IBM Releases Cell SDK

derek_farn writes "IBM has released an SDK running under Fedora core 4 for the Cell Broadband Engine (CBE) Processor. The software includes many gnu tools, but the underlying compiler does not appear to be gnu based. For those keen to start running programs before they get their hands on actual hardware a full system simulator is available. The minimum system requirement specification has obviously not been written by the marketing department: 'Processor - x86 or x86-64; anything under 2GHz or so will be slow to the point of being unusable.'"

Comments

Wikipedia article question

[goofyheadedpunk]

Not knowing too much about the cell processor I read the wikipedia article. I came across this: "In other ways the Cell resembles a modern desktop computer on a single chip."

Why?

Re:Wikipedia article question

[AKAImBatman]

Um. That's kind of a weird statement. I think they mean to say that it encompasses much of the multiprocessing capabilities of a modern PC in a single chip. i.e. It's your CPU and GPU rolled into one.

Cell processors aren't really anything all that new per say. The multi-core design makes them superficially similar to GPUs (which are also vector processors) with the difference that GPUs use multiple pipelines for parallel processing whereas each cell is a self-contained pipeline capable of true multi-threaded execution. In theory, the interplay between these chips could accelerate a lot of the work currently done through a combination of software and hardware. e.g. All the work that graphics drivers do to process OpenGL commands into vector instructions could be done on one or two cells, thus allowing those cells to feed the other cells with data.

I guess you could say that the cell processor is the start of a general purpose vector processing design. I'm not really sure if it will take off, but unbroken thoroughput on these things is just incredible.

Re:Wikipedia article question

[l33t-gu3lph1t3]

Easy answer - the wiki article on "Cell" isn't that good. Cell isn't a System-On-A-Chip. It's just a stripped-down, in-order power pc core coupled to 8 single-purpose in-order SIMD units, using an unconventional cache/local memory architecture. It can run perfectly optimized code very, very fast, at extremely low power consumption to boot, but optimization will be/is a bitch. For instance, you have to unroll your "for" loops to start, since those SIMD co-processors can't do loops.

I'm sure IBM and Sony have much better documentation on the CPU than I do, but that's it in a nutshell. Everything else you hear about it is just marketing. Oh yeah, almost forgot. Microsoft's "Xenon" processor for the Xbox360 is pretty much just 3 of those stripped down, in-order PPC cores in one cpu die.

Echoes of Redhat

[delire]

Why Fedora is so often considered the default target distribution I don't know. Even the project page states it's an unsupported, experimental OS, and one now comparitvely marginal when tallied.

Must be a case of 'brand leakage' from a distant past, one that held Redhat as the most popular desktop Linux distribution.

Shame, I guess IBM is missing out on where the real action is.

Re:Echoes of Redhat

[LnxAddct]

Fedora overtook Suse within a year and a half in terms of users. It is now a close 3rd to Debian which is a far second from Red Hat (Red Hat and Fedora together have around 3 times the market share of Debian, check netcraft to confirm those numbers). The numbers on distrowatch are not downloads or users, that number is how many people clicked on the link to read about Ubuntu. Mark Shuttleworth is obscenely good at getting press about Ubuntu so the Ubuntu link gets a lot of click throughs, and now that it is at the top, it is kind of self fulfilling as interested people want to read about the top distro so they click on that more.

When it comes down to it, Fedora is the most advanced linux distribution out there. It comes standard with SELinux and virtualization. It uses LVM by default, integrates exec-shield and other code foritfying techniques into all major services. It has the latest and greatest of everything. Things just work in Fedora because a large portion of that code was coded by Red Hat. Red Hat maintains GCC and glibc, they commit more kernel code than anyone else, they play a large role in everything from Apache and Gnome to creating GCJ to get java to run natively under linux. Whether you like it or not, Fedora is the distro most professionals go with, despite what the slashdot popular oppinion is and despite the large amounts of noise that a few ubuntu users create.

Out of the big two, Novell and Red Hat, Novell has never been worse off and Red Hat has never been healthier. Red Hat doesn't officially provide support for Fedora, but it is built and paid for by Red Hat and their engineers (in addition to the community contributions). By targetting Fedora, IBM knows that they are targeting a stable platform with the largest array of hardware support. IBM is in bed with both Novell and Red Hat, they didn't choose Fedora because they were paid to or something... they chose Fedora based on technical merits. Claiming that Fedora is unstable is no different than claiming GMail is in beta, both products are still the best in their respective industries. Why do people go spreading FUD about such a good produc when they've never used it themselves? Whether you want to admit it or not, Fedora is the platform to target for most. It is compatible in large part with RHEL, so you're getting the most bang for your buck.

IBM doesn't just shit around, or make decisions for dumb reasons. If Fedora is good enough for IBM it is good enough for anyone. Apparently this is a common oppinion as more and more businesses switch to Fedora desktops. Here is one recent story of a major Australian company, Kennards, replacing 400 desktops with Fedora. Don't be so close minded or you might be left behind.
Regards,
Steve