As general interest over the PPC platform is growing, it could be of some interest this series of announcements made by Genesi. The Open Desktop Workstation, with all open specs, is a good way to have many operating systems, and so many options too, on good and cheap PowerPC hardware.
News on the Open Desktop Workstation
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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darwin?
Can I run MacOS X inthis plataform?????
Yes. No. Yes.
Since it’s a PPC architecture, you can run Mac OS X in Mac-on-Linux ( http://www.maconlinux.org/ ) with practically no speed loss. There are special boot CDs that boot Linux and invoke a fullscreen Mac-On-Linux available.
You can’t boot Mac OS X natively on the Pegasos. But you could with a patched kernel. So, maybe Darwin will be supported (Of course Apple won’t be very interested in getting such patches into Darwin) in the future, then you just have to recompile your kernel, and you can run Mac OS X natively.
I recall OpenBSD had problems with Genesi back in the day – both because Genesi refused to pay and also because they refused to open the specs for the gigabit network adapter… So it might be that they want to heal that particular wound.
is this an ad for ppcnerds or genesi ?
these are old news…
possibly things move faster as you would mind.
Interesting concept, especially if it’s true that speedloss is very low. This is a brilliant move by Genesi. I was completely unaware of this possibility.
What I’d prefer even more though is to see Haiku on this beast when it’s more ready…
I admit to being completely clueless on this. So essentially, you’d run a Linux distribution, and then run maconlinux over top of that? It works with PPC hardware of what type exactly? Does OSX have hardware compatibility issues when run in this manner? Can PPC hardware be used in a standard ATX case? If so, I’d possibly consider building an OSX-based home theatre inside an Ahanix audiophile case (www.ahanix.com). Lastly, what sort of performance hit are we talking about here, and is there a site somewhere with info about selecting the parts and getting OSX up and running on such a system? Thanks guys. 🙂
I gess that there is a nice niche for PPC workstations and Servers running Linux.
I mean… IBM Servers already have PPC tecnology, bring PPC to the Workstation will only consolidate the installed machine base. No crosscompiling, just load it onto your iSeries server!
And PPC hardware is just more stable and efficient than x86… Companies use them on the server side, they’ll want it on the workstation!! Come on IBM!
Oh boy… I would kill for a nice PPC Thinkpad! A nice, and cheap, PPC Notebook… iBooks and PowerBooks are fine, but they’re just too expensive given their specs, and I’m talking about a work machine, to code and stuff… I bet IBM can make it cheaper than Apple.
(Sorry my broken english, I’m no native speaker!)
>So essentially, you’d run a Linux distribution, and then run maconlinux over top of that?
You’re right.
The “only” hardware issue is that there’s no 3D Hardware acceleration. Even if you card is supported (in 3D) by Linux/X…
Leo.
You can’t boot Mac OS X natively on the Pegasos. But you could with a patched kernel. So, maybe Darwin will be supported (Of course Apple won’t be very interested in getting such patches into Darwin) in the future, then you just have to recompile your kernel, and you can run Mac OS X natively.
Out of pure curiosity; would this be legal?
I guess Apple is OK with people running OS X on a recompiled Darwin, but does the licence allow you to run on hardware from other manufacturers?
Before investing in Pegasos, be sure to read the following,
stories, once the open bsd, was making a port for this computer but was dropped because…
read the story here
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=6499
the news blurb calls this a “cheap solution” well I’d hate to see what they consider “expensive” because the motherboard alone costs $770.00. I’ve followed Pegasos for a while but these outrageous prices prevent me from even considering this “alternative”.
http://www.ultraspec.us/p2g4.htm
While I think that PPC is good…it is not cheap. I can build a 2ghz PC for $200.00. This Pegasos hardware is almost prohibitively expensive. If I had that kind of cash laying around I would just kick in a few hundred more and get an iMac. You got to buy a display anyway…so for the same money you get an iMac.
I have been following Pegasos motherboards for a while now because I would absolutely love to build my own PPC machine. However the cost is absolutely non-justifiable as far as I’m concerned. I could build 3 faster machines with Intel architecture that would also have more memory. Yet despite the fact that Genesi has been manufacturing these boards for quite some time now, the cost doesn’t seem to ever go down. I’m curious to know as to whether anyone out there believes that they would notice a difference in favor of the PPC board between a computer built with a Pegasos and a computer built with a much cheaper Intel/AMD processor that has more than twice the clock speed while both are running Linux. I would guess that the only noticable difference would be that the Intel architecture would be faster.
Out of pure curiosity; would this be legal?
I guess Apple is OK with people running OS X on a recompiled Darwin, but does the licence allow you to run on hardware from other manufacturers?
