IBM Launches Power site For Developers

LeninZhiv writes "Celebrating five years of DevelopperWorks goodness, IBM has just launched a new section dedicated to the Power architecture. Initial stories include such goodies as "the developerWorks' Power Architecture challenge" and the Linux on Power Architecture toolkit. May this usher in a new era of community support for Linux on POWER outside IBM?"

Comments

Linux is available in PPC

[Anonymous Coward]

www.yellowdoglinux.com

Re:Linux is available in PPC

[jericho4.0]

POWER ain't PPC.

Re:Linux is available in PPC

[bigredradio]

To further elaborate, Linux on PPC IS similar, however, with Linux on Power you are more likely talking about 64-bit architecture (until the G5, there were no 64-bit Macs). Also the boot process for Macs and pSeries is very different. This is one of the reasons why distros that run on macs do not install on pSeries. (unless they specifically support pSeries).

For an out-of-the-box install, that leaves you with SLES and RHEL. You can hack Debian and Gentoo to work. Yellowdog (AFAIK) does not support pSeries at this time, but plans to in the future.

Storix Software PowerPC Development

SF and iPod

[bergeron76]

I bet this was why I got solicited to build my SourceForge.net project for PowerPC in exchange for a free iPod.

(I already have an iPod and I love it)

IBM must be on a new marketing campaign. Good for them, I hope...

Clearcase

[Megane]

Now if we could just get them to port ClearCase to OS X. It's already available for AIX, so the instruction set can't be a problem.

Re:Clearcase

[Guy Harris]

It's already available for AIX, so the instruction set can't be a problem.

When porting from one OS to another, the instruction set is probably rarely the main problem. (Not "never a problem", although I suspect the main instruction-set-related problems are

1. byte-order issues (software not taking byte order into account and working only on little-endian or only on big-endian platforms);
2. alignment requirement issues (software assuming that unaligned pointers can be dereferenced safely and not working on, for example, SPARC processors, where an unaligned dereference, unless the compiler is generating "safe" code, will get an alignment fault).)

If ClearCase still uses an installable file system in the OS kernel, that'd probably be the biggest issue for a port to a new OS - different UN*Xes have different VFS layers. Beyond that, there might be issues with deficiencies in the new target OS's implementation of particular APIs, or the lack of particular APIs in the new target OS, for example.

Re:On a hard, level surface.

[bursch-X]

Froogle finds some motherboards:
http://tinyurl.com/6r5nv

The Blade Center JS20 from IBM also looks nice:
http://tinyurl.com/62z9p

And there's the Pegasos:
http://www.pegasosppc.com/

Well, not much but IBM has been doing a lot to promote the PPC platform, blame the vendors.

Re:Quick Question

[Johnny Mnemonic]

Apple and IBM have been growing closer together, as a result of a) Apple using IBM's processors in their workstations, and b) IBM and Apple both rediscovering UNIX, esp the OSS kind.

Although IBM and Apple are just dating, I think that there are plans to have each other meet their parents. Doesn't it strike you as curious that IBM branded workstations a) ship with Windows, when IBM is pushing Linux and b) ship with a competitors CPU? Is it so curious that IBM might blush a little that OS X is non-windows and uses their own CPU?

Read through the Developer Site for Linux on POWER processors, and you'll find more than a few references to Yellow Dog Linux, which is Linux for PPC (particularly Macs) and even includes as a prize in a developer competition a new Apple G5 (with YDL pre-installed). Interesting that IBM doesn't see fit to award their own brand of personal computer, which I think underscores my point. Do they think that a G5 is somehow more desireable than a ThinkCentre?

And it's working on me: as a long time Apple tech supporter, I'm now in the position to recommend Windows PCs; and when I do, I rec IBMs. And not Dells.

IBM & Apple

[The Lost Supertone]

I would not be surprised in the future if A) Apple and IBM enter a joint venture with IBM computers running OS X B) IBM outright buying Apple (less likely) for OS X and some of their brilliant minds. C) Apple, IBM and perhaps another PC manufacture building PCs with PPC procs in them and selling them along side their windows PCs, (Really would HP care if they get their Procs from IBM or Intel? I doubt they much like either.) D) IBM begins selling desktop PCs with PPC procs and linux as the OS. E) IBM creates their own distro, and ships on PPC machines, likely with libraries that would still make their computers very program compatible with Apple's

Re:Lack of cheap deskop hardware

[palfrey]

Samne problem is with both to a certain extent, I don't really care what the underlying processor is, or whether it's got whichever advanced wizzy feature. The only things I care about is: is there the hardware available for the things I want to do on a particular platform, and how much processor speed do I get for my money. Right now, x86 can beat the crap out of both Power and PPC on this, simply because there's more people using x86, and so economies of scale stuff kicks in. This means that I will still be buying x86, because I'd get a less powerful system for the same price on PPC.