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IBM opens PowerPC design to LinuxPPC
David Snow writes "IBM is opening the door for Linux distributors to use computers with the PowerPC chip. This means Linux-branded G3 and G4 boxes. " Another in a
long series of pretty good Linux related moves on Big Blues part.
Who the hell want SCO ported to PPC anyway???
Sounds good to me...
Now I gotta go get one. Oh well, rent isn't that important anyways First post? rev_icon@hotmail.com
But are there PIIIs and G3s that run at the same clock-speed{
This isn't just for companies to shove Linux on, if they make Macintosh compatible hardware, what would stop anyone from bundling MacOS with it?
While I'm sure it felt good to get that off your chest, you didn't exactly contribute much to Slashdot. So count yourself part of the problem.
Don't get me wrong, I think this is great, but what is IBM's motive in doing this? They won't gain anything from offering a free design which will allow competition with Apple. I know the automatic assumption will be that IBM has jumped on the open source bandwagon, but they obviously spent some money on this. Maybe they initially decided to launch a line of desktop computers using this motherboard design, but decided not to.
Linux on any platform is chock-full of memory leaks. You tend not to get that on OSes and software developed by professional programmers (M$ programmers not withstanding:)
I've been visiting slashdot for a very long time, and news has always been Linux centric. Nothing at all has changed. Most nerds nowadays use Linux or one of the free BSD's. Besides, this is Rob's site and can do whatever he wants with it.
You tend to get that on anything written in C/C++. Which is pretty much all significant software ever.
Does this mean that we'll be seeing BeOS on G3's and G4's, too? Be was complaining that they didn't have access to the hardware specs, but this should open it up, shouldn't it?
drool, drool!
In general, every widely used operating system in
existence is vulnerable to memory leaks. That
being said, I suspect some are less vulnerable
than others depending on two things:
1) programmer quality and oversight (peer
review)
2) language used for development--in my
experience, memory leaks are less
prevalent in c than in c++, while an
operating system written in a language
with a built-in garbage collector would
presumably (given a reasonably bug-free
gc) have _far_ fewer memory leaks at
some performance expense.
Don't be a dumba**! I've used the following .search for MaxRequestsChild
commercial operating systems: Solaris, AIX, HPUX,
and BSDI. I've personally dealt with leaks in
programs delivered with AIX (snmpd) and Solaris
(certain c libs. .
in Apache's httpd.conf). I suspect that HPUX
and BSDI have delivered executables that leak as
well. I presume you're saying that AIX and Solaris
aren't developed by "professional programmers."
I'm wondering if I'm wasting time responding to
a troll.
I believe that the PPC is actually less expensive to manufacture, because the chip is less complex than X86's. Someone please correct me if I am wrong.
I quote:
"Jason Haas, marketing director for LinuxPPC Inc. of Hales Corner, Wisc., said his company has already started talking with IBM about ways to get its version of Linux pre-installed on OEM-produced computers."
[ emphasis mine ]
And of course SGI and Amiga will announce that they will be moving to this platform too. :)
He's probably out chasing more secretaries ...
I briefly spoke to the ibm rep at Linuxworld Expo and he expects them to be 200 to 500 dollars cheaper then a comparable mac. He also mentioned that there were licensing issues with Apple over the G4 so there were focusing on the G3. Did anyone else hear this? And aht about a multiprocessor board? Joey
This could be very good. PowerPC chips are faster, smaller and consume less power than Intel chips. They are smaller and consume less power than Alpha's, and perform similarly as much slower clock speeds. Having a royalty free PPC box would be killer, MacOS 9, OS X , LinuxPPX, anything. Would be great. Go RISC
B: no economies of scale and price curve effects from competition. Celerons ok obviously not for real work but good deals because they are subsidized by the margin of Xeons and faster PIII's and priced abnormally low to hurt AMD. Nothing like this exists to benefit would-be PPC consumers, until maybe now. I don't really think this will benefit mainstream consumers of PPC as the target market of these new PPC's are going to be servers probably and really early Linux desktop adopters .
they wont. Don't be so sure. If they *really* wanted they could have supported the newer macs (this is not new to all those of you who have followed be's history ..) I don't know that that's true (as I'll explain in a moment). I think it has more to do with marshalling resources at a company that has never turned a profit. I think they focus their resources on what will provide the most money for the least amount of work... ie, Intel hands them cash to port, they do. Revenue stream comes from people buying the Intel version, they tweak it, bugfix it, upgrade it, make it have more features, and they make more money. Only thing now is they won't be able to say " we don't have the specs" they'll have to clearly say : We are not interested in the PPC Anymore . This is not the case, as BeOS will boot and run on a beige G3 with no SCSI. I'm logged in as an Anonymous Coward for a reason. But it can be done, version 4.5. Don't know if 4.5 Update 1 will, but I wouldn't be surprised. But none off these boards are out yet. Oh, but when they are! I'm legitimately excited about this, and I tend to use Windows 98 and Intel boxes while being platform agnostic. I don't want to spend the time learning Linux that I feel it would require. If Be were to become available for these boxes, I would be ecstatic and quite probably buy one. I would run Linux on it too, but I think Linux is really harded than I have time for right now.
Don't be so sure.
If they *really* wanted they could have supported the newer macs (this is not new to all those of you who have followed be's history ..)
I don't know that that's true (as I'll explain in a moment). I think it has more to do with marshalling resources at a company that has never turned a profit. I think they focus their resources on what will provide the most money for the least amount of work... ie, Intel hands them cash to port, they do. Revenue stream comes from people buying the Intel version, they tweak it, bugfix it, upgrade it, make it have more features, and they make more money.
Only thing now is they won't be able to say " we don't have the specs" they'll have to clearly say : We are not interested in the PPC Anymore .
This is not the case, as BeOS will boot and run on a beige G3 with no SCSI. I'm logged in as an Anonymous Coward for a reason. But it can be done, version 4.5. Don't know if 4.5 Update 1 will, but I wouldn't be surprised.
But none off these boards are out yet.
Oh, but when they are! I'm legitimately excited about this, and I tend to use Windows 98 and Intel boxes while being platform agnostic. I don't want to spend the time learning Linux that I feel it would require. If Be were to become available for these boxes, I would be ecstatic and quite probably buy one. I would run Linux on it too, but I think Linux is really harded than I have time for right now.
I can't think of a reason why to opt for a chrp motherboard over a Powermac G3 system, except 1 thing: SMP support. Sad thing it's very unlikely MacOS will support these CHRP mobo's. As for BE... well even if suddenly CHRP mobo's will become widely available, I doubt it will be enough for BE to justify continued support for the PPC. Best case scenario is that both Apple and Be see an upcoming market in it (PC with PowerPC) and decide to both support it - Don't forget Darwin IS open source, maybe some hackers can actually support CHRP's "unofficialy" to make MacOS X work on it (the client version I hope). If that happens it would be all be way more rosy. A renewed interest in PowerPC (hey, maybe even those Power4's we've been hearing about), and I doubt it would take very long for Be to recompile most of the drivers/programs. Okay, that was bigtime wishful thinking on my part. We'll see what happens. If the above happens, I would jump on the opportunity and get myself a dual/quad G4 box with MacOSX/BeOS/LinuxPPC. Fun!
