Slashdot Mirror
Compaq has a Offical Linux Web Page
David Dula writes "Compaq has put something up official about
alpha hardware for linux with prices and everything. No compaq software support yet but
there is hardware support offered. "
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
You're breaking my slashmeat package in tik everytime ya add a new one! :)
Seriously, I know how to fix it, but what is the proper way to resize these gifs in gimp, because I did the sgi one yesterday, but it looks really weird!
Anyone know if Linux would work on a Compaq Presario 920 CDS? It's a 486 with onboard sound and video, and only 1 ide controller.
Compaq has AN Offical Linux Web Page
please, Rob.... =)
Offical???
Alright, give the man a break, I guess!
I can have a high end dual processor Intel system for much less than that. Actually, I could probably have TWO very well equipped dual processor Intel boxes for less money than that.
.26DP flat, digital 1600x1200 res. - $459.99
:-)
Quoting prices from a local source, which is far from the cheapest:
128MB SDRAM - PC100 - $200
Tyan BX Dual PII Board (Tiger 100) - $229.99
2x Intel Pentium II 400 w/fan 100MHz - $390/ea. or $780 subtotal
Mitsumi 3.5", 1.44MB - $17.99
4.3 GB Ultra Wide 7200 rpm SCSI - $259.99
Mid Tower ATX w/250W - $49.99
Tekram 390F PCI Ultra Wide SCSI3 Card w/Bios - $99.99
Enhanced 104 soft Keyboard - $9.99
Mitsumi High Resolution Mouse - $7.99
Matrox Millenium G200 AGP 8MB - $99.99
Network Card PCI 10/100 - $24.99
Toshiba SCSI 40X CD-ROM Drive - $99.99
That comes to $1880.90 per machine.
Why not add in:
Creative Labs LIVE value - $89.99
Labtec 20W/10W (RMS) Amplified Speakers w/ Subwoofer - $69.99
HP Laserjet 5 12ppm 600dpi - $849.99
CTX 19"
US Robotics External 56K V.90 - $149.99
Seagate SCSI 8GB TR4 int. - $239.99
9 GB Ultra Wide SCSI - $399.99
That brings us up to $4140.83.
For another $400, bringing us up to $4,540.83 we can have dual 450MHz CPU's rather than the 400's. We still have a lot of money left over so how about $200 more, bringing us up to $4740.83 for another 128MB of 100MHz SDRAM, bringing us to a total of 256MB SDRAM. Wow. We still have boatloads of money left over. What to do with it all? You could spend a few more bucks on a better video card... spend a bunch of money on some good Linux books... or maybe even *gasp* get a life.
Alpha processors are fast, folks... but are those Compaq systems, even the lowest priced models, worth as much as the ~$4,800 system we put together at retail over the counter prices? You could shave a lot off of that dollar figure, even, if you scoured Computer Shopper magazine for the lowest mail order prices on all of these components.
Heck for the lowest Alpha price on that page I'll bet we could put together a 4 way Xeon system that would hand Compaq its ass on a silver platter without breaking a sweat.
um, the "AN" in all caps is probably for emphasis
Digital was supporting
linux before they were
bought out by Compaq.
The linux alpha boxes
is the legacy of the
old DEC. You don't see
Compaq coming out with
LinTel boxes, do you?
Hey, I wonder how
OpenVMS is doing????
The page says "Compaq engineers have been cooperating with the Linux community on the Alpha port since May of 1994"...
Uh, those were DIGITAL engineers in May of 1994. Compaq gets no credit.
At least Compaq hasn't shut down production on the Alpha systems, which while pricey, do extremely kick some serious CPU butt. Ah... 64 bits at absurd speeds... makes me all tingly.
--(neither a Digital nor Compaq engineer)
Well, the hi end Compaq runs at 500MHz, so that 50MHz faster right? ;=)
hhmmm... a 64 bit kernel vs. a 32 bit kernel using the great satans chips. Compaq Alpha's are very fast and I can't wait until the chips flood the market.
first i've heard that "Linux" was actually trademarked... wow.
What am I missing here? I mean, a few years ago Intel couldn't hold a candle to Alpha. But these latest Intel chips, heat pumps though they may be, are pretty darned fast. If I dump $3,500 into the fastest Intel system I can get for that money, and same for Alpha, is the slowest Alpha really going to be faster than the fastest Intel?
