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4-Way Sun Fire V40z Reviewed
Hack Jandy writes "Anandtech has a pretty thorough analysis of Sun's V40z 4-way Opteron server that fits in a 3U. Among some of the more noteable benchmarks include a 2 minute, 30 second Linux 2.6.4 kernel compile! Who would have thought only a few years ago that Sun would be the new champion of Linux and AMD?"
This isn't a triumph. It's a travesty. It's a dangerous thinness, the latest symptom of a mass extinction that will take computing a long time to recover from, if it ever does.
If this trend continues, you will only have the option of running your choice of OSS Unix or Windows on x86. There is no future for any other sort of chip... now that Sun's all but given up, all that's left is IBM making chips for Apple and the biggest of the big iron. Even Palm and ARM is winking out, one licensee at a time...
If you're about to invent a better way to do computing on the desktop or in the server room, don't bother. The barriers to entry are now insurmountable.
Welcome to the new Wintel world. Linux is just a way of making the monopoly feel like something else, except to those of us who remember a time when real workstations and servers stomped the earth with fire and fury... SGI Indigos, DEC Alphastations, HP Superdomes, Siemens Pyramid, Fujitsu 64's. Now it's all gone. Just x86 forever and ever, Amen.
Those who have never used anything but PC's, and the glorified PC's that pass for workstation and servers, in their personal and professional life will never understand the frightening emptiness out there. Maybe that's just progress and commoditization for you, the dinosaurs dying off... but evolution does not guarantee progress. Neither do market pressures.
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