Either you're full of crap or you know something really interesting...
Anyway... before we see BeOS/PowerPC survive some big mobo maker has to produce these CHRP boards and get success selling them for Linux. Second we have to find out how close Be is with Intel.
Since the new Athlon looks very promising it will be interesting to see exactly how processor agnostic Be really is...
This is nothing new, or revolutionary, or even all that interesting. IBM and Motorola have both distributed totally free reference CHRP motherboard designs in the past; you could download the designs for free at least a year ago. I suspect the reason for this news story is that they're updating their design for G3 and/or G4 processors, since the old reference boards were designed for the 604e and 603e. If some OEM starts building a board based on the reference design and selling it cheaply (which didn't happen before), *then* it will be interesting. Until then, it's not exciting, in my opinion. (Of course, if you're interested in buying such a board, make sure that your interest is known.)
Actually, I doubt it'll change at all, since Apple buys their PPC chips from Motorola due to the differences Motorola and IBM had in the past, IBM chose not to implement Altivec, and increase speed, while Motorola decided to move forward with Altivec enhancing newer processors. So, in this case, it almost makes perfect sense, since IBM is no longer getting purchases from Apple, they decided to get Linux folk buying their PPC chips.. --Chris Dickens (chris@ntr.net)
....or something like that... :) 466 MHz PPC 750 ATX case cheap board cheap case Mmmm, that's gooooood eatin'. Slap SheepShaver on there, and buy a Mac OS 8.6 CD that has a ROM image on it (they all do) Never need to buy an Apple again! signed, ...someone who's been relishing in the knowledge of this for so long it hurts...
Netscape for windows doesn't leak at all. Maybe it's a Linux problem (or maybe it has something to do with the fact that Netscape writes windows software and releases linux ports).
Either you're full of crap or you know something really interesting...
/me logs out...
i can tell you he's not full of crap, this other AC and i have in person seen r4.5 running on a stock beige apple g3, not a g3 upgraded system or a non-apple MB as some others have suggested but a plain ol' 100% apple g3, i wish i knew what revision MB it was. it runs, beige only, no scsi, and i seem to recall there being some problems with the ati video card but it worked. now i'm not saying i know how to make it work, but it has definately been done, with very little effort i understand.
Actually you may not be necessarily out of luck, as long as you install LinuxPPC and have access to an Apple PowerMac so you can download the rom image using numerous utilities found on the web. Then install Mac-on-linux which can run off the rom image, and, bingo, you have MacOS under Linux.
Apple will buy PowerPC chips from whomever gives them a better deal and fulfills the requirements. IBM got mucho purchases this year; all 101 and iBook use IBM PowerPC.
Be won't have to start releasing BeOS PPC _again_; I have the latest PPC version sitting on my PowerComputing mac clone right now.
My question is, how big a deal is it to support a new chipset like this? If its a really big deal, then maybe IBM could help Be. If not, we'll probably see BeOS supporting this chipset soon after machines are released that use it.
Also, here's a case where Be might be able to make use of the Linux sources to reverse engineer their code, without worrying about lawsuits from Apple.
I'd hardly call the G3 "bastardized". If anything, the PPC 750 is an overachiever. It was always destined to replace the 603e as the consumer level chip, hence the emphasis on integer over FP.
Because it performs so well it's become the single chip across all the Apple product line. Seems pretty impressive to me that you can use the same exact chip in every market segment, and it can hold its own in the desktop segment and kick some serious butt in the portable area (as you pointed out). The only downside to the G3 is that its success has taken away some of the urgency for AIM to get G4 -- the *real* successor to the 604e -- out the door.
Having said that, I'm still very much looking forward to what the G4 will have to offer, both from IBM and Moto. Copper, multiple cores, AltiVec...should be interesting.
IMHO, the issues isn't the clock speeds, but the (insert cpu metric here) per dollar. Apple, as cool as the hardware is, just charges a bit too much for the horsepower you get. That's why I cheer this story
The question I have is this: Could someone use WebObjects without the OS X overhead/ operating environment?
If so, Apple proper may have a way to propogate cheap PPC based servers and give reason for people to port apps to the chip. Think about it. Some people will pay for the Apple logo. Apple sells these "Darwin" CHRP servers in the traslucent colors (albiet not in the Sawtooth cases) and captures a bit of the low to mid range server market.
However, even if Apple does nothing in the way of Darwin CHRP machines, if the processor base is there, the apps follow. That makes PPC a more attractive option.
Of course, one question remains, who will be the first CHRP vendor to include Darwin preinstalled?
". . . and scientific logic was heard stampeding out of Kansas"
Err...IBM did finish it. It did ship. It was available for three months only provided you had the right order number.
Some people just dont get it. Be dont support the latest macs simply because they dont receive support from Apple to do it. Having said that, Be want to support PowerPC.. If only IBM would update their design for USB and G4 in dual/quad configurations... maybe some company could sell them as linux boxen and establish a viable market. JK
They mean that Apple might not license MacOS for Altivec (G4) clones. Otherwise IBM says
their mainboard is for Linux/PPC systems, which doesn't need MacOS to run, of course. I hope
that Apple opens up, so that a unified PPC architecture (say CHRP) can attract IT managers.
If there's only one source, the future of the platform might be uncertain and/or the company
would depend too much on one other company.
For home users, this is important as well. Try buying a Mac with a TNT2 graphics card. You
have to take the onboard ATI, too. Apple cannot offer enough different models to satisfy all
customers, but they can make a CHRP version of their MacOS and sell it to clone makers.
You have to admit that Apple cannot rise their market share above a certain level without
allowing competition. Their enemies are not Motorola or Power Computing, but the bigger
ones like Dell, Compaq, Siemens, and so on.
Yes, Be may not have the technical specification to the new G3s. But, gee, LinuxPPC '99 seems to run okay. And, by gawd, Apple's open-source Darwin seems to run, too! Not only that, but MkLinux runs! Wow! All of these products are completely open-source. I'm sorry, but I simply don't buy it. If Be wanted, they couldn't easily browse the source code to any one of these products to allow Be to run on even the newest Apples.
um... make that G5, or the POWER4, the multicore G4 was canceled
These computers will have nothing to do with MacOS. They're CHRP systems, not Mac clones.
These are CHRP systems that use all the hardware out there in the Intel market. The only difference is the PowerPC CPU. There's no need to worry about expensive prices anymore, it'll be the same hardware (basically).
For the record, IBM actually shipped OS/2 for the PowerPC. It ran on these machines: IBM PC Power Series 830 and 850, and ThinkPad Power Series 820 and 850.
The reason those OSs run is because Apple supplied a closed source library handling the low level interface to their proprietary chips. Let's think for a second shall we? Which platform would you support? The one from the company that said "Go jump in a lake!" when you ask them for technical documentation. Or, the one that supplied money and engineers to help with the port to their platform. Also remember that Andy Grove demoed the BeOS on the latest intel hardware at "I forget which conference", This is buy in from intel in a major way. From now on all my computer dollars are going to intel.
IBM has a wider range of products (storage devices, servers, workstations, PC's, etc). If they were able to offer the same OS on all of them, wouldn't it make things better for thier customers, and easier for IBM?
