Slashdot Mirror
SGI Clarifies Multiple OS Strategy
Silly-G writes "SGI's free DevCentral web site features a story called "SGI Invests in OS Technology" that "updates information about recent developments" on SGI's four supported operating systems: Linux, IRIX, UNICOS and that other operating system. Perhaps nothing new is discussed but at least it's clearly described in one breath. Tons of interesting info including delivering intellectual property to the open source community, the upcoming IA-32 Linux server, the relationship with VA Linx Systems, the IA-64 Linux port, and the accelerated OpenGL graphics environment for Linux. "
Does anyone have any pricing information on SGI computers? SGI, along with Sun, and many other high-end Hardware/Software vendors refuse to give you a price for their products. I'm not interested in pricing on NT boxes, just the IRIX boxes, like the 02, and the Octane (even the Onyx2). Anyway, maybe there's a website that sells SGI boxes...
I have no witty quote...
The link is just a technical document explaining XFS... no software.
--
The world is neither black nor white nor good nor evil, only many shades of CowboyNeal.
AFAK, Unicos and IRIX are going to fade out along with their supported hardware, which will take a fair number of years. It's not like Linux will be powering current T3E's.
Keep in mind that developing and supporting an OS costs a LOT of money. SGI has stated that it just doesn't make economic sense for anyone to always play catchup with the Joneses by adding features that are the must-haves du jour. It is far easier to start from a common OS base and then add value on top of it. The splintered nature of commercial Unix almost killed it, remember?
So, once IA-64 based systems are reality, Linux on them with appropriate extensions to accommodate high-end features makes a whole lot more sense than porting existing Unices.
SGI is slowly migrating features from Unicos into IRIX (DMF and SCSL recently) and at the same time migrating features from IRIX into Linux (XFS is a recent example). Eventually, a variant of Linux will be able to power a true supercomputer, no doubt. (Yeah, I know about Beowulf. I'm talking about tighter integrated systems here.)
Posted by rdobbs:
Linux was never designed to run the kind of hardware that the Cray and Origin SuperComputers run as standard equipment. We're talking a million dollar+ machine here, why run an OS that's free. As I recall of hand, UNICOS is free with the computer. Companies that spend that much on hardware aren't going to abandoned a tried and true platform for an upstart on which NONE of their modeling software, code, or simulations will run without extensive rewrites.
I'm not bashing Linux here - but I really doubt that Linux was ever intended to compete with a SuperOS. Linux is pretty powerful, but your talking a total rewrite of the entire system to even get it to boot one of those bad-boys.
If you have the millions to get your hands on the machine, and the time to port the system - be my guest. I'm just saying that you'd have a lot of catch-up pedalling to do to even get in the same league as UNICOS...
Good to see that SGI is still a cool inovative company that inovate instead of playing follow-john as other companies, I was sceptical about their NT strategy before, good to see they still on the UNIX track. SGI still rulez. Great informative article btw.
Please santa, can I have that sexy purple Onxy2 128-CPU Infinite Reality Monster at christmas?
Clearly the AC who posted this is more than a little biased. Certainly they are more than a little wrong.
SGI is a systems and solutions company. The article definitely says that SGI will not, quoting the poor misguided AC, "ditch Unix for NT". Quite emphatically, SGI is fully in support of what its customers request in terms of OSes and support.
What I have seen in recent months has been pure FUD spewing from little Sun driods and lackeys about SGI. It is amazing how many times I run into people who have heard this nonesense from a Sun lackey, and never questioned it. Well, I guess the old salt is true, you can fool most of the people most of the time.
Regardless, SGI is alive, and on the 21st of July we will hear how healthy it is, and possibly more about its focus and direction w.r.t OSes. This developer document looks like the first salve.
Are you clueless or just trolling? SGI has been doing ports (very slowly but still porting) since 96 WAY before the hype or trend started with Linux.
Also SGI is not just a workstation company. They have 7 out of 10 of the fastest supercomputers in the world. Checkout www.top500.org if you would like some proof, they are trying to compliment their line not kill it.
In the workstation world, SGI is, is regain some marketshare in the VERY lowend workstation market (very is a relative term 3000 is very low in digital effects studios). They are not getting rid of their other SYS V unix lowend platform the O2, they are just trying to get some additional customers, that they can funnel into an O2 or Octane when they run out of internal machine bandwidth. It's better to have customers running NT then not running your product at all.
SGI is a terrible marketing company, which is probably the root of most of their ills; not trying to get new customers by getting customers on lowend and moving them into highend boxes.
change the logo will ya?
Intel/NT/Linux killed the cube.
If they are "Just another NT company", then why are they doing the things that they are?
:-J )
They have been very active in developing their IRIX Operating system. 6.5 is very stable, and very feature complete, and very friendly. There is a GUI for most common tasks. If you are into any kind of media application, it is very hard to compete with IRIX given that the BASE OS provides many functional media tools, that are add-ons for everyone else.
From what I see, they are seriously trying to develop solutions in the Linux space as well as the NT one. Just because they have released an NT product does not make them a sellout. They did what they always do. Make killer hardware, and code to run on it. They did produce their own HAL for NT. This is clearly different from "all the other companies" who do a little tweak here and there to get performance. Their Visual Workstation was designed to run other things anyway. It boots with an ARC loader, and comes with simple install tools. Just like the IRIX based machine the O2. If you know both machines, you can't miss the likeness in design. (Internal design that is...) You need to take another look at one of these before deciding that they are just another NT company. (NT still does suck even on a great machine tho
These machines will run Linux, and they will have full Open-GL support under X. For graphics they will most likely set the standard for GLX under Linux.