I am not aware of any license forbidding to run OS X on non-Apple hardware, and if there was one, it would most probably be illegal and therefore invalid in a lot of countries (although I guess that the US would probably -not- be among these countries).
As for now, Apple couldn’t care less, neither for Mac-on-Linux nor for PearPC. IF some company really came up selling PPC hardware in great numbers for the sole purpose of running OS X on it, they would likely take legal action, as they did with the macclones.
Read the first of a few comments from Genesi’s Paul Adams here (and keep going):
http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=6499&limit=no#216868
See this too:
http://archives.neohapsis.com/archives/openbsd/2004-08/0114.html
I think Genesi moved on…
http://www.developer.ibm.com/solutions/isv/igssg.nsf/list/bycompany…
And this is better pricing (what if the Euro/$ was in the other driection?!):
https://www.pegasosppc.com/store.php
I think Genesi is doing what it has to do to enter a market of much bigger and more well established companies.
Re: MOL on the Pegasos (old news)
http://www.morphzone.org/modules/myalbum/photo.php?lid=200
I had a Pegasos I and now have a Pegasos II. It is a good machine. Genesi is a small company. How many small (or big) companies really make it? Should we list a few of the internet bubble?
Follow http://www.morphzone.org or http://www.ppczone.org/ if interested. Apparently a QNX port is coming too (see MorphZone). And this as well…
http://solutions.mysql.com/other/hardware/?item=6
They keep going and they may be slow but it *seems* they always come back to tie up the loose ends…
Well boy, that’s capitalism. There’s simply more demand than they can (or want to) produce, so they can offer those things very expensive. Especially now that they’re targetting companies and not geeks (or, say, “consumers”) as the primary audience, waiting times for Pegasos mainboards can go quite high. And those Open Desktop Workstations are still cheap for companies, because energy consumption is a great cost factor too, if you have those machines running all day.
And if you build one yourself, the biggest noticable distance would be the quietness of your computer. The G4s have an active ventilation, but it’s been reported they also run stable when passively cooled. You can take a weak fanless power supply, put a heatpipe on your graphics card, and take a quiet hard disk, a perfect multimedia box (Only Haiku is still missing…).
And someone asked whether you can build a Pegasos into an ATX case: Yes, that’s what they’re for…
http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/overview.jsp?nodeId=018rH3…
http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=PPCG…
I would say they are making solid progress…;-)
I would buy one, by the problem is that they’re only offering the old crusty G4s. If they had the same thing but with PPC 970, then I would be interested.
Call me crazy, but a 1ghz Emac can be purchased for 600$ right now from Apple. It will run OS X (not only run it, but it comes with it!) as well as Linux PPC, and most of the other operating systems mentioned. Not to mention the fact it comes already assembled, with a high quality 17″ monitor.
For those wanting headless solutions, you can pick up a 1.8ghz Powermac for around what your probably looking at for one of these assembled and running!
This article was a good: http://www.ppcnux.de/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=4208/ I want the Pegasos dual core 7448!
Genesi does smart things as so: http://www.ppczone.org/modules/news/article.php?storyid=43
Apple only seems to really care about whether or not the machine is sold with their OS preloaded on it, or at least that seemed to be their main sticking point when they turfed the clone makers. IIRC, one or two of the clone companies continued to sell computers for a while, but they came with no OS and a retail copy of OS 8 or something that you had to install yourself.
“And this is better pricing (what if the Euro/$ was in the other driection?!)”
Gee, I can get a G3 with a board for $600.00! I recently bought a 366 G3 MT off of Ebay for $35.00(no hard disk)put a cheap hard disk and upgraded the CPU to a 500mhz G4, installed OS X and had a G4 PPC system for $150.00. These prices you linked to are ridiculous. This Open Desktop announcement is just hype to get the attention of Linux freaks. They are not offering special pricing or anything different than they have ever offered…they just made an “announcement”.
—–QUOTE By Robocoastie—–
the news blurb calls this a “cheap solution” well I’d hate to see what they consider “expensive” because the motherboard alone costs $770.00. I’ve followed Pegasos for a while but these outrageous prices prevent me from even considering this “alternative”.
—–UNQUOTE—
I couldn’t agree more. For that price, one could get a much more ubiquitous AMD64 platform with greater support, resources, and add-ons.
–EyeAm
http://s87767106.onlinehome.us
– <bold>the news blurb calls this a “cheap solution” well I’d hate to see what they consider “expensive” because the motherboard alone costs $770.00. I’ve followed Pegasos for a while but these outrageous prices prevent me from even considering this “alternative”.</bold>
Yeah, but you get a CPU and a cooler as well as openfirmware to go with that. Which give you the opportunity to use “ordinary” pci and agp cards, instead of filthy expensive “apple variants”. Isn’t thart worth anything?