IBM get's CPU's from Motorola, Intel, they use to use a Cyrix 6x86 variant, Linux runs on all of them, and on thier hardware back to thier early 386's (even back to the 8086 if you count ELKS as Linux). By doing this, IBM stands to be "Master of Scaliablity." If, sometime in the near future they funnel some money into porting Linux up to their bigger systems that run AIX now, they would REALLY "have it all." Of course, that would require IBM to put some development resources into Linux, because they would need to bring Linux up to speed on systems with >4 CPU's and gobs of RAM and storage. But, IBM's JFS is better than SGI's XFS, so, they could help out there...
Heck, if SGI and IBM both open up thier file systems, we could eventually merge JFS and XFS to replace EXT2. Add to that the great graphics abilities that SGI is giving Linux, and Linux is the big winner. SGI and IBM are HELPING Linux, not exploiting it. Just because they stand to make a lot of money doesn't mean Linux is going to be damamged.
So, what's the problem here? Of course they have motivation to do this, a new Linux box sold by IBM would be another product in thier bin, and gain them soom good PR with the GNU community.
CHRP just won't die will it? I wonder what happened to those rumoured warehouses of big blue PowerPC boxes that were all ready to run NT 4.0 when it came out? They sure didn't land on any desks i've ever seen.
:)
Of course, last time IBM released specs on a motherboard... Everyone sitting at a machine with an ISA slot in it please raise your hand.
PowerPC's are nice chips compared to intel's stuff. Of course the PowerPC architechture doesn't have quite as much legacy baggage
I have to agree with Linus though... I like the alpha.
Apple is unaffected; they never claimed the MacOs would run on CHRP boxes did they?
Also, I recently bought Civ:CTP, and there's a patch on Loki's web site that includes a PPC binary.
--
Interested in XFMail? New XFMail home page
Like Netscape? (possibly the biggest memory-sieve I've ever experienced)
Get lost, troll.
--
Interested in XFMail? New XFMail home page
IBM: We took the intel out of Wintel
Linux: We took the Win out of Wintel
IMB Lawyers: Hang on -- who owns the in in Wintel??
John
John_Chalisque
If you dont't like the stories posted here, you can either:
A. Take your toys and go home crying because we won't play the way you like.
B. Submit an article or two about a news story on _your_ favorite operating operating system. This _is_ primarily a user-driven site, you know.
If only "common" sense was actually that common...
It seems to me that it was about three years ago that IBM first announced this, though there was no linux angle at the time.
Assuming that these are the same boards, or descendants of them, there is a *very* simple explanation as to why IBM is doing this. It's *not* the system's division that produced and demonstrated the original boards, but the CPU folks. It was nothing more (or less) than a way to sell CPU's. Fortuneately, I didn't hold out for one, as I needed the new machine for my (now complete) dissertation . . .
I have a 233 Mhz mac clone that runs netscape (in MacOS) a lot slower than my linux machine does. Granted, the modem's slower, but it still persists if I switch modems. Part of the reason is that netscape *freezes* for long periods of time. Subjectively, Linux is faster, on a much slower piece of hardware.
Phil Fraering "Humans. Go Fig." - Rita
(currently testing something about signatures here)
To the poster asking about the "more expensive" PPC chips, I think they're pretty much in the same range, or cheaper, than X86 chips. The CPU probably costs a small fraction of the cost of the computer, especially on the Apple high-end Blue-and-whites. The Apple Tax is probably larger.
Phil Fraering "Humans. Go Fig." - Rita
(currently testing something about signatures here)
IBM has just as much rights to Altivec as Motorola does, and AFAIK doesn't have to ask permission from anyone to use it...
Phil Fraering "Humans. Go Fig." - Rita
(currently testing something about signatures here)
Actually, I think it would be a lot easier to port something from Linux x86 to Linux PPC than it would be to port from MacOS PPC to Linux PPC. The former would be a recompile, while the latter would require a rewrite. These guys do have the source code to work with!
Phil Fraering "Humans. Go Fig." - Rita
(currently testing something about signatures here)
Does this mean that the PPC specs are also going to be open to Be Inc.? Does this mean that Be can stop whining about Apple not giving them the specs? Or does it simply expose Be as just another Intel suck-up?
This could be the smartest business decision ever made in the history of IBM.
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
-jafac's law
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Oh yeah?
And what's the fastest Pentium III laptop you can buy right now?
Powerbooks kick ass on any x86 portable.
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
-jafac's law
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Does this almost make up for IBM not finishing OS/2 for PPC?
(Dual PPC? www.daystar.com - also look for upcoming G4 machines, with dual core CPUs)
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
-jafac's law
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
this was FUD.
Intel paid them.
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
-jafac's law
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
um - vapor NetWare PPC was NOT vapor. I was onsite at Novell (um, what was that, 1996?) and NetWare PPC was demonstrated to me, running on a Power Mac. Of course, at the time, they told me that the project was officially dead, but a couple of people were still "messing around" with it.
However, I don't refute your statement about "demand". Microsoft had a great role in this, by semi-supporting NT PPC, then cutting it off. Mega FUD builder. SOMEONE owes Bill Gates a favor for that one. (and no, it wasn't Motorola's fault, Microsoft dicated the terms of that contract, and simply elevated their development fee to a level they knew would be unacceptable).
On the other hand, Motorola does need a severe kick in the butt (for lack of enthusiasm for their own damn product), and IBM is just the cowboy to do it.
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
-jafac's law
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
WOuldn't a Motorola PPC work on it?
I wonder if AltiVec could be shoehorned in. . .
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
-jafac's law
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Judging by the prices the cloners were charging, I would say that Apple has a HUGE markup - and also, based on some of the early literature I read about PPC back in 93-94-ish, PPC was supposed to be half the production cost of x86 chips - because of the smaller die size, and less need to keep MHz parity. (which was really a false assumption - if you wanted to gain marketshare, MHz is all most people understand, and if you wanted to win over the techies, BYTEMark was not the way to do it. Spec should have been used instead).
As it stands now, the only REAL advantage PPC has (after the bastardized job they did on the G3, by basing it on the FP-weak 603), is in it's power consumption and heat dissipation: it way, way, way outshines x86 in this area - portables.
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
-jafac's law
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Didn't Intel also send a chunk of investment cash Be's way?
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
-jafac's law
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
PReP and CHRP are different names for the same thing.
It was my impression that a G3 at the same clock speed beat a Pentium III, so that could be the point to have a PPC. Plus Linux commercial games are also ported to PPC (for Loki titles).
It might be easy for the company to recompile on diffrent hardware after they already ported to Linux, but just because it's Linux doesn't mean it's compatiable.
I can believe that some companies have ported to Linux-PPC... But, AFA x86 binary compatability, you comment is somewhat misleading... (or is there something about PPC-Linux that I wasn't aware of).
We took the Wintel out of Wintel!
I love the PowerPC chips. (probably because the use so little, power.) Now all I need is a dual PPC and I'm set!
Linux is only free if your time has no value. Windows is only free if you threaten to use Linux.
Not that you'd want it, it sucked so bad that IBM went out of its way to bury it. AFAIK from my stint at IBM, if a customer wanted OS/2 for PPC, they had to order it specially, it was not a regular GA'd product.
