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Yellow Dog Linux Finds New PPC Hardware Vendor
inditek writes "C|Net's News.com reports that Terrasoft Solutions, the vendor that sells and contributes to the development of Yellow Dog Linux has found, and continues to look for, some hardware alternatives based around the PowerPC now that Apple is moving to Intel chips. They say Apple's move makes for a good opportunity and more open space for a chip they think has a lot of life left in it." team99parody also writes "This is great news for customers like the US Navy who rely on Linux-on-PowerPC for important tasks like sonar imaging systems."
Pegasos sells non macintosh, linux-based PPC machines. At least, they would if they weren't currently out of stock.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
It should be interesting to see the effect on Yellow Dog post-x86 macintosh, to see how the PPC Linux platform can compete on its own merits. Of course the comparison will be affected by the existing base of PPC hardware and the potential of stalled development given reduced demand for the platform. IBM have been using PPC in their own products, and its possible that their own demand will continue to drive desktop PPC chip development at the same pace as current.
Business Voyeur
It's surprising where "odd" hardware/software combo's show up. I would never have suspected Linux/PPC in the Navy. How did it get there? Who knew about Linux, and PPC and had the influence to get it used there? Was it a really good sales job (and the connections that make it possible)? Or was it an insider who went looking for a platform from a clean slate?
The answers to these questions are extremely important to the further expansion of the use of Linux (or any other product/platform/system).
Helping with organizational effectiveness is our job.
Like the navy or anyone else can't get the same shit accomplished on any one of about 10-20 platforms. What is so damned special about PPC for sonar imaging.
Isn't is odd that the only time something is described as having "a lot of life in it" is when its pretty apparent the thing is dying? Why not be a little more honest say something is "not as dead as it appears"?
I can just see the new troll: "PPC is dying. Anandtech confirms it".
Heh. I remember getting all excited about PPC back in 1994 when Apple first announced the move. It seemed like it was a natural and logical extension from the 680x0 family (one of the best CPUs ever for desktop systems). It's kind of sad how it didn't wind up being as much of a player as it should have. Even the guy who wrote Minix quipped back then that the future would be everyone running some kind of *nix OS on their PPC desktops. Now that dream is gone because even Apple went with Intel. I sure hope Intel can get it together and make a decent CPU/Mobo combo that dumps all backwards compatibility, BIOS and segmented memory.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
"It should be interesting to see the effect on Yellow Dog post-x86 macintosh, to see how the PPC Linux platform can compete on its own merits. Of course the comparison will be affected by the existing base of PPC hardware and the potential of stalled development given reduced demand for the platform. IBM have been using PPC in their own products, and its possible that their own demand will continue to drive desktop PPC chip development at the same pace as current."
The Sony/IBM/Nintendo Cell comes to mind. Plus all the embedded systems out there.
--
The "are you a script" word for today is untidy...much like Taco's code.
This is such an interesting discussion. Which CPU is better? Better is obviously in the eye of the behold as price, power, Mhz, and apparently performance per watt matter. I was at WWDC and played with the new MacTel boxes. Interestingly the single 3.6 Ghz pentiums appear to run faster than the dual 2.7 Ghz G5's.
OK... so I'm not going to go there... but Intel is apparently coming out with some interesting new hardware. I don't know everything about it.. but it appears that they will be chainge the x86 architecture altogether. So was Apples move speculative or desperate?
Another interesting thing as brough up by the author of the post to which I am replying.. liies in the fact that certain companies are inexorably tied to their hardware. Some institutions, for example, running Pro Tools may not be able to upgrade to the new hardware as their software will not be availible. This is speculative... but it is possible.
So I'd be interested in an arcitcle that clearly lays out the differences between the PowerPC and Intel architectures and maybe even one that examines Inte's new architecture as well.
The PowerPC is undoubtably an excellent platform....but there are other factors to be considered.
Don't fix it if it aint broken. Just because you can doesn't mean you should. Etcetera...
I believe that Debian is ported to the PPC. How does Yellow Dog compare to Debian as a distribution? If I could use Yellow Dog on the x86 would I have a reason to use it instead of Debian?
not entirely. Linux is mainstream now. If you want to be a 133t p0ser, you gotta run linux on something obscure like an alpha, sparc, or ppc.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
http://fedora.redhat.com/
Apple, when the iNTEL road map lead turns out to be mostly a paper lead yet again, would keep both iNTEL and PowerPC lines. And then start porting Darwin to ARM, CELL, and other available CPUs.