And maybe the CPU is a little slow compared to recent Itel/AMD CPU:s, but with Altivec on, PPC architecture can often give them a good match… plus ppc is quiet, cold and low on power consumtion.
Runs both MorphOS (fun, fast, smart and has the potential)
and some nix variants (incl. mac-on-linux with virtually no speed loss)
It’s expensive but has it’s advantages.
Didn’t IBM give away a motherboard design for anyone to use?
How come nothing ever became of this?
Plus I don’t even know where to buy a PPC cpu.
Where’s the hyped up plans IBM had for competing with Intel that was news a year ago? Hopefully not pegasos.
There is no such thing as an dual core 7448, there is an anounced chip (ie not yet available) named 8641D that’s a DC chip based on the upcomming e600 core. But the achitectural differences (IMC, on board ethernet, PCIe, RIO …) are IMO to big to call it an “dualcore 7448”. [/anal nitpicker]
your ppc notebook is existing
http://www.cs.fiu.edu/~ayanic01/rs6k
it has a 166MHz PowerPC 603e wooha!
Funny to see an ATI video card in an “open” system. My understanding is that the TV out support available under XFree86/Xorg is hacked and not offically endorsed by ATI. Not exactly “open” by the defintion we’ve all accepted.
“I’m curious to know as to whether anyone out there believes that they would notice a difference in favor of the PPC board between a computer built with a Pegasos and a computer built with a much cheaper Intel/AMD processor that has more than twice the clock speed while both are running Linux. I would guess that the only noticable difference would be that the Intel architecture would be faster.”
Just from my experience, the PPC actually is extremely powerful for its clock speed. I did a bit of numerical work on my powerbook (1.25 GHz w/512 MB RAM running OSX), crunching SVDs of very large matrices. They were taking a while, so I tried doing the same thing on my roommate’s AMD XP 2.8+ with 1024 MB of (faster) RAM, running gentoo. My powerbook performed the operations in about three-fourths the time of the AMD XP that has a bit less than twice the clock speed.
Obviously, that’s not a scientific benchmark, but I was using the same version of octave on both machines (fink octave for the Powerbook, gentoo stable octave for the AMD). I think that you can get a 1.25 GHz Mac for around $1000 now, so the price isn’t too ridiculous.
Well, Im coworking with Genesi from 2 years or so, and it’s funny how people recognize it as root of all evil. While I admire the OpenBSD system, I can not say I was happy to read Theo’s e-mail. We’re all grown-up, but sometimes it’s seems that all open source movement is a mud throwing contest.
Sure. Im biased, but who isn’t? I bet people who post “DON’T TRUST GENESI” are very biased. :->
no one’s been saying “Genesi is the root of all evil” at all nor has there been any “mud throwing” regarding open source in the thread at all. Why is it everytime theres criticism of a PPC platform this lie gets hurled at critics? In fact quite the opposite, every one of us who frequents OS News and /. even LIKE “alternatives” and we’d love for any alt to succeed.
But criticism doesn’t mean anyones saying its evil. sheesh.
this is great, Genesi is really getting into the game full blown and defenently scoring some big points…..I cant wait and see what the future holds for them. I have no dought they are going to establish themselves firmly in the computer industry.
Funny to see an ATI video card in an “open” system. My understanding is that the TV out support available under XFree86/Xorg is hacked and not offically endorsed by ATI. Not exactly “open” by the defintion we’ve all accepted.
NVidia is even more closed. They release Linux and FreeBSD drivers, but they never give out any specs which might be helpful to developers, eb it of other alternative OS’s or of the X.org/XFree “nv” driver. Thus, even if a secondary feature of ATI cards like TV out is hacked in X, ATI is still more “open” than NVidia.
(Nearly) all GPU manufacturers do this, because they don’t want to give any data to their competitors, but they suffer a great loss: Their products aren’t only badly supported on alternative OS’s, but I’ve heard that there are a lot of problems with their own drivers on Windows too, especially with multi-function cards.
Once again, Apple poses an exception, they carefully select the hardware which is delivered in their systems, and they are given the sources by NVidia and ATI and develop their own drivers out of this.
Emil is referring to a post which seems to have been deleted. It was very much calling Genesi the root of all evil (and more).
The main idea behind the open firmware based Pegasos/ODW is to allow a user to run the operating system of their choice. There is a certain amount of flexibility in having a EULA free machine. Also, the firmware offers a boot up menu and as long as you have the memory resources you can chose between a variety of options. Our niche is in this direction.
Please write us if you have any questions or comments.
Raquel and Bill
Genesi
http://www.genesi.lu