I wonder if there will ever be the option for the average person to go out and build their own custom PowerPC box. I've never used a power mac, but I'm intrigued by the hardware and would like to test debian ppc out, but I prefer to build my own systems.
Mike
Tigger's like to read
Now things are different, and it looks like IBM has updated the design.
FYI, the original LongTrail specs are at IBM's FTP site. I paid 800 USD for my board (incl. 200 MHz 604e) in May 1997. Although this was an (expensive) prototype board, it was much cheaper than a comparable Pentium II board. Production boards including a 225 MHz 604e would have costed only _450_ USD in quantities of 1000, in September 1997.
they wont. ..) .
If they *really* wanted they could have supported the newer macs (this is not new to all those of you who have followed be's history
Only thing now is they won't be able to say " we don't have the specs"
they'll have to clearly say : We are not interested in the PPC Anymore
But none off these boards are out yet.
none Yet.
It just refers to "Apple competitors" and to the "Linux OS". I guess LinuxPPC is implied, tho.
J.
damned vulpine http://sb.drtwister.com/
If I recall, Be left the PowerPC platform citing problems getting access to specs for the G3 processor itself. Apple wasn't being friendly with them, it seems. This information that IBM is releasing is a motherboard design. It shows how to physically and electrically make a board for the PowerPC. Being a software company, Be certainly doesn't care about this. They just want to know how to program for the proc and chipset.
However, most people I have spoken with who follow Be have told me that this was just an excuse. Infact, Be wanted to switch to x86 anyway, and they just sort of smeared Apple on their way out. Be could have gotten the info they needed, from someone else if not from Apple. If nothing else, they could have approached the LinuxPPC people, who have done just fine working with the G3.
In summary: this doesn't help Be, but I don't think that Be really wanted to be helped. If anyone out there follows this stuff more closely, please add to/correct my statement.
--Lenny, who dreams of an inexpensive PPC clone.
Makes you wonder what a G4 vs Athlon would result in. ;`)
This might happensooner than you think.
l
"However, Terra Soft's core focus continues to be the G3, Staats said, and its primary goal is working with Apple. Mac users will be able to buy the company's Yellow Dog Linux package pre-installed on G3 hardware from Apple-authorized VARs by early October, Staats said."
Quote from an article on MacWEEK.
http://macweek.zdnet.com/1999/08/08/linuxsw.htm
I noticed a quite a few people just fired off closedminded anti-Apple comments and don't quite understand the significance of this. Yes, I'm an "Apple guy" but I'm also a "Linux guy"; please bear with me through a few points:
:), but that doesn't mean the platform is open. AMD and Cyrix probably spends as great a percentage of their income reverse-engineering Intel, and defending themselves from lawsuits, as Intel spends on actual R&D. I'm guessing numbers here - who cares - but my point is *AMD wastes money playing catch up games with Intel* and trying to innovate while not diverging of the ancient x86 architecture. I'm glad AMD pulled ahead... hopefully they won't stay chained to Intel's designs forever, unless they want to spend a fourtune reverse-engineering Merced.
:), scalability (Intel has the higher MHz for now... but word is on Tom's Intel's new CPU's were released early and may suffer from heat failure), optimization advantages and so on. Oh, did I mention new G3's ship with only a small heat sink and NO CPU FAN? Since Linux is capable of running just as well on PPC -- or better, if you believe the above -- wouldn't you want to run Linux on one? (I run Linux on my G3 now... ).
1) There is competition on the x86 architecture (with AMD recently beating the PANTS off Intel
2) Costs - largely a factor of manufacturing scale, aside, the PowerPC is an AWESOME chip family that is in every other respect superior to x86. Don't believe me - lookup Spec scores, MMX vs. Altivec (what do you mean Intel can't multitask MMX and floating point data at the same time??
3) Good, honest competition between different architectures means great things for all of us. I always wished Apple would open up and distrubute $700 computers with Linux, but their business model doesn't support it right now. Lighten up and accept it. PowerPC is not Apple. Think PPC is only good for embedded applications? Think "MP3 Linux Player" for your home stereo -- *without* noisy fans and overheat issues.
4) What's with the fudders here saying there'll never be games for Linux PowerPC?? LOKISOFT? "Hello..??" Didn't people say the same about Linux? That arguement is as dumb as the one where people said 'iMac will fail without a floppy drive'. If the libraries are there, it's trivial to port from one Linux to another. Even if a PowerPC isn't in your plans for your next system, you'll still benefit from it competing with Merced.
5) The fact that Linux IS truly portable to competing CPU's is exactly why I distrust Intel's "Linux initiatives"... why would Intel push an OS that is portable over an OS that is TIED to Intel? My answer is they don't know what to do for now so they're just playing along.
6) BeOS =does= run on PowerPC G3's. It just doesn't run on Apple motherboards. There's he-said/she-said between Be and Apple, and I don't entirely blame Apple. Want to see if Be's decision to ditch PowerPC support was because of Apple or because of Intel's investment? Ask them to announce support for this design when it becomes available. Surely Intel would not mind seeing their children play with PowerPC's... >:-D
>If I recall, Be left the PowerPC platform citing problems getting access to specs for the G3 processor itself.
;)
That's incorrect - BeOS ability to run is tied to the chipset - not the CPU. A Mac 9600 upgraded with a G3 processor will continue to run BeOS - although Be will not provide support for systems upgraded in this manner (strange, they support Intel systems upgraded this way...
It's a challenge to intel.
It's only a challenge to Apple indirectly in that they're taking a market Apple *could* take if they'd produce cheap enough boxes.
Cheap, volume produced PPC boxes, using off the shelf parts... and people see that as challenging *Apple*?! Am I watching the same market as everyone else, or have I accidentally slipped into a world where Mac users actually consider using something other then MacOS?
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Apple probably isn't concerned about this move opening the door to clones: their custom ASICs and of course the ROM chips are still firmly under their copyright. Cobbling up something to run the MacOS without those chips will always be flaky at best.
But Apple has invested a great deal of money and image in promoting "their CPU" as superior to Intel. When a salesdroid shows PowerPCs side-by-side, one running MacOS and one Linux (especially with a cool Enlightenment theme), and says "these run the same CPU but the one on the right costs $x less," that's got to make Apple's marketing department groan.
Jamie McCarthy
Jamie McCarthy
jamie.mccarthy.vg
In theory, the 450Mhz MoBo/cpu combo will run about the price of a PII-500 cpu/Mobo combo. PPCs cost about the same as high end PII's at retail.
My story on this, with comment from Jason Haas (I learned about this during MacWorld Expo but was sworn to secrecy) should be running sometime today, but this thing has been in the works for quite awhile.
The funny thing is, anyone could have really done this because the specs have been sitting on IBM's public ftp site for years. After Apple killed clone licensing, nobody saw any reason to make the things.
Thank God for Linux.
One day, you'll learn to watch what you post...
From AMD's website
Athlon/
K7 -- SPECfp95 - SPECint95
650 - 22.4 -------- 29.4
600 - 21.6 -------- 27.2
550 - 20.6 -------- 25.1
Very nice numbers. Sorry for the formatting, no tables.
