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Linux-only POWER5 server From IBM

Posted by Hemos on from the making-the-rounds dept.

vaporland writes "This story from Infoworld.com talks about IBM's new low priced POWER5 based servers which will ship with Red Hat or Suse Linux, but not IBM's AIX. My question is, will it boot up Apple's OSX Server?"

8 of 232 comments (clear)

  1. AIX limitations? by kperrier · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Is there anything on the silicon they would prevent me from installing AIX on it?

  2. Virtual Performance Hit by grunt107 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    With the supposed capacity to emulate 20 servers virtually, can these low/medium-end POWER5s actually perform adequately (comparably to the single-servers they are targeting)? That seems like a bit of a stretch.

    It is commendable, however, that IBM is maintaining its Linux focus (at least on the servers). Now if they'd start pushing the desk/laptop a little harder...

  3. Re:No. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I've been fighting with one of these for the past few days and from what I can see it doesn't bloody run anything.

    It won't do much but look pretty and no-one inside big blue seems to know sh!t about it.

    Config is a nightmare, no success yet.

    Posted anonymously should any senior management be reading this...

  4. What would be more interesting... by iamdrscience · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I would be much more interested in IBM dropping prices on a Power5 desktop. It seems unlikely, but I would buy that thing in a second.

  5. Good news by hackstraw · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This is good news. Currently, there are few 64bit platforms where the hardware and software (Linux) are supported by the vendor. I wonder how well these will perform, and more importantly will IBM release a good compiler for them so that we can use them.

  6. Redhat on Power architecture? by Dr.+Evil · · Score: 4, Interesting

    When did IBM start using Redhat on the Power achitecture? It's been SuSE for a long time now hasn't it?

  7. Re:No by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    No, because OSX does checks to look for Apple-specific hardware on boot.

    Interestingly, if you boot OS X using Pear PC a message appears during verbose boot stating "Warning: Apple Mac I/O Self Test fails", but then continues to boot. It would seem that OS X knows it's not Mac hardware, but doesn't care.

  8. Re:My answer is.... by drinkypoo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Why? You can get a 1U Sun system for under 1k$. A dual AMD 64 system comes in under 5K$ as well. I'm not saying that the IBM system isn't worth the money, just that it isn't "low cost".

    It appears that POWER5 wipes the floor with UltraSPARC IV. An 8-core POWER5 system has better performance (according to this benchmark) than a 16-core USIV system in every benchmark in which they are compared.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"