(Yeah, CELL would require a port. That's probably the point that Steve got sidetracked on. My guess is the discussions of re-writing for CELL produced a lot of complaints, and a lot of, "if we're going to have to do that, why not re-write for iNTEL?" Silly middle management.)
And in the best of all possible worlds, Linux on non-Apple PPC would push commodity mobo vendors to start focusing on alternative CPUs and alternative hardware. Then we could get out of the blasted rut we are in, where, in so many shops, you can't buy a project unless it includes a whole bunch of false standards.
We finally get on Slashdot and nobody mentions the bloody company name!
:)
ARGH!
http://www.genesi.lu/
Neko
Uh, how about IBM? They continue, and do doubt will continue, to use PPC in a lot of *their* hardware. And they're big supporters of Linux... No doubt you could get a Linux on PPC setup from them!
The chip may perform well, but when the memory management requirements result in code that "can be used to scare small children" (L. Torvalds), I have to wonder: What good is an excellent chip if using it is so difficult?
A question not directly related to the article. Where would one find info on the state of support on linux on macs for specific models and how is the progress of such support occuring now that apple has essentially ditched PPC. Will all the hardware in a new g5 mac be eventually supported in linux?
and what about other os's support on Mac PPC?
I am asking this as I see this as an important question relating to support of the apple hardware. Sure one could keep running the last mac os x of ppc but eventually advacement in software I think will require a change in OS's
It would be really sad if the platform should slowly die because of the insane move by Apple. As everyone with a decent knowledge about how microprocessors work will confirm, the x86 architecture is an old overloaded crap filled with hacks just to ensure compatibility with very old machine code.
and you didn't name a single obscure platform.
if more than 2 people have heard of it, it isn't obscure.
Science : Proprietary , Knowledge : Open Source
*if you understand the fact that the difference between POWER and PowerPC is pretty small and IBM uses the term 'Power Platform'. They are API compatable in linux-land. (meaning the system that I use on my PowerPC laptop will work just fine on a Power 5 server without recompiling...)
Go check out OpenPower for starters.
These are server stuff specificly to use the Power 5 proccessors with a Linux-specific machine.
For example the low end of it is a Power 710 'express'. A rack mount system with a 1.65 ghz Power 5 proccessor with 36 meg cache(!), 2 gigs of RAM, and 2 73gig 10k SCSI drives.
Very fast, huge cache, ok amount of memory, ok fast harddrives. 4,500 USD
You can get dual proccessors for under 10k, which realy realy realy kicks the ass of anything you can get from Sun for that price range. The Power 5 systems with their 36meg cache and HUGE transistor counts blow the AMD opterons out of the water.
IBM does not have a OpenPower workstation, and does not have a OpenPower desktop though. These are server/database systems and it shows. They AIX workstations you can order, but have Linux installed on them instead if you wanted to, and those aren't much more expensive.
IBM's stuff has always been expensive though. I'd rather have a army of 3rd party manufacturers make PowerPC machines.
However I don't see much of a point, other then platform snobishness.
Personally I like my PowerPC lappy; a Apple Ibook, but it's the last one I'd buy because it's video card is the ATI 9200 and is the last supported by Open Source drivers.
There is the R300 project for newer cards, but I don't think that it's paticularly usefull at this point (although I am gratefull for it, don't get me wrong.)
Having a PowerPC machine realy drive home the values of having free software.
Free software is stable, it's cross-platform, and it 'just works'. All propriatory software runs like ass on my system, if at all. It's a night and day difference.
Trouble is, what is the advantage to PowerPC desktops over x86?
NONE that I see. The newer intel setups are faster, use less power, and are supported well by open source drivers.. much better then the overpriced apple hardware. The ibook when I bought it was vastly superior to all small Pentium 4-m systems aviable and was cheaper.. for the 12 inch long-lasting-battery form factor.
Since then Intel has surpassed it wholy with it's Centrino/Sonoma stuff.
(and beleive me, the x86 Apple stuff will be overpriced, too. I'd probably avoid it personally)
Truth is they are both proccessors, they do both the same thing. Other then price and speed, the differences are purely academic at this point when considuring their use with Linux. Both work fine, x86 allows propriatory applications easily, PPC doesn't.