Blogging because I can...
Posted by rdobbs:
So that's the stuff their putting on the 4 color glossies (technical specs). Well, your technically correct in that aspect. Now the trick is - could they fix all the short-comings in NT to even have that impressive system architecture make a difference?
It looks like a stream of capitalized profanity to me.. What's the question, or are you being funny?
Of all the comments I've ever posted, this is definately one of them
If I said I was heading North, East, West and South you'd say I was going nowhere, not a direction.
I don't think they have a chance of real success with any of them unless they choose to dump at least two.
-- "Most people prefer a popular myth to an unpopular truth"
Nothing really new.
They switched from Sun-News to XWindows in the past.
They switched crude GL to Open GL.
Buried way in the back of that article is a brief mention of a TCP/IP stack patch that SGI claims can quadruple Apache performace on a Suse system they are running. Does anyone know anything about this? They appear to indicate that it won't be released for quite some time yet, but it seems like this is just the kind of thing the kernel needs in the ongoing benchmark wars. Any info, anyone?
Remember DEC tried to be a please-everyone OS company. They supported VMS, Ultrix, and DOS
(low end) computers. It gave them a diffuse identity and fragmented market they eventually lost.
However SGI has different mission than DEC-
mainly graphics computing versus departmental computing. The OS choice then is less important.
Could someone fill me in on what astrobiology is (and why you would need a 512-processor Origin for it :)?
Not that I really *need* any hardware. Hehe. I can stop whenever I want.
This sig is false.
Bill - aka taniwha
--
Leave others their otherness. -- Aratak
The TNT2 and the hardware of the VW have different purposes. The TNT2 is optimized to render relatively few large, multi-textured polygons. The VW is optimized to render huge numbers of small, shaded polygons. TNT2s have absurdly high textured fillrates, but lower polygon throughput. VWs have somewhat of the opposite, although, their textured fillrate is nothing to sneeze at.
SGI is cool.
The notes say SGI has released XFS recently for Linux, yet the link they give is to an internal development box no one can get at. Anyone see it loose out there?
--
The world is neither black nor white nor good nor evil, only many shades of CowboyNeal.
why was this moderated to -1 Troll?? it seems like a pretty innocent question.
hello?!?? moderators?
Check out Elberon's comment - IS HE PRESCIENT OR WHAT?
Actually, this is so good we could probably point people who want a "Linux roadmap" to it.
fish and pipes
'linx' ne 'linux'
"Perhaps nothing new..."
Nothing new indeed. This is all information that can be gleaned from SGI's latest 10Q submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission in March. Geeks would do well to read a financial document or two every once in a while. Read the PDF of SGI's 10Q form -- a "forward-looking document" penned by SGI and turned in to the Wall Street types. (Click on the link to the Q3 1999 PDF under the heading "10Qs.")
In the 10Q, SGI further defines present and future markets, lays out risks and puts their tarot cards on the table. It makes for interesting reading for some of us. SGI says some things in the 10Q that would make the SGI-faithful faint. Shrinking supercomputer market. (Yes, SGI has the lion's share of that market. So? If a market is shrinking, by their own admission, how does that help them succeed?) A move to the low- to mid-range desktop and server market.
As someone else indicated, SGI's earning statement, due out later this month, will tell more. I hope it's better news than last quarter's statement.
Consigned to flames of woe.
I agree, Linux will never be supported on the big iron like Cray's and Origin 2000 or other MIPS machines like Octane and O2 thats why SGI focuses their Linux support on the lowend Visual Workstation market. I think Linux can successfully compete on the middle-end (middle-end for SGI but high-end for PC server players) server market with 16 and 32 CPU servers for E-commerce and databases, etc.
SGI has been the busy bee. Early birds catch the worm.
:)
Perhaps their stock will climb high enough to buy a quad proc workstation this fall . . . I'm already losing sleep and litres of saliva thinking about it.
This message contains statements that are predictive and uncertain in nature
Some of you really good x86 assembly programmers
take a look at the architecture and you'll see
why.
*sigh* SGI is just another company where the PHB has decided to follow the "trend" as seen in countless fancy diagrams from Gartner Group and other useless "industry analysts".
So, they have decided to ditch Unix for NT. Some of the engineers are of course unhappy with this and still wishes to run Unix (IRIX or Linux or whatever).
They will learn the same lesson as many other hardware companies. Try to migrate to be "just another PC-pusher" won't work for a large company with their cost-mass. They will lose money on every PC sold, and will finally be bought by Dell or Packard Bell or something like that.
It's time to move away from SGI. Don't say I didn't warn you.
Looks like we now know at least three SlashDot accounts that are owned by the same person using different e-mail addresses. Apparently, he has yet another account that received moderator access -- we won't be seeing that one here, since you can't post and moderate on the same thread. Make that, not from the same account, anyway.
Elberon, eponymous cohort, and rdobbs appear to be related, though the four accounts (these three plus the unknown moderator) are not necessarily all the same person, since they could be a group of people posting in concert. I do not believe that this really happened independently. For all I know, the AC who appears to be so impressed with (and fooled by) the result could be from the same person or group, congratulating himself.
I am not part of the scheme, though I realize now that I can't prove it. (Why would I blow the whistle on my own game? Maybe to let "myself" be the clever one who saw through it? This is not the case. Really.) This may be a bit juvenile, but it's still pretty cool -- this sub-thread should be framed.
David Gould
David Gould
main(i){putchar(340056100>>(i-1)*5&31|!!(i<6)<< 6)&&main(++i);}