Trillian Project Release Linux for IA-64 158
Smack writes "The Trillian developer's release of the Linux port to Intel's new IA-64 architecture was made available yesterday on kernel.org. Q & A from the press conference are also available in PDF format. " At the keynote done this morning at LWCE, some of the engineers demonstrated the code - very, very cool. The examples were running Doom as well as an excellent rendering of a skull.
Re:How does it REALLY stack up? (Score:1)
The EV6 core has very similar computational resources to Merced but is an out-of-order execution design while Merced is an in-order execution design (like the Alpha EV5). Clock for clock the EV6 will on *average* outperform Merced slightly on integer code and possibly FP code too but much depends on the quality of the compilers and if run-time profiling driven compilation is performed. IA-64 is a great way to quickly run a program on the same data a second time which may give it some amzing individual benchmark score although it won't show it on user apps as much and its performance will be all over the map.
That was clock for clock. In similar 0.18 um processess the EV68 will reach well in excess of 1 GHz while the Merced clock target is apparently 750 to 800 MHz (which Intel is having difficulty reaching). Again in 0.18 um, the EV68 will burn from 60 to 80 Watts while Merced will be well over 100 Watts and possibly more than 140 Watts. No wonder Linux developers lucky enough to have a proto Merced system complained of the fan noise!
Oh yes, the Alpha EV68 will come in at about half the die size and pin count of the Merced and will use industry standard synch SRAMs and DDR SRAMs for its L2 while the Merced uses custom Intel memories like Pentium Pro and Xeon. Even given Intel's potentially much larger volumes, the Alpha should be a distinctly cheaper (and faster and cooler) part.
"It's just for servers/workstations" (Score:1)
Actually, Intel said exactly this about the i386, i486, i586, and i686 when they were first released. They weren't supposed to appear on the average desktop until a year afterwards, if ever. The most amazing thing is that people continue to believe it,
My best guess is that Intel makes it their policy to make this claim about any new processor, so that in case it tanks they will not lose public credibility. They can respond to pointed questions regarding low sales with "the workstation market has lower volumes than the PC market; this is normal".
-- Guges --
Re:GCC? (Score:1)
Re:How does it REALLY stack up? (Score:1)
http://www.digital.com/hpc/ref/ref_ systems.html [digital.com] But i guess we can wait until real benchmarks start showing up. but BEWARE the the basic design of ia64 allows for some INSANE optimization if you know what the program is going to do b4hand(ie in a standard benchmark). Pretty good for most scientific computing, but could create obsene benchmark numbers.
Re:Why IA-64? Because it's designed! (Score:1)
Putting aside the question of whether or not the IA64 architecture was designed well, there is a small matter of its going to have to compete against AMD's Sledgehammer processor. Admittedly, Sledgehammer is currently vaporware, but the idea behind it -- of incrementally extending IA32 to 64-bit and optimizing the processor for IA32 code execution performance -- will be a direct test of IA64's viability. If most people are willing to replace their OS and applications with IA64-specific apps, and find it sufficient to be able to run IA32 applications a bit more slowly than thay would on an IA32-specific processor, then McKinley will compete well against Sledgehammer. If, on the other hand, people mostly want to keep running IA32 applications as quickly as possible, Sledgehammer will steal the x86-compatible 64-bit show.
-- Guges --
64 Bit registers versus 32 (Score:1)
However, if Crusoe were to be using a Minolta 3D JFS from IBM we could see the whole thing at Linuxworld Live.
I Know what you are thinking, the evil Diablo II from Redmond, aka Ballmer, will cause Loki to
commercialize AOL. But I think in this Case, Bugs Bunny already wrote enough obfuscated C code to do this with his new "How to write Java" book. If it weren't for the ball lightening we would have Playstations replacing our PC's with Even Day processors - very efficient using the NISCMU chip (no intstruction set code morphing utility).
I think however that if we were to use a pure Andover/VA computer this would further increase the Judges ire and allow for DVD playback.
It is a good thing Slashdot has released their code and has given up the right to privacy - with all these ninja wannabees lurking we have only CERT to thank for warning us. The whole thing is a consumer nightmare.
Did anyone else get aroused while looking at Bill?
I find you lack of faith disturbing- Lord Vader - before open sourcing the Death Star -
Re:I am disappointed. (Score:1)
so Linus and Alan could look at it and asses how they go about
I spent ten minutes trying to figure out what you were saying about Linus's and Alan's asses. Gay Linux coder porn? Wonderful. Oh, he means "assess"! I get it now.
Isn't it surprizing how badly I spell ?
Actually, yes.
From the patch: (Score:1)
+ * space address (plus one). On ia-64, there are five regions of 2TB
+ * each (assuming 8KB page size), for a total of 8TB of user virtual
+ * address space.
Hehe.. With 16 or 64 k page mode (supported by IA64) Linux IA64 will support more virtual memory then Windows 2000 supports partition size!
performance and demonstration (Score:1)
Sometimes it makes sense (Score:1)
I would rather have Word 4.0 or 5.1, with excel 3.0 or 5.0, on my old Powerbook 180 (68030@33, 14/80 mb) than modern hardware with anything MS has put out since.
My 486/50 thinkpad with linux & lyx flatly outperforms any windows- or mac-based word processor on modern equipment, save for wrapping text around objects (which is a latex problem) and when running latex/ghostview for rendering (but I do that on bigger machines). And I don't have to worry about it getting stolen.
My Tandy 102 isbetter for simple note-taking (text only) than anything built since--though a PDA with a chording keyboard integrated intothe case would beat it hands down on the same criteria it beats a modern laptop).
On the other hand, for my number crunching research, I'll take the latest, fastest, machine with a Fortran 90 compiler, right until I can get my paws on something faster with Fortran 2000. And to render text, speed is good.
