In article <[log in to unmask]>,
Duane Percox  <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> What about non x86 cpu support?

Currently the only non-x86 CPUs that are really interesting are the Alpha
and IBM's mainframes. In either case the vendor's UNIX (Linux for IBM, and
Tru64 for the Alpha) are a better choice. Tru64 is BSD-based, by the way.

IBM's Power PC boxes are impressive, but they're awfully proud of them, and
if you're just going to run commodity Linux on them why not stick with a
commodity CPU that's got more application support?

Because that's the real key. People don't buy computers to run operating
systems, so there's really two questions you need to ask:

        1. Is the software I need to run available in source form, so I
           can buy whatever gets me the most bang for the buck? This has
           always come down to IA32 or Alpha for me, but I can see the
           IBM mainframe VM model being attractive for some applications.

        2. What operating systems and hardware is the software available
           on? There's five main players in this market: Windows NT, MacOS,
           Linux on IA32, Solaris on Sparc, and IBM's AS/400. There's a
           bunch of vertical markets like mini/mainframe systems (AS400,
           MPE, VMS, OS/1100, ...), raw CPU power (which is where we use
           Tru64), massive databases (Solaris, Tru64, and all the miniframes,
           I guess other biggish-iron UNIXes like HPUX and AIX)...

MacOS Server on IBM's big Power PC boxes has a lot of attraction. That'll give
you a commodity OS with a manager-friendly user interface and a solid Mach/BSD
core. Don't know if it'll happen, though.

But if you're running Linux applications, either you have the source so you're
not restricted to Linux, or the only really-well-supported version is IA32...
and probably some specific version of Red Hat.

Anyway, the bottom line is still... look at what you need to do, and pick the
hardware and software to match. Heck, I've even used NT by choice, on the
occasions when that was the right thing to do.

> And do they have a true ia-64 version?

Who cares? It's going to be years before IA64 is anything but a dancing bear.
Once they have competitive (in price and performance) systems out, then ask
me again.

Yeh, I know that Compaq's rolled over on the Alpha, but it's still going to
take years to get IA64-anything into a state to replace it. And by that time,
who knows what the flavor of the month will be?

--
 `-_-'   In hoc signo hack, Peter da Silva.
  'U`    "A well-rounded geek should be able to geek about anything."
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