Re: XServe G5 and Linux ?

On Mon, Feb 09, 2004 at 03:06:14PM +1100, Benjamin Herrenschmidt wrote:

On Mon, 2004-02-09 at 05:05, Harald Welte wrote:

quoted

I currently have the requirement for some 1U servers running linux,
but specifically being not x86. So apart from the sparc64 systems,
there's of course the Apple XServe.

I have a couple of questions though:

Well, the machine hasn't yet been released, or if it has, I yet
haven't had any feedback of linux running on it.

I see.  It's just that the XServe G5 is sold cheaper than the XServe G4
(at least the dealers have a lower price).  That's why I somehow feel
reluctand of buying an old machine.

Also, I can positively confirm that we've had a G5 XServe at the 20C3
(CCC Chaos Communication Congress) at the end of december.  It was used
to relay the A/V streams of the lecture halls into the congress network.

So either the CCC has received an unreleased machine, or they are
already sold.

quoted

1) Does anybody have experience running linux on the current G5
Xserve?

I expect the kernel to mostly work, +/- minor adaptations that should
be fairly trivial hopefully, except maybe for the thermal control.
But then it depends what they changed of the chipset. The above is
assuming the chipset is just the new northbridge rev and same IO chip.

mh. Unfortunately you're in .au now.  This means I cannot just buy one
of them and ship it to you for getting that initial work done.
Shipping, Taxes, Customs Offices, ... would definitely over-complicate
everything.

Yes. Though I don't quite support 2.4 on G5s (there _is_ a booting SMP
2.4 kernel, I'm not sure how stable it is in the long run).

ok.

quoted

And a minor curiosity at the end: Are there any plans to include
Apple G5 support into the linux ppc64 arch at some point?

It's beeing done, will be upstream soon hopefully.

great. Thanks again.

You know how to ask :)

yes, but I know how annoying 'user' questions can be... but since there
seems to be no FAQ / blog / whatever...

Ben.

--
- Harald Welte [off-list ref]               http://www.gnumonks.org/
============================================================================
Programming is like sex: One mistake and you have to support it your lifetime

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