, SATA, dvd drives -rw, USB and firewire support, flashdrive support, and MacOSX.
Things a Pseries would not have anyway.
Its great to use shockwave or photoshop on occasion or to see what a webpage will like like on IE. The dual boot option is nice.
If you want the IBM because of scsi you can also buy an adeptec scsi adapter or buy one from apple with scsi hardware including raid. They are pricey of course with that installed. Or buy the mac adeptec card yourself and buy the scsi drives seperately like I mentioned above.
There is nothing these machines wont have that the pseries has. The exception is server oriented features like hot swappable hardware and special more professional 3d cards and ECC ram. But even then I am sure the true 3d support will only be available for AIX.
Intel might become proprietary too if palidium comes into existance. MS would love to use the hardware to defeat Linux... all in the name of security of course.
http://saveie6.com/
IBM probably wants you to go out and buy a G5 system if you're a home user.
Think of it, with Apple selling G5's by the boatload, IBM makes cash, plus they don't need to support PEBKAC lusers.
If IBM sold cheap(ish) G5 rigs running Linux, they would need to support every single moron who calls them up, probably not something they want to do.
hey!
Windows NT on Alpha ran in 32-bit mode. It didn't take advatnage of any of the 64-bitness of the Alphas.
There's an evaluation board by momentum: www.970eval.com. Hopefully the price falls...
-- Bob
1^2=1; (-1)^2=1; 1^2=(-1)^2; 1=-1; 1=0.
There is nothing wrong with learning a new system. It will make you more well rounded as a computer user and for those doing support and other IT jobs, it can be valuable. If I had a G5 and a few GB of disk space to spare, I would probably install this just to check it out, figure out the differences between it and OS X, etc.
Now, I imagine there is little reason to replace OS X with Linux, but there is nothing wrong with using both.
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
The poster mentioned Java support. I didn't see anything that indicated if this was in reference to using gcj for Java support, or if IBM had contributed a full Java implementation. I would be curious to know which it might be. Since this effort seems more oriented towards a server system, it is likely not needed to support the Java GUI frameworks (AWT, Swing). This would seem to lean towards gcj (and Classpath) since it does not currently support most of the GUI functionality. But with IBM already having created a number of JVM's in the past, I wouldn't be surprised if they contributed something in this area to the Linux PPC64 effort.
If the G5s had support for ECC memory, then we could use them for modelling without taking a gamble that a flipped bit screws the results.
When days of computation go into making a calculation, the last thing you want to do is to run it again because there's a non-negligable chance that there was an uncaught bit error.
Luckily Apple have since seen the light and the new Xserve G5 at least supports ECC RAM. Before that, for affordable scientific computing, dual Opteron machines had no real competition.
This is true.
On the other hand, Linux, which also ran (and of course still does run) on the Multia was 64-bit.
Oh come now - you're on Slashdot! When something involves Linux, it doesn't have to be reasonable.
Implicit Evaluation with PHP
...and run at a blistering 5 KIPS! (Thousand Instructions Per Second)
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
Read the fucking, uh, summary: "a 64-bit kernel as well as a 64 bit user space." OS X, while lovely, is not a 64-bit operating system.
(Also, PowerMac G5s aren't the only computers that use the PowerPC 970; IBM also sells some.)
You know, not that long ago people would've said the same thing about running Linux on x86...
http://www.talknerdy.org
umm
Second, this needs not be limited (and indeed is not) to G5. I guess for an Apple fan Power970==G5, but there are such things like Power970 workstations/blades that have nothing to do with Apple. After all, the chip is IBM's, not Apple's. Can you run OSX on an IBM PPC64 blade? I didn't think so.
Mods, how can this post be informative when the article clearly counted G5 as just one example in the list of supproted archs?
This is just another Apple fan confusing G5 with PPC64, nothing more.
i've tried the whole linux-on-a-mac thing many times, and on the older machines, its hardcore. mac os 9, IMO, sucks really hard, so running Debian on a PowerMac 7500 (i think that was the model) was really cool, and brought extended functionality to that aged old-world machine. but gentoo/debian/yellowdog instead of mac os x on a desktop? i don't think its worth it. maybe for cluster computing, or servers, or whatnot to avoid licensing issues. but i think those that honestly think linux is better and/or more functional than mac os x on the same machine are smoking something that, if not already, should be made illegal (or government sanctioned). user interface? osx wins hardware compatibility? osx wins, it was made for the hardware after all multimedia? osx wins software availability and ease of use? osx wins again the only area where i could think that you would want to use linux over os x is if you are a linux developer and NEED full compatibility with hardware-related procedures, or if you are a 13 year old kid who got a mac, dont feel like learning OS X (which takes the better part of a measely hour), and think you're gonna be l33t by running a "free" os rather than mac os. if thats the case, go for it. but IMHO you're wasting your time. especially with a fully-functional GCC, xcode, X11, terminal, and BSD base.