Alpha 533MHz CPU on a motherboard with 2MB cache... how does this compare to dual Intel Pentium II 400's? 450's?
Digital is no more. All of those engineers formerly known as Digital are now known as Compaq. Fact of life. Deal with it.
"I can have a high end dual processor Intel system for much less than that. Actually, I could probably have TWO very well equipped dual processor Intel boxes for less money than that."
Don't forget how many apples and oranges you could get for that money...
"Heck for the lowest Alpha price on that page I'll bet we could put together a 4 way Xeon system that would hand Compaq its ass on a silver platter without breaking a sweat."
You don't have a clue -do you?
-Me
The 1GB boards haven't been qualified on the DS20 yet, these boards won't ship until Q2CY99. You may be able to get over the 512MB barrier by using multiple 512MB boards, however the DS20 is newly supported (kernel 2.2) by Linux and there may be other issues specific to the DS20 and Linux that I am unaware of.
64 bits at absurd speeds...makes me all tingly.
:-D
and running at a temperature highly optimised to make omelets or sandwich
I have had nothing but the blues installing and
using RedHat 5.0 and 5.2 on various Compaq boxes
at work. Mostly my problems are due to what seems
to be a no longer supported AMD scsi driver in
Linux. But I can't say that I love Compaq. These
boxes are some of the most non-standard hardware
I've dealt with, even when using windoze.
You're correct as far as the FP advantage...
However, the P-II 450 clocks a SpecInt in the 16-17 range... which is not far from the 19 listed above... for about half the price!!
And for webservers, database servers, and a LOT of other server functions, having SMP *will* give you an advantage...
Ricardo
Just every component on that Alphas mainboard is _way_ better than anything Intel dreamt of.
Intel sucks, period. (Oh, yes it's cheap...)
Please take one more look at the specification on those Compaqs before you compare them with (basicly) an PC/desktop machine.
-Me
Gentlemen,
As was stated before, Digital is no more. To
deny the fact that these people now work for and
are paid by Compaq is not facing reality, and not
allowing the results of these people's work to
be acknowledged.
Whether you think these people were "rebels" or
not, their work and help to the Linux community
was known at the highest levels of the old DEC,
and the new Compaq.
I run Linux Slackware on my Presario 4504, it has an integrated video and sound on it too.
Well, let me try to answer your question:
1.- If you are doing things that have a heavy
floating point component, even 4 Xeons are
unable to keep up with 1 500Mhz 21264
(4x13.9 SPECfp against 1x58.2 SPECfp)
2.- Multiprocessor support on Intel machines
is not that good that you can scale
linearly with your number of CPU's. Expect
empirical results to give you 100%x1st CPU
60% for the second, 40% for the 3rd and
about 35% for the fourth
4.- There are lots of tasks that aren't easily paralellizable. That's why a myriad slow processors usually can't keep up with a
single fast CPU.
5.- There are times when you need _virtual_
memory in excess of 4Gb (well Xeons have
a 36Gb limit, but its use in quite unpractical). Thus you need 64 bit pointers
and a 64 bit operating system. (Alpha _is_
a 64 bit microprocessor). You just can't do
that in a Xeon.
6.- The are lots (and when we are talking about
databases you can say _all_ ) applications
which need huge quantities of data to be
pushed around. a single Alpha's bandwidth is
about 4 times that of the Quad Xeon you
mentioned, thus avoiding the CPU to stand idle
most of the time.
7.- The 4-way Xeon is as high as you can get (8-ways are not available as of now) and it
barely compares to the 21264 in raw CPU power.
If you are planning to need more CPU power
on the future, you can upgrade to a 2-way
21264, 4-way, 8-way.... Thus you avoid having
to purchase a brand new one when you get to
your computational limit.
I hope that helped. Feel free to contact me at
ernat (at) convex dot es
Posted by Uncle Drax:
:[
Notice Compaq spelled Linus as Linux..
2 Steps forward, 1 back..
Can anyone with experience comment on how much faster these $15,000 Compaq Alpha machines are than, say, a $1000 P-II 450 with a 3D accelerator?