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - Mark Twain
Yep, they do both stand for the same thing -- an totally open PowerPC platform, that is flexable enought to run a verity of OS's including:
- Mac OS 8.0/8.1 with an enabler on early CHRP/PreP. Mac OS 8.5 doesn't work or has several issues depending on your motherboard.
- Windows NT 4.0 or was it 3.5.1?/PowerPC, also on the orginal PreP/CHRP boxes.
- Workstation OS/PowerPC aka PowerPC OS/2, ran on the orginal PreP/CHRP.
Most of those OS's won't or will have issues with these more modern PreP/CHRP boxes, since things have changed a bit.
Apple pretty much dumped CHRP/PreP with dumping cloning, although you can tell that the iBook, Blue G3 and the iMac are distant CHRP/PreP relatives. As are several of IBM/Motorla's workstations like the newish PowerPC RS/6000.
CHRP - Common Hardware Reference Platform
PreP - PowerPC Reference Platform
They are basically the same thing, the name CHRP was introduced after the PreP, since CHRP was believed to be the most advanced hardware platform out there -- and it was flexable as heck, it ran NT, OS/2, AIX and MacOS -- not bad at all -- except for the fact you can buy a CHRP machine currently for slightly more then a real nice used car. (I'm talking $6000+).
The hope is that these CHRP/PreP based machines, finally allow for cheap PowerPC machines -- Apple's machines are way to expensive and limited -- and if you don't have the budget the size of a rich CEO, you can forget buying another CHRP/PReP machine.
Yes, with the help of some of the Linux/PPC (eg; Terrasoft and LinuxPPC, Inc.) companies, we have been able to get some decent software ported to the PowerPC, including several games.
It's not that hard for companies to port to the PowerPC, especially if the PowerPC Linux companies help supply them with PowerPC boxes.
That's how we have CTP: Civilization, Myst2 and AppplixWare, Netscape Communicator, and soon (hopefully) Acrobat Reader on the PowerPC.
Yes, that would be a great thing... Hopefully this deal with lead to nice cheap Powerful PowerPC boxes, for running LinuxPPC or Yellow Dog Linx on, for example.
I would really love to have a 6-slot PCI, G3 machine built on CHRP/PreP design, that I can actually afford in my life time.
The PowerPC is a well designed general processor--it's not the best at all areas, but in general it scores pretty good compared to Alphas or PIII or K7, and runs a hell of alot cooler.
Well... Apple did some werid stuff with the first generation G3's, we will never no if they were just really buggy, or Apple was trying to savatage anything not Apple or Apple just rushed the product out the door / was smoking something illegal.
Well, here is a few things they broke in the first generation G3's (it was fixed in the Colorful Genration II G3's), broken OF, broken OF IDE support, beside half a dozen of other things that were messed up. Forently, Apple manged to patch the major issues with those machines (like the Open Firmware patches), although they never fixed the problems with booting kernels off the hard drive or the other issues.
Forently Apple has gone pretty standard with the second generation machines -- and the irony of it all is the PowerPC Linux developers haven't kept up with the 'fixed' Apple OpenFirmware, which is more standard based -- the Linux/PPC kernel ix broken so it won't boot on iMacs or Blue G3's normally (obviously excluding cheesy Mac OS booters like BootX) -- and they don't seem to be to excited to fix this right away.
And yes, NetBSD boots on these machines without a problem -- NetBSD doesn't have the broken OF header's problem.
If you have the cash, IBM or Motorla (and some of the RS/6000 clone companies), will be happy to sell you a PowerPC based computer -- such as a screamer 604e running at 350 mhz (which in some benchmarks literally makes Apple's 450mhz G3 machines look like toys).
You got the bucks, you can certainly get a PowerPC computer not from Apple -- but you will pay for it, more then $2000 bucks more then an Apple Machine in many cases.
But these machines, are much faster then Apple's machines, and can run either AIX or NT or Linux. Nice machines, I must say.
I guess you guys have never used Internet Exploiter for Macintosh -- leave that baby open for a couple of hours and view half a dozen complex web sites, and look, it uses much more memory (like 70 megs of RAM when it's set to only 7 meg max) then it was suppost to have in the Finder setting, and it doesn't give the memory back to the Mac OS when it's needed.
That's a bad memory leak. Netscape in my experience also leaks memory, but it seems to at least give it back to the system on the Mac OS when really needed badily. The Linux/PPC version of Netscape works without many problems with me -- it uses more memory when you load a complex site, and gives back the memory when it's done with it.
Apple has never made a direct profit on the Mac OS, but then again Microsoft has never made a direct profit on Windows. Development costs for OS's are humogous -- they are large masses of code, and people expect so much out of them.
.... err 9x, with every release of the 9x series.
So how do they make there money?
- Microsoft relies on it's properity Windows add-ons like NT Server, Microsoft Office (aka Cash Cow), and other things.
- Apple has always been a hardware company and that's not changing. Until recently 1% of Apple's profits were made by selling the Mac OS, now it's like 4.5% of there profits, but still that's not enough to support OS development. The idea, is that the money you spend on the hardware will justify the expense of developing the Mac OS and related projects. Until, 1995, Apple gave the Mac OS away for free -- as long as you used Apple hardware -- or for like $30 bucks for the disk -- and you were free to copy it from Mac to Mac (this excludes 7.1 Pro -- that was something different).
Apple would have to pull a 'sgi' to make it as a software company -- and if they did that, it would be by the skin of their teath. Not something that keeps those ever so important investors happy. They might be able to pull it off (just like SGI might become a ever so sucessful Linux company), it's just too much of a risk.
What happens if Mac OS X Server is a flop? Then they are left with nothing at all. If it flops, and they continue to be a dominent hardware company -- they have alot to fall back on to -- like Linux or Mac OS Classic (which is really not that bad, unlike what people call it lately).
It's too bad most people associate Mac OS Classic with accient crap code, it's certianly more then that. Major parts have been re-written, it has little m68k assembly left in it, and has many populuar programs ported to it. Apple could continue improving Mac OS Classic, without a problem, as does Microsoft Improves Windows 3.1
This is the main reason why Mac OS cloning would not work decently -- unless clone companies payed Apple big bucks for essentaily life time ROM and system software licenses.
Hardware is a proven hit for Apple--software is just an incentive to buy Apple hardware and not some other platform.
Yes, when Mac-On-Linux or SheepShaver gets ported to these new CHRP boxes, you could run the Mac OS on top of Linux without problems -- just use a ROM image from a reguluar Mac.
Of course, this isn't a perfect solution -- there will be a need for new drivers, and not everything will not perectly work, but it should be do-able.
PowerPC processors (well at least the 604ev vs. the PII) are cheaper megahertz to megahertz.
Unforently, when you try to build a PowerPC box, it's the add on's that drive the price up -- things like fast SCSI and RAM and other things aren't cheap.
In lots of 1000, the PowerPC 604e/225 in 1997 costed like 225 bucks, while the 233 PII cost like 600 dollars (well at that time).
PC hardware, is more populuar and is cheaper then PowerPC hardware, that's were the price difference comes in mainly -- the PowerPC chip in general is pretty cheap compared to the Pentium III / K6 or K7. The celrons are cheaper in some cases, but there preformance is slower then the PowerPC in most cases.
