Linked by Thom Holwerda on Sun 29th Oct 2006 23:09 UTC
Morphos Genesi has announced its Open Server Workstation: "The Open Server Workstation is a six layer board with two 970MP processors, the CPC945 and Broadcom's HT-1000 and 2000 chips. Excepting those parts, the board and component cost is below USD 200. Here is the Business Plan [.pdf] we wrote for the board."
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RE[2]: Why open ppc?
by Andre Siegel on Mon 30th Oct 2006 08:36 UTC in reply to "RE: Why open ppc?"
Andre Siegel
Member since:
2005-08-12

@ flywheel

I really dont know about this - both the PS/3 and the XBOX360 runs on the Cell processor, which beating heart is a PPC970.

Actually, the PS3 runs on the Cell processor but the XBOX 360 does not. The XBOX 360 uses a custom Power Architecture processor named Xenon.


Limited operating systems
Well I guess that Yellowdog Linux, openSUSE, Crux, Gentoo, Debian, Mandriva, Holon, ubuntu Linux, Skole Linux, MorphOS, µnOS, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenDarwin, OpenSolaris, ArOS and QNX is rather limited.


These are the operating systems running on Genesi's Pegasos I / Pegasos II type of mainboards and all products based on those, such as the Open Desktop Workstation. It remains to be seen if they will all be ported to the G5-based Open Server Workstation.

For example, there has been no announcement so far that MorphOS will be ported to the OSW at any point in the future.

Reply Parent Score: 3

RE[3]: Why open ppc?
by twenex on Mon 30th Oct 2006 10:49 in reply to "RE[2]: Why open ppc?"
twenex Member since:
2006-04-21

For example, there has been no announcement so far that MorphOS will be ported to the OSW at any point in the future.

Indeed, there seems little point; MorphOS, AROS and AmigaOS are home operating systems (desktop operating systems if you're being generous - workstation operating systems if you're stuck to 1990s Lightwave hardware - server operating systems if you're mad!) and it would probably take as much work to get AmigaOS to the state where it could serve as a server operating system as it did BeOS, if not more.

As VMS, Unix/Linux and Windows have shown us, it's much easier to make a workstation/desktop machine out of a server OS than it is to do the reverse.

Reply Parent Score: 1

RE[4]: Why open ppc?
by PlatformAgnostic on Tue 31st Oct 2006 01:09 in reply to "RE[3]: Why open ppc?"
PlatformAgnostic Member since:
2006-01-02

By this, I guess you mean that Unix and VMS have shown us that it's easy to make a workstation out of a server and Windows has shown us that the reverse is tough? ;)

My opinion is that server versus workstation doesn't matter that much these days.

Reply Parent Score: 1

RE[3]: Why open ppc?
by flywheel on Mon 30th Oct 2006 17:57 in reply to "RE[2]: Why open ppc?"
flywheel Member since:
2005-12-28

Actually, the PS3 runs on the Cell processor but the XBOX 360 does not. The XBOX 360 uses a custom Power Architecture processor named Xenon.

I'm corrected - The XBOX360 runs on Xenon, not Cell and only features 3 cores.
But the Xenons beating heart still is an PPC

These are the operating systems running on Genesi's Pegasos I / Pegasos II type of mainboards and all products based on those, such as the Open Desktop Workstation. It remains to be seen if they will all be ported to the G5-based Open Server Workstation.

G5 still got the 32-bit extension implemented right ?
Most people today also runs 32-bit operating systems on their AMD64 processors.
I see no problem in that every supported operating systems is not released to the street in 64-bit versions the same day as the OSW is released.

Reply Parent Score: 2

RE[4]: Why open ppc?
by Andre Siegel on Mon 30th Oct 2006 19:35 in reply to "RE[3]: Why open ppc?"
Andre Siegel Member since:
2005-08-12

@ flywheel

G5 still got the 32-bit extension implemented right ?
Most people today also runs 32-bit operating systems on their AMD64 processors.
I see no problem in that every supported operating systems is not released to the street in 64-bit versions the same day as the OSW is released.


The OSW mainboard uses very different components than the older Pegasos 1/2. Operating Systems such as MorphOS need to be specifically adapted to the new northbridge, etc. in order to run properly.

The central processing unit is only one piece of the puzzle. Just having a compatible or even identical processor is not enough.

Reply Parent Score: 1