... but, having no experience with this, I could easily be wrong ...
I'm honestly curious, because the prices are really high but who knows, maybe the performance (video, CPU, IO, disk) makes up for it?
Also I love the idea of owning a non-Intel Linux box but I've become lazy and am too used to simply installing binary RPMs for 386, and I imagine there are alot fewer RPMs for Alpha. Also I imagine that alot of programs out there used on Linux don't work on the Alpha
They rewrote the Titanic page to stop trying to strongly hint that it was Digital Unix on the renderfarm!
The next Cmdr Taco duplicate will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
Clinton made me a Republican. Bush made me a Libertarian. Trump is making me question reality.
From the web site:
"Currently 512MB of memory is the maximum supported on the DS20 with Linux"
Errr.... I kind of thought half the point of going with 64bit architecture and OS was so you could use lots of RAM and disk.
Anyone know if this is a:
1. limitation of Linux
2. limitation of the Alpha port of Linux
3. limitation of the RedHat distro of the Alpha port of Linux
4. some other reason
5. a complete lie
???
-----
The processors used are Alpha 21264 500Mhz CPUs. Approximately twice the SpecInt performance of a 400Mhz Xeon. There are two of them.
Memory bandwidth is twice as much as Intel.
66Mhz, 64-bit PCI slots. There is now way you can use a duplex GbEthernet in a PC, unless it is very low traffice (let alone the fact that there are no 32-bit 33Mhz adapters available)
Processor/memory bus is based on a three-way switch, making DMA transfers faster, and optimizing memory access and SMP.
They are built. The prices you have quoted are for components only, you didn't include the cost of assembly, testing, and burnin. The machine you listed does not have a 3-year, enterprise-level, on-site service contract. How much is that worth?
You're paying for the Compaq name.
Again, these are SERVERS, not workstations. The components are usually much higher quality than the components you purchase for your PC.
The Alpha CPU is 64-bit, great for huge databases and other memory-oriented or transaction-oriented applications.
FP kicks ass. You might by these for heavy-duty scientific applications.
For some applications, the PC you just built might be good, but for other applications the Compaq Alpha servers are better.
For a better comparison:
AMI MegaPlex Quad Xeon m/b
2MB built-in ATI video
8 32-bit PCI, 4 64-bit PCI, 2 ISA
Includes custom chassis
3 600-watt power supplies
3 boards total
~ US$10,600
2 Intel Xeon 400Mhz 1MB cache
2 @ ~ US$1,995 == ~US$3,390
128MB ECC PC100 SDRAM DIMM
~ US$200
Total: ~US$14,190
That is the rough equivalent of the DS120 system, which appears to be a bare-bones system. This board has more PCI slots, and can physically hold more memory, but the Xeon is pretty much the end of the line for the P6 core, while the 21264 has a much longer life ahead of it.
This is the core system, and I'm already beyond US$14,000. This is the very rough equivalent of a DS20
"4. If you wish to use an IRC client, connect to server chat.msnbc.com and join room #msnbc."
/mill
EV6-500 is more than twice as fast as Xeon-450 in integer and more than 4 times as fast in FP. So dual EV6 (approx 13000$) should be compared with quad Xeon.
Its an interesting fact that single-processor EV6 beats quad-processor Xeon in specFP...
This'll become more interesting as Samsung brings their production up, EV67 (750Mhz+) is released, and Slot A commodity motherboards become available. I expect EV67 CPU+MB to cost around 3000$, which should beat crap out of anything intel puts up.
Dang! pressed enter!
www.spec.org, other sources.
The memory bandwidth of the DS20 is 5.6GB/sec, it has two independent 64-bit PCI busses (think gigabit ethernet and the multichannel 64-bit RAID cards) one or two 256 bit wide memory busses, 2MB of L2 cashe per CPU, double the spec-int and 4x SpecFP of a high end Xeon or PII system (400-500MHz)
This DS20 is a server. Don't do this at home.
Happy? I don't like it when insulting language is used either.
JRDM
Maybe there is a bug on that specific motherboard.
Linux has been tested on Alpha boxes with 2 gigs
of RAM and works properly. Any problems here wold
be specific to the server.