Unforently, most of the CHRP/PreP boxes in the past have been very expensive (think like $6000), but if a cheap no name company becomes involed (and they choose standard like cheap ATAPI drives, etc), this will change greatly.
And lets not forget, sound hooked directly to the processor is a feature that isn't found on any x86 box, yet it is found on most PowerPCs (saving the PCI bus from wasting bandwith on sound data [producing smoother better sounding sound]--although it currently still wastes it on video data).
That's the main reason why all of IBM's low end RS/6000's ship with 604ev's and not G3 processors.
Does this spec include portables? The lower power requirements of the PPC make this chip the best choice for these machines. I would love to have a portable running linux on a 466 G3.
Also what about Altivec, it would be nice to take advantage of this in Linux. Ohh the possibilities!
-B
But it won't change anything unless someone big enough to afford it actually starts building the Mobos. Steve Kahng (of PowerComputing fame), where are you when we need you?
--Tom
Tom Geller
Interestingly enough, MacOS X might run on these machines, depending on how far off the hardware is... OS X DOES NOT require a boot ROM from Apple (uses a totally different design). While MacOS 9 doesn't require a boot ROM either, it's got specific system enablers for certain motherboards...
RateVegas.com - Vegas Reviews
Check www.spec.org. It provides standard benchmarking code, and collects benchmarks for everything from PCs up to Big Iron. It will certainly have comparisons between PIIIs and the PPC-750, and should have Athlon data as soon as AMD gets around to compiling the benchmark software.
I wonder... there was a version of OS/2 Warp for the Power PC that barely came out (it shipped after IBM had given up on desktop Powerstations); will that run on a machine with one of these boards?
Save Maine's economy: write stuff down. All comments are exclusively my own, not my employer.
My understanding is that newer MacOS versions don't need the Apple ROM to boot, so IBM PPC board + MacOS = Macintosh for less scratch.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Well, I don't think that Linux is any competition to Apple's "Power User" market, simply because the Mac power applications aren't running on LInux.
A white box PPC could really sell to the Mac Power User market. I know a few folks that would love a 6 slot G3 box with a fast integrated RAID system. Right now they have to piece together a 9600, an upgrade board, and a bunch of other parts.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
As someone else mentioned, an open PPC design is really nothing new - IBM's had one available for years. Think of this move as a little marketing to sell it to the Linux community.
The original intention of CHRP was to provide a mass market computing platform to compete with Intel. IBM would have made their money off the PPC and the chipsets, not the board design. Unfortunately, there's been very little demand for NT, AIX, vapor OS/2, vapor Solaris, and vapor NetWare running on commodity PPC systems. The Linux 'hobbyist' market could revive this. (Anyone have an estimate on Linux on Alpha system sales?)
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
I don't know about your setup, but NS 4.61/WinNT leaks memory like a sieve on my box.
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Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
I've been looking for this "free motherboard design" and don't see any mention of it on ibm's website. Has anyone else had any luck finding it?
/. brand motherboards, indeed!
Already sent a note to the author of the MacWeek article, so no need to mail bomb them. Can't seem to find an address for Steve Faure, and there's only a link to the story on linuxppc.com. I'll post more info if I hear anything back.
As for one-offs, I think that's a great idea! I suspect you want to run at least a thousand, though--that way they'll only be fantastically expensive.
>Besides piraters, Apple just won't give those OEMs a license to MacOS.
All you have to do it buy a commercially wrapped version of Mac OS and bingo you have a license.
The Mac ROMs are the difficult part to get. But if these boards are CHRP compliant, then there is a good chance that you can run Mac OS 8.0 on them.
>You can't just go to CompUSA and buy MacOS and install it on your cool new PPC workstation.
Incorrect, if the machine is CHRP based, then you can run 8.0 on it.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
>It may be CHRP based but I highly doubt it will have an Apple ROM on board. No ROM, no Mac OS.
I'm sorry, but you are incorrect. MacOS 8.0 has been loaded onto IBM PowerPC machines with no MacOS ROM. From what I understand it's a real bitch to tinker with the open firmware to make it work, but it IS possible.
These may or may not be able to run it, but the MacOS ROM is not necessarily needed. After all the iMac and Blue & White G3 have a Mac OS ROM file on the Hard drive in addition to the physical chips.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
PowerPC's are much much cheaper than x86 chips... they're so much smaller that more fit on the wafer and therefore you get more chips per run...
Apple pads their prices a bit, because if they only sold hardware at cost +15% that'd kill off all future development in terms of the OS or anything else... QuickTime, FireWire, etc etc etc...
So, I'd expect that if volume gets pushed up, you'll eventually be able to find these boards, with CPU at equal or lower prices than the Intel equivilants... Or maybe that's just wishful thinking?
I know that Be was forced to pretty much abandon the PowerPC platform as a result of Apple's pigheaded decision not to share the technical details of their G3 motherboards with Be. Hopefully this means Be can once again begin releasing PowerPC versions of their OS...
A G3 is faster in integer calculations than a PII running at comparable clock speeds. It is not faster in floating point when compared to the PII.
Linux for games ??
..
You know, xbill is cool but after a while you probably would want to move on to something else
:-)
M$ stuff leaks no more ( and no less ) than anything else on the market.
...
It is not like M$ people are some sort of outcasts
who never seen or programmed for other operating systems. Some of them even have Unix background
We are quite far from being able to develop usable popular OS with a language that offers built-in garbage collector ( which right now would probably mean Java)
Could you explain what did you use Mac for and based on that response tell us what Linux offers that was not available on Mac ?
I just got myself BeOS and .. well, as a workstation it rocks. I just have a question...
Is there any way to change windows decoration on the Be desktop ? I don't really like default configuration ( I know I can move them around but what about exctending them to cover whole window ? )
The Mac's processor tends to be faster at integer calculations than equivalent Intel family chips. And that's all.
Anyway - I'm not a Mac fan, but if you're going to criticize the hardware, know what it is you're criticizing.
Uh... are you sure? I know that at least one of the recent game ports to Linux does support LinuxPPC: Myth 2.
---
Have a Sloppy night!
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
It sounds like Amiga Inc is going to try to do something stupid^H^H^H^H^Hradical, so I doubt they'll get in on it. But I sure hope that Phase 5 and QNX do. A common hardware platform (other than the 20-year-old IBM PC) that could run Neutrino, Linux, and BeOS would be cool. And bonus points if it turns out to be able to run MacOS too.
---
Have a Sloppy night!
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Java
Eiffel
Smalltalk
Lisp
Dylan
OCaml
APL
That's all that I can think of off the top of my head (leaving out discontinued languages and dialects). I'm sure that there are many others. Personally, I think that Eiffel seems the most reasonable, but I do seem to recall that at one time CDC was planning on using APL as the assembler level language for the machine that eventually turned into the STAR (with a much more normal assembles...pity).
Eiffel's advantage is that it is implemented in and links easily with C code. Design by contract is nice. So is the set of existing classes.
The defect of all of these languages is that they tend to be slow when run on a standard instruction set... Although the Lisp Machine proved that with properly designed hardware speed is much less of an issue.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Well... If someone were to port Linux, Darwin, etc. (the rest of the stuff that they've released as open source) to one of these machines, how much work would be required of Apple to get their OS working there? Any? They might have a very good reason to be interested.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
I'm guessing with no more info than anyone else, but the way I read the cards:
Apple OS is basically a slick user interface over a user shell, so...