To me they are on equal ground. If third parties start suppling powerpc laptops that are well supported by free software, I'd strongly considure it.. but otherwise I realy don't care to much.
IBM needs to realy get in gear about their Power systems otherwise they will simply lock themselves into a small high-end market with slowly, yet consistantly, shrinking share.
If the average geek AND the average developer can't have easy access to PPC machines then Linux will stop being cross platform in a few years. It's ineveitable, and there is nothing nobody can do about it. Most people don't have 5000 dollars to burn just to have a extra server in their basement, or feel like spending 1000 dollars for a slow ass machine of lesser quality then what they can by at walmart for 300 dollars.
The biggest hope for future PPC machine in my future will be the Sony PS3. If they release a Linux distro for it, I'll buy it in a second. At 3ghz with a limited core it will be somewhat faster then my aging AMD desktop and my 1.2ghz Ibook. The SPE's offer interesting possiblities and will be fun to mess around with, especially when it comes to things like ray tracing and whatnot. If Sony gets Nvidia to release drivers for it it can actually have the possibility of being a rather kick-ass Linux box, otherwise it will just end up being a nice toy.
Isn't this the moment when Yellow Dog Linux should declare that Linux has been leading a second, hidden life all this time, where everything has been compiled on both PPC and x86?
Yeah! And then we can all debate the wiseness of changing Linux from a PPC platform to x86!
Now, all we need is someone to crack Yellow Dog Linux so it'll run on an x86... I've got a developer's P4 with Linux already installed. I'll put the installation iso on bittorrent as soon as I make sure that there are no "unique identifiers".
www.eissq.com/BandP.html Ball and Plate System. Amuse your friends. Crush your enemies.
This is great news for customers like the US Navy who rely on Linux-on-PowerPC for important tasks like sonar imaging systems.
IBM just teamed up with a company called Mercury to build Cell-based computers for (military) applications:
As a result, demanding applications such as radar, sonar, MRI, digital X-Ray, and many others can be taken to new levels of sophistication and performance.
And as we all know, the Cell is basically a Power processor.
hmmm... what about a toaster
...and my karma dies a painful death
Sure it's an every day appliance, but as a computing platfrorm it's both obscure and suprisingly functional (now you can have your OS and eat it too)
First bsd, next step linux (perhaps a beowolf cluster)....
"goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series
Could this in theory mean someone creating PPC machines that could be used to boot PPC MacOSX?
I know the machine would need some boot code, but there's sure to be someone who could write some.
If the average geek AND the average developer can't have easy access to PPC machines then Linux will stop being cross platform in a few years.
;)
here's a cheap PPC based linux system... you might already have one in your living room...
here's an even cheaper one - though I'm not sure if it's PPC based or not...
i wouldn't worry about availability if i were you..
(Yes, those links are amazon associates links... if you really feal like sticking it to me, click here, and here for the "clean" links)
Don't call me back. Give me a call back. Bye. So yeah. But bye our, well, but alright we are on a shirt this chill.
AmigaOne is rebranded TerraSoft mobo.
Yeah, it's ALWAYS cheaper to buy something else than to use what you've got.
I had a similar experience when I picked up a used B&W G3. After trying the 'specialist' yellow-dog (and finally finding a free download rather than a buy it link), it was problematic.
The network card was incorrectly identified as sun happymeal (hme) when infact it was bigmac chipset (bmac) - a 30 min fix. Followed by editing XFree86.org to get out of 1024x768 to the native 1280x1024 my LCD screen defaults to. Change the firewall settings to enable sshd and load that in. I never got round to getting sound to work.
Found the packages I wanted were pretty old (Octave for example) after a while, thought I'd try Ubuntu.
Network autodetection and setup - check
Screen resolution ok - check
Sound - 75% ok (xmms needs working; other packages ok)
Getting packages ok - both apt-get and the gui version work (minor tweak to enable the universal packages).
For me, the free volunteer-based distro got me up and running faster than the commercial flavor.
For those with US-Navy sized budgets, prepared to pay for support and build-to-order, probably a different story.
(formatting messed up in an attempt to get round the lame lameness filter).
IBM make PPC kit, have done for ages, amazing realy given they invented it and prolly have more PPC kit out there than any other vendor including APple put together.