Onless it's 2.0.xx which has memory problems of
it's own.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
|And the cases they use look semi-slick but are
:)
|such a major pain in the ass to open and close,
|it's ridiculous.
I dunno. The case on our lab's Dimension XPS P90 is easy to open, though it doensn't seem to be a very sturdy case. At any rate, it's easier to get into the Dell than the Gateway boxes.
However, we've also had the most trouble with the Dell. I'd rather have a more-difficult to get into case that I didn't need to get into so often.
-- Rick
|Also I love the idea of owning a non-Intel Linux
|box but I've become lazy and am too used to
|simply installing binary RPMs for 386, and I|
|imagine there are alot fewer RPMs for Alpha.
On the Alpha, as well as on the other non-x86 Linux systems, rpm --rebuild on a source RPM is your friend. Half the time, I download source RPMs anyway when available, as that way I can feed my Alpha and my Cyrix off of one download.
|Also I imagine that alot of programs out
|there used on Linux don't work on the Alpha
Binary-only programs you'll have trouble with, though you can run some of them through em86 (the Intel emulator). You can get Applixware for Alphas for "office" type work.
There's no native Alpha-Linux Netscape. On an Alpha, you need to use Digital Unix netscape ($$$ for the libraries you need to run it), x86 Netscape under em86 (slow and buggy), or a natively compiled Mozilla (faster and buggy). Or, you can use kfm if you want all the KDE baggage. A Mozilla compiled with lesstif can be had on my homepage (see URL above), and other ones can be had on the Alpha-Linux page (http://www.alphalinux.org).
-- Rick
...over a Dell anyday. Their products cost more but you get what you pay for (kinda like Sun...). And besides when was the last time anyone did any fantastic graphics work on a Dell???
Sanity.html - Error 404 not found
I think it's cool that Compaq put up a "community" page that describes DEC/Compaq's historical contributions to the Linux Community (tm).
"You're gonna need a bigger boat." - Chief Brody
Yup, it's an issue. I recently experienced the joy of installing RedHat on a brand spanking new out of the box Compaq Deskpro (P333, big fat hard drive, lotsa ram).
It sucked.
The boot process hung on the CDrom, whether I was booting from floppy, or the functioning CDrom itself. Turns out Compaq's out of the box config is cable select slave for the CDrom. It *works*, but it causes problems. Windows doesn't seem to care, but hey, I expect that.
On top of that, the on board Ethernet, USB interfaces, and the Video *SHARE* IRQ 11. Luckily for Compaq you can change this in BIOS, or I'd be building the next Mars Pathfinder out of this fat desktop case. In retrospect, I'm thinking this may not be such a bad thing. It's good for the clue quota, anyway.
Beyond these two glaring caveats, I'm pretty happy with the Compaq. I can routinely bring any machine to it's knees, but this one performs pretty well under a good heavy load of E DR.15, x11amp, bladeenc, Netscape, a teeming horde of Eterms, and numerous other X apps.
Oh, and Redhat Support cheerily reports that Rasterman is doing well on his diet of bread and water, and that they gave him a bigger cage. =)
- billn
They're all on-board devices, integrated into the motherboard. Whether they're supposed to be that way or not, I'd prefer they be on separate interrupts. I'm a purist that way. Coward. =)
- billn
The wonderful Intel box that you will put together for half the cost will not be designed from the ground up to get the most speed out of your parts. With the DEC machines you have very tight hardware integration... things tuned to work with each other.
Your beefy Pentium box would be like a Camaro with a blower. Ok on the strip, but I wouldn't want to be driving it around all the time.
And if anyone is curious, my AS200 4/233 runs X with KDE beautifully with only 32 MB ram. Only one crash in the past month. My Compaq PII 400 has 256MB ram and still crashes at least once a week.
These Compaq computers come with a 3 year ON-SITE warranty. This means that Compaq's engineers will fly out to you and hold your hand if you get edgy about hooking up your new monitor. You or I wouldn't pay for this, but those more ignorant will. OEM Alphas and clones are much cleaper.
On their feedback page, the written email address (unix-webmaster@compaq.com) is wrong -- messages bounce. However the feedback mailto: link (unix-webmaster@digital.com) seems to work -- no reply yet, but no bounce either.