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Fixstars Buys Terra Soft
sgt scrub writes "If you have put Yellow Dog Linux on a PS3 or a Pre X86 Apple, or have an interest in the Cell Broadband Engine, you will be pleased to know that Fixstars has purchased Terra Soft. '"A Cell/B.E. software developer and long-time user of Yellow Dog Linux, Fixstars has great faith in Yellow Dog Linux," said Satoshi Miki, CEO of Fixstars. "This business acquisition allows us to offer a reliable and stable Linux distribution with sense of ease for our customers. I have no doubt that in the expanding Cell/B.E. ecosystem we will offer the best Cell/B.E. solution of the High Performance Computing generation."' I can't think of any group of people better suited to expand the Cell horizon."
Just expanding on this a bit... The problem as I saw it, when trying Yellowdog and others, is that they desired to support the PS3 and the old school macs with the same binary distro, so every thing's built targeting not just the generation before cell but 2 or 3 before it and optimized for the entirely wrong pipeline. Add to this the fact that ALL of the device's IO is arbitrated by a software layer in the hypervisor (including network IO), the 256mb of ram, and the blocked GPU and VRam (no CUDA), and the Cell itself being restricted to 6 cores (1 disabled for yield, 1 reserved for the hypervisor) this platform is essentially useless for anything but educational toy purposes as far as high performance computing is concerned. Granted, it's a GAME CONSOLE not a super computer, but Sony DID promise to 'fully' support linux and homebrew on these machines. I can understand them wishing to protect their interests, and don't blame them for the hypervisor setup, however being able to use the vram and gpu for CUDA tasks would have made this thing bearable for this use. And Yellowdog not aiming for the lowest-common-denominator would have made it fun and maybe even practical. I sure hope Fixstars fixes this.
You're thinking PS3...
That's *AN* implementation of the CellBE architecture- one that Sony had 'em cripple. There's another one IBM makes for people that's very, very fast and is at the heart of several supercomputer projects for things like on Nuke Subs done up by Mercury Computer Systems and with things like Fixstars sells.
Whomever modded your remark "insightful" didn't get that the PS3 was but one of several different CellBE iterations.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Not having heard of Fixstars before, I'm not sure what to make of this. Their website reports that it is "the pioneering company of the Cell Broadband Engine," presumably leading the way for later entrants such as IBM, Toshiba, and Sony.
I remember TerraSoft mostly for overpriced hardware obviously intended for developers with a corporate checkbook behind them. I would look at the prices and decide that Apple was the cheaper source for PowerPC systems.
How about Fixstars? Looking at the web store, I can get Sony PS3 ($450), GigaAccel PCIe card (no price or delivery date listed), a fully populated IBM BladeCenter Chassis ($170,800), or a YDL PowerStation with "Quad-core 2.5GHz IBM 970MP CPUs" ($1895).
The YDL Powerstation sounds interesting and affordable. "Quad-core CPUs" (plural!) for $1895. How many quad-core CPUs, exactly? There is a "learn more" link, but really nothing more there. Less, in fact. That's about the level of detail I used to see from TerraSoft.