Apple opens the source to the low level stuff which is basically the kind of things that an OS needs to implement anyway, but keeps the User Interface stuff proprietary.
At this point, several groups of people have the capability to migrate the base code to lots of different machines. Also, there are hooks that the interface calls, etc. Lots of API's spec'd, some with source code, some without.
Eventually, all routines that are called from the upper levels are documented. Then Apple adds enough new calls to allow one to open a bash window inside the MacOS (as a totally separate process.. not just a thread [possibly even with defined logon id's, etc.]).
Now any Linux routine can be run within the MacOS, which is, itself, essentially hosted on linux.
Apple may need to specify a few additional hardware spec's that need to be met, for some direct calls from the upper level, but perhaps not.
At this point, the Apple software can be ported to any platform that supports Linux. But only Apple can sell it. (Of course it's in competition with KDE, GNOME, etc., for those who want a light weight protocol, and with pure command shells for those who want a REALLY light protocol).
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
price due to the fact that the PowerPC chip is more expensive to make?
PowerPC chips are much cheaper to build than x86 chips. As someone said below, cheaper to make doesn't mean cheaper to buy.
There are several vendors offering processor upgrades (non of them Apple), so there is competition, but the supply and demand isn't there. You don't have hundreds of OEM's buying millions of CPU's every year to bring the price down.
Not that Apple would willingly put any of their OS's on it aside from maybe Darwin (they're still a hardware company). But it will hopefully mean faster development and adoption of PowerPC's.
I belive there were 350 mhz 604e's back in '97, when Mac clones were still around. Apple only moved to a 450 mhz within the last few months. If Power Computing and the others were still in the biz, we'd probably have 800 mhz G4's by now.
This is because when Apple killed cloning, they also took away a large incentive for IBM and Motorola to aggressivly develop the PowerPC for desktop systems. Motorola in particular was pissed off (and rightly so) becuase they were offering 5 year warraties on their line of SuperMacs when Apple cut em off; IBM also sublicensed the MacOS to other companies.
It will also be nice to have a low cost kickass RISC system for Linux. Hopefully Penguin or some other Linux OEM will jump on this in the next year or so.
You are right, they can't do anything to prevent Darwin from being used on these machines. But they could make it so it would be difficult to MacOS X on em, as the GUI is still closed source.
But this is just a sideshow, the real action centers around firewire and QuickTime. Just wait, Jobs is going to blow everyone out of the water. While the Wintel world is responding to the iMac and iBook, Apple will be charging off in some other direction.
Folks, quit complaining about What Apple did, and what you don't like about the former behavior of Apple, just sit back and enjoy the show. This is pure entertainment. We will all profit from what Apple is doing now. they are pushing the technology, breaking the industry out of the doldrums of the mid nineties.
I am a Mac user and an aapl investor, and I generally cruise the investor boards. I am a Linux user, and if I could have, I'd be aRedHat investor.
BTW, I like Apple, but I LOVE the aapl stock. Doubled my money in a few months.
photosMy Photostream
this is Slashdot, formerly "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters" soon to be renamed "If its not Linux its CRAP!" A good source for BeOS related stuff is BeNews /. is now mostly a circle-jerk site for Linux fans. I like linux too so thats why I read /. but its isn't really a general nerd-news site anymore.
Im a big fan of BeOS, but
For a good comparison of these chips check out David Every's page on the Athlon chip specs.
"I have a cunning plan..."
I added this a few posts up but it's worth repeating. For a good rundown of specs and performance between the K7 and G4 with a few references to the Pentiums check out www.MacKiDo.com/Hardware/K7.html.
"I have a cunning plan..."
The sooner you can buy PowerPC computers from someone other than Apple the better. The PowerPC is a great chip and once many people can use it, its price will go down even further and its speed should go up. This means more competition for Intel and yet another blow to Apple, a company even more proprietary than microsoft.
Actually, we have an aging (IBM) PPC box that runs a brand new copy of AIX. I suppose we could NOT buy a new box from IBM (for WAY more than it's worth) and buy a cool OEMer. Hmmm...
Monty
I've never used any software, OS or application, that doesn't leak some memory, however slowly.
What about Squeak?
http://www.squeak.org/
If IBM is giving away the entire board spec, including layout, partspec and even circuit board art, well.. what do these things cost to get made in short runs of, say, 5 or 10 or 25 or 100? I can see it now: Slashdot-branded motherboards!
IBM's providing the "source", all we need is to "compile" it. It'd be cool to order my motherboard from a local board shop instead of overseas or whatever...
--Z
You may be speculating, but you're certainly not stupid. I just wonder how they could make their OS a techies OS. Isn't that what linux, BSD, etc already are? I think that OS X is going to be amazing because of its ability to appeal to a wide range of technical abilities. You can have one-click buttons on one end and compile your favorite shell on the other. The thing is, I don't expect Apple to trumpet the fact, they'll always be talking about Mac OS's ease of use so as not to scare anyone away.
cheers,
Matthew Reilly
Repeatedly, they have released new technologies (quicktime, qtvr, OpenDoc) only to see them fail because of lack of choice regarding hardware/platform and their marketing focus on their hardware.
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Just a sec, quicktime? FAIL? It's the most widespread video software around, when did it fail?
Anothing thing to keep in mind is that the reason Mac OS works (for the most part) so painlessly is that Apple controls the hardware. They don't have to support the wide range of hardware that other OS do. I think it's great that IBM is releasing the specs for these mobos (I don't think they will be making any themselves.) They'll make some nice servers. I really doubt that even Mac OS X will run on them. Apple has pared their new motherboards down to a much simpler boot rom so I guess it would be physically possible but I really can't see them cutting their own throats by letting people get the Mac experience and not buy their hardware from Apple. Gee, we could sell a $90.00 OS CD-ROM or $1,500-$4,000 worth of hardware. And before everyone starts screaming about how proprietary Apple is let's just remember that if you don't want to run Mac OS, don't. Linux is just as good a desktop system, right?
cheers,
Matthew Reilly
Why do you care? I'm serious, not trying to flame here. Explain to me why you care that Apple is so "proprietary." Do you use their software or hardware? Or is it just a sense of moral outrage?
I use their hardware and software on a daily basis, I'm a a graphic designer, and I have to say it does what it is supposed to do. I think the concept of open source software is great but I don't see any open source tools that I could do my job with so I use the proprietary ones. Apple has spent a great deal of money developing the tools I use, shouldn't they expect to get a return on them? They get their return selling their hardware for a premium. If this doesn't agree with you don't buy their stuff but you'll have a hard time doing print design without them. Now web design/production, that's another story.
cheers,
Matthew Reilly
Ergo, a no-brainer for IBM.
Remember, Apple is IBM's #1 PowerPC customer by a long shot. They wouldn't do anything to get them angry. It's very possible that this will facilitate the return of cloning on the Mac. This time Apple would have no responsibility to the clone maker - they simply would make a volume licensing deal. They'd say that as long as it conforms to certain guidelines, it will work. And if a cloner wants to deviate from them, like introducing a new kind of data bus for example, they can simply make the necessary patches to Darwin.
-Rafi Remove the Spanish to email me.
