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Migrating from x86 to PowerPC, Part 2 (developerWorks)
developerWorks looks
at the anatomy of the Linux boot process. "This installment of
"Migrating from x86 to PowerPC" discusses detailed similarities and
differences between booting Linux on an x86-based platform (typically a
PC-compatible SBC) and a custom embedded platform based around PowerPC,
ARM, and others. It discusses suggested hardware and software designs and
highlights the tradeoffs of each. It also describes important design
pitfalls and best practices."
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powerpc machines Posted Feb 11, 2005 20:12 UTC (Fri) by ccyoung (guest, #16340) [Link] aside from Apple and IBM, are there any powerpc boxes available? are there any white box solutions available?
powerpc machines Posted Feb 11, 2005 21:19 UTC (Fri) by allesfresser (subscriber, #216) [Link] Try looking at PenguinPPC's "other hardware" page.
powerpc machines Posted Feb 11, 2005 21:23 UTC (Fri) by hollis (subscriber, #6768) [Link] The author makes reference to the Kuro box, which is not a general-purpose machine but is less than US$200. You can also buy a Pegasos board, which is a MiniATX motherboard. There are other possibilities, but those are the top two that come to mind.
powerpc machines Posted Feb 11, 2005 23:19 UTC (Fri) by chill633 (guest, #16013) [Link] Pegasos II / G4 US$775
Ouch.
Buy a Mac Mini and fdisk...
no competition Posted Feb 12, 2005 2:11 UTC (Sat) by ccyoung (guest, #16340) [Link] it seems there's not the competition as seen in the x86 market. seems like ibm is publishing these specs, as well as the specs on its blade, to get some whitebox type vendors in the mix.
imho, so far it seems to be pretty dead.
powerpc machines Posted Feb 13, 2005 17:48 UTC (Sun) by mmarq (guest, #2332) [Link] Besides Apple hardware and IBM servers, i belive any other solution is tremendously hard to find in the normal distributors... worst! its almost certain that you are openning a can of worms if you try bo build yourself a "White Box", starting with Firmware issues.
I remenber the discussion arround the PReP and CHRP, when Apple was in deep trouble!. But the intension never the less was always as it seemed to avoid the possibility of cloning becasue the only "Real" OS, and "Real = Good Desktop", available at the time was MacOS and Apple wanted payment for licencing their firmware. So a few OEMs jumped in making a few boards... to trow at the garbish can, because the bundled final price was as high or higher than a Mac system, and the tremendous exploding "White Box" stayed with Wintel... otherwise it could have been Apple instead of Microsoft!... pity greed is such short sighted.
What Open Source realy needs is a " Interoperable Hardware Platform Specfication" based on available open standards. I belive it is completly doable, but one have to wait until traditional Unix/(Linux now) vendors get in deep trouble, like happened with Apple to see some will in that direction.
powerpc machines Posted Feb 15, 2005 13:49 UTC (Tue) by whitemice (guest, #3748) [Link] >Besides Apple hardware and IBM servers, i belive any other solution is>tremendously hard to find in the normal distributors... worst!
Agree.
>its almost certain that you are openning a can of worms if you try bo >build yourself a "White Box", starting with Firmware issues.
I certainly wouldn't try it, or advise any of my friends to. Besides, if your looking at PowerPC it is because you want a stable high-performance platform - that rules out white boxes anyway. Make a check payable to IBM... We have several pSeries Power PC boxes and comparing them to the average Intel/AMD based server is just silly; the ruggedness, the cooling, the attention to detail - EVERYTHING! Those boxes are the Concords of the computing world.
>I remenber the discussion arround the PReP and CHRP, when Apple was in
The reason Apple will never really go anywhere. And there have been no small number of PowerPC OSs from BeeBox to AIX, some of which (AIX at least) certainly count as "real".
>What Open Source realy needs is a " Interoperable Hardware Platform
Nah, the current solution of having a HAL in the kernel works well. You'll never get hardware vendors to work together, their margin is much too low. Linux supports lots of platforms as it is.
powerpc machines Posted Feb 15, 2005 21:09 UTC (Tue) by mmarq (guest, #2332) [Link] " Nah, the current solution of having a HAL in the kernel works well. "
Great!... so why didn't yet the majority of manufactors payed the proper attention.
" You'll never get hardware vendors to work together, their margin is much too low. Linux supports lots of platforms as it is. "
Nope can't swallow that. Traditional Unix margins were always to high to be truth, as anyone connected to IT can compare prices of big iron Solutions with similar local White Box Server offerings. The traditional Unix business, because of Linux, can't resort to hide the price of their hardware with the price of the OS, Tools and Programs, and vice-versa, as they did before. That is why SUN seems to hate Linux, sometimes, and that is "Why" they never bothered to design hardware for the masses because their margin were high enough to stay in low production paradigmas.
Worst!... Microsoft is carried by an immense mole of White Box, and the best of them will get in the Carrier Grade and Data Center business, if they are not already there, *in force*, and is not a better CPU architecture be it IBM Power*, or a very specialized one like the SUN Niagara, that will prevent the infestation to cut on those architectures sales. The fault is not Linux *commoditizing* power, is lack of vision.
"Maybe i'm wrong, but remark my words, only an explosion in those architectures sales be it trough a new(i call it) Expert White Box, with a commom paltform specification and firmware for those CPU architectures or all except AMD and INTEL of course, will go the way of the MIPS.
powerpc machines Posted Feb 15, 2005 21:46 UTC (Tue) by mmarq (guest, #2332) [Link] " PowerPC OSs from BeeBox to AIX, some of which (AIX at least) certainly count as "real". "
No prejurative intention, but BeeOS got good to late and was marginalized pronto to be any good, and AIX with Mosaic(i belive) interface was at war with CDE, as usual in Unix, to catch the attention of the ISV.
Why?, because the intention was never to serve the masses, again, and the masses got Microsoft the dominium of the Desktop and later the server. So 'real' here means designed for the masses. And against facts there is no arguments, because with arguably 50% more or less of server instalation base, Microsoft inspite of all lousy deeds dominate the paradigma.
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