:)
Next obvious question today will be - how do I use a keyboard to type stuff
NeXTStep didn't support x86 until v3.1. Prior to that, it ran only on Moto 68k processors and before being ported to 68k, it ran on something else, which escapes me at this point in time. Version 3.1 also supported Sparc and PA-RISC.
NeXTStep itself was never ported to PPC. That was Apple's contribution in 1996/1997. Apple, with the engineers inherited from their acquisition of NeXT, ported the compiler toolchain and kernel of NeXTStep in the course of a few months. Rasphody was, in effect, the first version of NeXTStep for PPC.
The astonishing thing was that apps that targetted NeXT, for the most part, only needed new NIB files and a recompile to run on Rasphody.
By the time Apple quits shipping PPC, the XBox360 and PS3 are likely going to be out. How big a deal do people anticipate it to be to run YDL on them?
*sigh* homophobic remarks used to dis company/product. Really shows your intellect to demean one group of people to attack another.
On-topic: I commend YellowDog. i've installed them several times, mostly for personal use, but once for business. It's a solid platform, especially so if you need support from the vendor. We used it to re-use old Macs for administrative tasks at a company that was more Mac than Windows.
It'd be a shame to see them go the way of the LinuxPPC project, which closed down around 2001, so I hope they do keep up with decent hardware partners.
When the rumor mill first started going about the recent change to x86, I read somewhere that Apple's orders for PPC chips amounted to 5% of the annual capacity for 1 of IBM's PPC factories.
We buy 6U VME single-slot boards with four 1.2GHz PowerPC 7454, 2Gb 133Mhz DDR RAM that disipate 60W for the whole board. I can stuff a rack full of them and buy ruggedized cards that operate to 14G shock and -40-85 degrees C. Toss in Altivec for signal processing and these things kick some ass.
e WWW/04/0227/107103.html
We generally use Linux when the systems are not combat critical (trainers, etc.m which is what my company largely works with). Requirements are more stringent for combat-ready, but I know of at least a few fielded systems that use Linux -- although they are not strictly combat systems.
Check out one board we've used recently:
http://www.taborcommunications.com/hpcwire/hpcwir
We've used others from DY4, Mercury Computers, etc. that have similar performance curves.
You're an idiot. Admit it. I dare you.
I tried Yellow Dog Linux on my iBook G4 and although it installed easily, it didn't work well because the kernel was missing some extension to activate the cooler (of course, a friend told me, to download the kernel extension and recompile the kernel but... i must confess: I'm using Linux for years now, but still don't know how to compile a Linux kernel...).
;-P) that usually ship with any other distribution I tried (uhmmm, well I only tried SuSE Pro but I'm just pretending to be helluva Linux expert ;-P).
Besides I didn't like the pre-installed theme and look'n'feel very much. I tried to install some stuff, but the package manager gave me error messages regularly and I couldn't compile a lot of apps since some packages were missing (good old Linux dependency hell
In contrast to Yellow Dog, Ubuntu was another world. Easy-to-use, easy-to-install, easy-to-configure, great package management and cooler support.
My conclusion: I don't know about desktop Macs but if you want to use Linux on a portable Mac forget about Yellow Dog, use Ubuntu instead.
Regards,
Dennis B. Schramm
Sigs suck!
I can show you where to get an inexpensive PowerPC system, a tuned ATI Radeon 7000 graphics and sound system, a miniature (8 centimeter) DVD disc drive, stackable form factor, and runs Linux; for under USD 75.00 -- Nintendo GameCube. Now before everyone complains that this is not a viable platform, then you all need to explain to me what is a viable platform; Nintendo GameCube has been active on the market and just needs more attention that it has received. Yet, it looks to be nearing its end of life -- which means this is no longer a inexpensive available PowerPC solution, it is a dirt-cheap solution. Currently, this (google'd cache) project has Linux booting. There are ports specifically optimized to the typical technical differences found in such vast open hardware implementations. And what is not to enjoy, besides the fact that all this systems usefulness is crumbled without "optional" network hardware that should have been included?
I hope too, but is there any DRM? All these specialized platforms and architectures are being abused by DRM to prevent competent alternative code from loading. There are many google categorized searches for "PlayStation 3" and DRM. I think much of the intellectually free hardware has gone under the DRM radar and is being retired or being end-of-lifed, including GameCube. And if anyone wanted an inexpensive SGI MIPS graphics workstation, it looks like Nintendo 64 is already been shat off the case.
without prejudice
"If the average geek AND the average developer can't have easy access to PPC machines then Linux will stop being cross platform in a few years."