So this means the BeOS guys can finaly realize their original plan of putting BeOS in a G3? I'd love to see that.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
So how much of the cost of the PowerPC is just Apple charging its loyal customers lots of money and how much is its price due to the fact that the PowerPC chip is more expensive to make?
I really like the PowerPC chip, but I don't want to wait for these boxes only to find that they too are out of my price range.
I'm very excited about the possibility of making my own PPC box. Also, loading the MacOS X on this machine should be trivial since there is no boot code needed for it to boot. A simple hack may be needed perhaps. Also if you notice the info on the MTX motherboards Motorola sells, they DO run the MacOS with the correctly configured CHRP configuration file (OS 8.0 and 8.1 only. I hear it may be easy to hack one for the other versions such as 8.5, 8.6 and 9.0). I do beleive you may need to load the ROM from a PowerMac though, into the OF. There may be legal issues to overcome unless you are a developer. Call MCG for more info.
;)
Anyone want to go into business with me?
tpires@mediaone.net
Don't lead me into temptation... I can find it myself.
I thought the whole point of buying Apple computers was the OS, not the hardware? Why would Apple care that there are Linux based PPC systems?
I have used macs for years and I am glad to see this happen. I only hope that IBM can get someone to start making computers. Recently I have starting working with linuxPPC and I am on the verge of switching over to it. All that I am waiting for is sheepshaver or a mac-on-linux that doesn't freeze the system.
There is also another aspect to this. I imagine that if others start making PPC machines, Apple will reduce their prices a little. It likely will not be very competitive, but enough so that they can prevent some from buying other people's computers. Competition is a good thing.
You see? It's like I've always said. You can get more with a kind word and a 2x4 than you can with just a kind word.
Well? Lots of noise but I want to know what will the boards be like? What will they support?
Funny that nobody has mentioned Darwin. True macophiles know that Apple has been putting most of its ROM in RAM nowadays, and that with OSX running on a microkernel and using the Darwin project's "open source" underpinnings (the basis of OSX), there is no theoretical reason that somebody couldn't get OSX to run on any PPC based machine.
This is, however, *if* Apple doesn't sabotage its own good intentions by going back on their word as they have so many times before.
An earlier post mentioned that the PPC was *more* expensive to produce than the Pentium -- AFAIK, this is a total fallacy; perhaps the quantities are lower, but the die size is much much smaller.
It's good to finally see the underappreciated PPC get its due, and Linux may be its ticket out of obscurity (one can only hope). Can't wait for some G4 lovin'!
just my blog and pix
Finally, Apple will be forced to face a non monopolitic position in its hardware market. Which is a Good Thing (tm). For years Apple has ignored keeping it's OS on the cutting edge (because, lets face it, it was when it came out), choosing instead to cash in on the fact that if you /did/ want to run MacOS, you had to buy their hardware. Apple has NEVER understood what it does well - software. Repeatedly, they have released new technologies (quicktime, qtvr, OpenDoc) only to see them fail because of lack of choice regarding hardware/platform and their marketing focus on their hardware. Maybe this will finally force them to do what they do best when they put their minds to it - making software that takes the hassle out of /some things/. People have always complained you had no power under Mac, but at least it never had the gull, like some other WindOSes, to actually take over and do things for you without permission. MacOS X only gets better - built on the NexT kernel, a dynamite development environment (according to, for example, John Carmack of ID Software), and an open source initiative. Finally, I will have the power to choose, again (not to mention afford). I'm all for it. Thank YOU, IBM!
"Old man yells at systemd"
Despite the stereotypes, I know of a good many tech-types who appreciate the MacOS for it's no hassle ease of use (I don't care what anyone says, sometimes I just don't need the configurability). I just wanted to dispell the notion that real Mac Users tend to be non-power users. Remember that MacOS runs in alot of school/library environments, and that the users who work with MacOS there are not even truely computer users. I think if you did a survey among Mac users by choice, you'd find them to be more technology saavy than you'd have expected.
For instance, for art and music, I'd be running Mac if I could afford it. For development, games, and such, Linux all the way. I'd happily run both systems, and leave Windows in the dust. If only I could afford it. And now, perhaps, maybe I can.
"Old man yells at systemd"
Maybe not CompUSA, but why not Egghead? If the hardware's cheap enough, this is the route I'd take ..... ? prod_id= 0000104561&sesid=^bpi!S15660263^cen!Y^ies!DF01^ces !DF01^ ? prod_id= 0000090176&sesid=^bpi!S15660263^cen!Y^ies!DF01^ces !DF01^
Mac OS 8.5:
http://www.egghead.com/store/ent/eggs_prod.browse
Mac OS X server:
http://www.egghead.com/store/ent/eggs_prod.browse
"Old man yells at systemd"
Along a different line: I heared rumors that Linux PPC has some memory-leak problems? I thought Linux is immune to such crap.
Sigged!
Apple can always diversify how they make money.
If people want to buy Linux PPC boxes, there's no reason Apple itself couldn't cater to their tastes, selling machines with Linux (and, better yet, maybe both OS's preinstalled).
If they want to focus on making everything based on MacOS, they could sell versions of their OS which run on machines built by other companies (again), plus, since MacOS is based on Next, doing a port to Intel isn't at all an unrealistic goal. Diversification is the key.
It's good to see that there will now be g3/g4 desktops produced by someone besides apple. The article seemed to take the tone that linuxpc is somehow in competition with the macos. I don't think the majority of the mac users out there are going to go bolting to linuxppc because you can buy a g3 with it on it(speaking for myself I use both, but would only buy a non apple g3/g4 if I could run the macos on it as well). If ibm puts out a cheaper chrp box than apple,and they most definitley will be cheaper than the motorola altivec g4s, they might compete with the tiny macosx server market. I'm sure apple will try to do something that will prevent the macos from running on the ibm machines
Big Money! Big Prizes! I love it!
Of course, if it costs half of what a CHRP board cost a friend ($800 m'thinks) I'll probably get it, even though it's not strictly a dollar.
Why... it could run BeOS DR4.0 [probably 4.5 too], or MacOS 8.5... with the ROM from my PMAC8500. There is an Apple ROM Slot in this design isn't there? There probably isn't; I'll live. Most importantly it could run Linux/PPC. Well.
If it had a ZIF socket (or 4) and was G4 ready, that'd be extra jolly nice of the people.
Q: Does anyone here dislike Intel at least half as much as they dislike Microsoft? I've vowed against supporting either... I've also vowed against snuff videos, but thats different. I mean that whole Intel/Digital thing was bad.
I'd keep my 604; even though its only 120 MHz.
After all, FatBoySlim says: Everybody needs a 604.
No I don't think so. CHRP is open, and has been for some time. Be has been supporting CHRP hardware, the problem has been that none of the clones (but the StarMax 4000) nor the new Apple designs were CHRP. Be had access to the clone style designs and supported them, but it does not have similar info for Apple's new designs.
Be wants to have a market; if that means sucking up to intel since apple user's ignore Be by-and-large, then so be it.
If they can "force" manufactures to build the somewhat updated CHRP design that no-one's built before, and if they can "force" end-users to buy the things, then you're right. It helps to have a CHRP design using the latest CPU, but the trick remains marketing it.