Intel on Linux
Baboshka writes "Check out what Intel has to say about Linux in the future and VA Research in the now in this informative article. Includes a short interview with Brian Biles, VP of VA. "
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One word: Merced.
The Intel/HP contingent has poured a nice chunk of change into the IA-64 chip. Now, what would you do if you were Intel right now, hhmmm?
Here you are. The amount of money you dumped into the chip is bigger than the gross national product of most third world nations. You are several months from shipping it. And now you ask yourself, who's going to use it?
Microsoft? Windows? HAHAHAHAHAHA. Microsoft's too busy getting their crap together with W2K. I don't remember ever hearing when MS intends to add support for the IA-64 chip in their OS. If ever.
Meanwhile, you keep reading that Linux will have IA-64 support right out of the box, for the chip. I recall that either VA Linux or Red Hat (or both) are working on porting the kernel to the 64 bit chip.
Right now, it looks like Linux would be the only OS that can actually support the 64 bit architecture of the Merced chip. I may be wrong, I don't read the trade press much, but for the life of me, I can't think of anything else other than Linux that has announced actual Merced support for the chip, when it ships.
Looks to me like Intel's putting all of its eggs in the Torvalds basket. Linux stands to be the only thing that can actually sell Merced chips for Intel.