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Here come the PowerPC Linux systems
webslacker writes "A company called Total Impact is announcing multiprocessor PowerPC systems using IBM's PowerPC Open Platform (POP) with Linux as its OS of choice. In fact, their short press release states that their base model config will be a 5 processor box, and that they've even gotten a 128 processor system running under the MacOS. " five cpus?! Sweeeet.
Actually, it sounds like their archetecture (4 CPU PCI cards) is more like having 32 4 CPU boxes, using the PCI bus as a high speed, low latency, switched network connection. Plus, I'd bet that the extra CPUs run some really light weight task manager, rather than a complete OS.
- Yes, they are indeed very fast
- G4s are designed with SMP in mind, and future revisions are looking at just putting multiple cores on one chip
- They are cool...as in, you don't need cryogenic cooling to keep em from melting. A heat sink covers it.
- they are tiny, so you don't need a sledge hammer to squish them into a 1 or 2 U rack case
- They are low power
- The archetecture actually still has a future, it's not crammed with legacy BS
- Real RISC
- They are not Intel
And as a bonus for developing open boards, the BSDs already have ports, and linux already has a port. I am so ready for this.- H
Quoted from the website:
"Total Impact's transparent software interface, Total Freedom, eliminates complicated and expensive re-coding of software applications developed for the Macintosh in order to offer an acceleration solution. Virtually any software application that runs on a Power Macintosh can easily be modified to take advantage of the Total Power MP accelerator boards, whether it is written in C, C++, FORTRAN or PASCAL."
So that's different from existing Daystar systems. The current (or upcoming) version of MacOS also has SMP built-in if I am not mistaken.
So they did it with G3 CPUs under MacOS. If they can get that running, they shouldn't have too hard a time getting it going under Linux...
Rendering... Compiling... *drool*
barbabob
--
*sig*
You don't need 2^x number of processors for SMP like you don't need 2^x number of cards for PCI. Basically, all you need is a clean shot to the bus arbiter, an electrically stable bus, and you should be good to go. Assuming the PowerPC has the same "tag" based scheme as the high-end POWER chips, that is.
And just wait until there's multi-CPU G4 boards. Oh, baby!
:)
We know the G4 already can run linuxppc. now we just need the boxes.
-- haaz.
RC5 cracking scales really well. Just ask distributed.net. RC5 key processing is not IO-bound.
So, because of that, it is still misleading for them to advertise RC5 key processing as an indicator of multiprocessor performance. Real world multiprocessing tasks will generate far more bus activity, and thus will not scale nearly as well.
I second this. I already *know* that my next computer won't be running an Intel processor. Whether it's an Athlon, an Alpha, or a PowerPC, I'm not sure. All I want is to have some *choice*! Manufacturers, take IBM's specs on the PowerPC motherboard and *MAKE* *THEM*! I know I'd buy one.
The problem with the x86 architecture is not being big-endian (several RISC chips do both) it's the fact that's it's a crappy asymmetric*, CISC, strictly 32-bit and below design. Current Pentiums and friends use a 32-bit RISC core, with microcode to implement the x86 instruction set, bringing them full circle to the early 1970's and things like IBM 370 and VAX. Yuck.
The only reason self-respecting Linux / *BSD / Be fans dirty their desks with such badly architected technology is that the Windows PC revolution has made the price/performance ratio of the hardware second to none. Architecturally nice though UltraSparc might be, I'm fscked if I'll pay US$3.5K for a 350MHz Ultra 5 with IDE, SDRAM and other PC-component technology when I can get a 500MHz Pentium for $1.2K (and falling) that is more or less the same performance. It's all about mass production.
Yes, Sun have missed the point with their latest workstation offerings.
Despite the design effort being poured in by Intel, AMD and others, I expect the gap between Intel x86 and RISC to widen as x86 becomes increasingly crippled by backward compatibility.
Panic not though - Linux is already up and running on all the major RISC architectures, including the much delayed IA-64. With multi-platform use well established, it is well poised to take advantage of any new CPU that comes along.
I too would like to see an increase in the availability of RISC cpu's on PC ATX form factor motherboards, with PCI and AGP, etc.
* in the use of registers - each of the 16 registers in the x86 works with a different subset of the instructions, in contrast to typical modern CPU's where there are typically 32 registers, all fully interchangeable. This feature makes it easier to write good optimising compilers.
This is just a guess, but it looks like the main thing they make is a 4 CPU PCI expansion board. So, if you have a single CPU mac with a PCI bus and you add one card you have 1 + 4 cpus. This also makes sense as they say at one place in their page that you can have 13 CPUs (1 + 3*4).
Here is a pic from their page which lead me to this assumption.
Back during DESCHALL, I remember someone noticing that a 2 CPU 604e was more than twice as fast a 1 CPU, because it turns out that the overhead of the MacOS interupt handlers is pretty high. Since all interupts were handled on cpu #0, you could watch the cracking rates of the two instances and get really depressed about your OS... (though the same guy said the "super efficient" BeOS was even worse)