Cut+paste the following short C program into a text file, and compile it with "gcc whatever_you_called_it.c"
#include "stdio.h"
int main(void) {
if(sizeof(void *)==8)
printf("Hooray, this is a 64-bit system!\n");
if(sizeof(void *)==4)
printf("Damn it
exit(0);
}
On: Alpha, HPPA64, PPC64, IA64, x86-64 (in 64bit mode), MIPS (in 64bit mode), you get the "Hooray".
On Mac OSX, you get the "Damn". Yes, even on a G5. A G5 might have 64-bit CPUs, but it doesn't have a 64-bit OS. Linux/PPC64 is such an OS.
A good filesystem is another nice thing Linux has that OS X doesn't. XFS and Reiser4 to name just two
Oh... well then... I'm a retard. Thank you for pointing that out to me.
Listen to my experimental-industrial-techno!
So, yes, even though OS X has much better functionality on Mac computers than Linux because they are on their home turf, with the hardware specially tailored for the OS and vice versa, this distro of Linux can take advantage of the 64 bit processing, something that the stock OS lacks.
Or I could have gotten it all wrong... Go ahead and flame.
I'll just say this..
"Why not?"
Why would anyone run yet another lame Linux distribution on their G5
Because Apple makes really great hardware, but I don't use software that doesn't come with source code and the freedom to improve it.
I used Apple systems while growing up, and I've always thought (most of) their hardware was fantastic.
In the time since I installed MkLinux DR2.1 on my family's PowerMac 7500 back in 1997, I've decided that the long term advantages that come from free software are worth much more than the few slight and temporary advantages a proprietary program might offer, so as far as I can, I use only free software.
The OS X kernel ("Darwin") is free software, but the interesting stuff- Cocoa and the GUI stuff is proprietary.
You might might not think that software freedom is important, but some people do, and the combination of that concern with Apple's fine hardware is the reason someone would run GNU/Linux on a G5.
~Phillip
Alpha would blow the doors off PPC64 if had been developed. It would easily be past 2 GHz today and would also have SMT and/or multiple cores on a single die. Fuck you Compaq. Fuck you Hewlett Packard. Fuck you Tipper Gore. Oh wait...
Um, this statement is false. The mysql server and client are fully 64-bit... here's proof.
While we have dozens of distributions there is not a single 64bit Linux out there that is even close to being as full-featured as debian, fedora, redhat, mandrake,... on i386 are...
If you want something as full-featured as i386, then (aside from simply running i386) x86-64 is the best game in town, because it actually runs i386 binaries. For example, my copy of Mathematica for i386 Linux runs perfectly in Fedora 2 x86-64.
As an aside, x86-64 clearly contradicts the story summary's claim of being the "first linux distribution to offer a 64-bit top-to-bottom solution which is not a toy environment." Red Hat Enterprise 3 for AMD64 was released six months ago with a full 64-bit userspace environment, and I don't think anybody can seriously argue that RHEL3 is a "toy environment" compared to a beta gentoo-ppc64 release.
First off this was an IBMer not an Apple zealot. And of course while you were a bit rough around the edges, 64 bit distributions for Alphas (DEC/Digital) existed, and currently Suse 9.1 is available in release form and supports 64 bit.
Consider that Apple shipped USB before Intel platforms did, invented Firewire (IEEE1394), started shipping CD-ROM drives early on. Standardized on SCSI (finally dropped it when IDE sort of caught up to save costs), SCSI is now retired from most desktop applications and reserved for servers so Apple put server class mass storage as the default on their PCs, and put 1000BT ethernet interfaces on their computers first (in general, not as a add-on) while PCI cards cost multiple hundreds of dollars for the same funtionality. I could go on, but that would only feed the flames.
- Tjp
I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!
It's easy!
Step 1. Insert Live Gentoo CD.
Step 2. Wait 15 hours for CD to automatically compile the software in RAM (including the kernel).
Step 3. Reboot (to boot the new kernel).
Step 4. Go to step 2.
How often do you encouter Linux machines without the following:
sh
perl
awk
grep
mail
tar
What else (from a software perspective) would be required ?
"Hey boss, mind if I reboot the RS/6000? I am *dying* to try out this new KDE 3.2!!!
If I buy Apple hardware, Apple is just going to use those sales to claim more OS X installations and to try to use that as a marketing weapon against Linux.
Or you could forget about being a pawn in a marketing war and just buy the hardware that best fits your needs.