You are overlooking the veritable army of linux developers being paid by the embedded guys to make linux run on ppc. These guys will still be there long after Apple stops using the architecture.
There are literally *dozens* of ppc varents supported by linux. The PC-style ppc systems are by far in the minority.
So what's your point?
"Form should follow function...unless it's just plain ugly."
>This is great news for customers like the US Navy who rely on Linux-on-PowerPC for important tasks like sonar imaging systems.
Is this the way to read this sentence:
Although they use Linux, it's Linux on PPC so they're screwed and migration to industry standard (Inel/AMD) Linux would cost them a fortune.
If yes, well that's great publicity for the open and standard Linux OS.
If no, what the hell is that supposed to mean?
You are thinking of CARDIAC - "Cardboard Illustrated Aid to Computing"
Go here for a reconstruction in Java.
Cheers!
John
It's not difficult. Apple just choose to do it very badly.
I know about, AmigaONE, Genisi/Pegasos, Apple, and that you could purchase Apple-parts from ebay or something. Are there any other ways (which are within a student's price range), to have a working Linux/PPC system? It does not need to be _blazing fast_, but OK for a typical office computer.
Dvorak on Doomtech
This is so wrong I don't know where to start. If you go to the embedded community the PPC architecture is dominant and Intel is playing catch up. For ruggedized machines the G4 is the defacto standard. It is not "more then ready for retirement".
I know this because I had to order a ruggedized machine that would run Windows. There are NO high end P4 machines at all. If there were, I would have ordered one. The best I could find was a dual CPU Xeon unit from General Micro System with 2.4 GHz processors.
Meanwhile, there are dozens of ruggedized G4 machines. Just to name a few vendors off the top of my head: RadStone, Mercury Computer, VMetro, Thales, Curtiss-Wright, SBS, MenMicro, TransTech DSP, Sky Computers.
My company will be leaving the Windows/i86 world because our products have to be ruggedized, possibility up to FAA standards. This is much more demanding then even Mil-Spec. We will certainly be running on G4 CPUs and the follow on PPC CPUs. This may not be the G5, but so what? The desk top/lap top is not the end of the world.
I don't mean to be rude, but I don't understand why 4500 dollars for that low end OpenPower system you describe is something that someone would want. I set up the following system for my dad for 2200 dollars two years ago:
Dual Xeon 2.4 Ghz
15K SCSI drive of 39 GB
10K SCSI drive of 78 GB
7200rpm IDE drive of 200 GB
2 GB ram
Supermicro motherboard with built in Ultra 320 SCSI controller
Windows 2003 Server
Besides the cache, everything else is about the same or better than what you describe, it hasn't stopped working since I set it up.
I believe that TIVOs also use PowerPC processors, e.g. IBM PowerPC 403GCX (see http://www.9thtee.com/insidetivo.htm or the picture of the chip at that same page. It also uses an IBM MPEG-2 Decoder chip.
Heh, except that the folks who are looking at buying laptops aren't paying attention to the things that will make a good ruggedized computer. They're looing for nice big megahertz numbers, they're wondering why they can't get PowerBook G5s, and they're thinking about how you can get more performance for your dollar on a PC than with a Mac.
Dual cpu Xeons don't come close to Power 5 system.
These are entirely different classes of CPUs. It's like comparing a pickup truck to a turbo diesal semi truck.
Completely different worlds.
and it's a headline on /.
Check the specs. All the vector stuff would have to be re-written for CELL. Without the re-write, all you have is a fast G3 and some hardware doing nothing.
Now, if you ask me, the re-write would be worth it. OpenGL, for instance, could be re-implemented on the CELL SPUs, and the OS could gain some nice benefits for the visual output. But that would still not be making very good use of the SPUs.
GarageBand and QuickTime (client) could also eventually get huge gains. But there's so much that would have to be done by hand first that Apple would have to have a chip with a full G5 core _and_ a complement of the SPUs in the high-end boxes to support the dev, with little visible gain for a year or two. Then, finally, Apple would be able to use one of the Sony PS3 chips effectively in a Mac Mini.
Making the SPUs fully useable in Mac OS X would likely require a complete new API, and that's going to hurt before it feels better.
And how does one convince the PHBs at Adobe?