There are places for upgrades. There are also places where sticking with a dinosaur is a better bet.
Now that I have a light background and can spawn new instances with my . key over a link, I have litte need for a browser other than lynx--all netscape was doing for me was spawning the extras . . . and this is much leaner.
btw, the advantages of the 8080 over the 8008 were pretty obvious. Save for the construction article in issue 1 of Byte (build your own external stack for your 8008 with 30 chips), virtually noone who had any choice stuck with the 8008--which wasn't really used much for general computing, anyway.
This is great!! (Score:1)
(In fact, if they went into the tree NOW, we'd have Linux running on the IA64 before the IA64 or Windows 2000 was released!)
Hey! That'd be cool! Hardware manufacturers playing catch-up to Linux!
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re:Why IA-64? Because it's designed! (Score:1)
Re:Vaporware (Score:1)
Wanna be a dinosaur? Go right ahead. (Score:1)
You said:
"I'd rather settle for continuing to be able to run my existing software."
I have to whack my head TWICE when I read that, because I have heard something like that back in the days people were running CP/M on Zilog chips, on 8008, and others were running TRS-80 from Radio Shack.
At that time, some people said "Why should I use the 8080 chip? Why should I try the Apple? What I have here is enough for me, I have invested too much for what I have here."
Guess what? See how many people are still using the TRS-80 or running the old CP/M?
Okay, maybe. (original opinion revisited). (Score:1)
As for those people who thought I was on to a dead end, you're probably right. But my system is a PII-233, with 32Mb Ram. At this point it's only just behind the eight-ball as it is.
While I think about it, why aren't processors flashable? My SoundCard's firmware can be upgraded without opening the case. When do we get CPUs that can do this? I do realise that most processors upgrades fiddle with the transistor count, but if someone works out a way to do something better, why should me make pieces of silicon obsolete?
I realise this comes close to interrupting the revenue streams for the chip makers, but surely a chip like that could be sold for quite a nice package...
Disclaimers: I'm a software developer. I make no representation about that idea being possible. These ideas were written immediately I thought them up. The haven't been passed through a sane mind.
Re:And W2k uses some kind of funky PAE (Score:1)
Re:Going where no game has gone before... (Score:1)
--
Re:But you had to buy them again (Score:1)
The only 'upgrade' I remember was the DEC Rainbow, which had both a Z-80 and a 8086, and could run both versions of CP/M (and possibly MS-DOS).
--
Re:This is why... (Score:1)
If, on the other hand, IA64 systems are within 30% of the cost of IA32 systems, IA64 could catch on.
--
Re:Wanna be a dinosaur? Go right ahead. (Score:1)
All of the major CP/M-80 packages (WordStar, VisiCalc, etc) were ported to the 8086 almost immediately. Plus, new, supposedly better software like WordPerfect and Lotus 123 was coming out only for the 8086. Plus the IBM PC had other niceities like a standard disk format and color graphics.
(People hit the maximum sheet size in Visicalc on 64K 8080 machines pretty quickly. Even with 512K or 640K, people also were bumping against Lotus's maximum sheet size early on. Lotus finally had to drive a specification for expanded memory to solve the problem. In short, the user applications were driving the upgrades in those days, not the games or the server stuff.)
--
Re:Going where no game has gone before... (Score:1)
Amiga/PPC
He makes a good case for "Burn all gifs" (Score:1)
___________________
I think (Score:1)
___________________
Reply banned by Congressional Act (Score:1)
Re:Vaporware (Score:1)
Ungrateful for what exactly? Oh and by the way not everybody who posts to slashdot is 15, or has long hair.
>Linux is doomed to failure unless it gets its marketing together.
Define failure.
Not everyone define failure as "small market share" or as "not making huge profits." Some people define success as "making a great (not necessarilly popular) OS" or just "having fun", marketing will have no effect on these, and so Linux can succed without you. Sorry to break it to you like that.
>for most if not all people the fundamental issue is support.
No. For most if not all people the issue is ease of use. If a piece of software is easy to use and does what you want from it then what else do you really need? My parents use an old apple Mac that has not been supported for years, they don't care because it has an easy to use word processor.
>my advice is seldom wrong...
>How likely is it that you have anything important to add to my posting ?
Just a touch arrogant there don't you think...
Its amazing that a self declared "well respected and highly regarded expert in the science of Marketing" is so bad at marketing himself and his ideas.
Its very gracious of you to lower yourself to giving us the benefit of your expert advice but please go away and come back when you have something usefull to say.
The short haired 24yr old professional engineer, bil.
Re:Do you really think I'm that Naive? (Score:1)
No we don't need a soul to have intelligence. The reason we don't have intelligent computers is that intelligence is hard to create. It took evolution 2 billion years to slouch out human intelligence.
We just don't have the hardware resources yet, and we won't for a while. A human brains has billions (not sure of the exact order of magnitude, but I know that's the right ballpark) of neurons and trillions of synapses. A large neural net model in an 'intelligent' system that does something fairly difficult might be in the thousands or tens of thousands. We are four or five orders of magnitude from the type of hardware we would need to emulate the human brain, also you have to have more precision than we currently use in (most) artifical neurons. Even with Moores law (while it holds) that's 25 years or so to achieve the kind of computing power we need. Additionally it has to be organized right, which is another whole area of challenge.
Evolution has the advantage of massively parallel processes to get everything right over long periods of time. So it will probably take us fallible humans a while longer to get it right.
Re:Security through obscurity is no excuse! (Score:1)
This puts Linux ahead, must not lose that chance. (Score:1)
Re:VA+Slashdot popup? (Score:1)
GCC? (Score:1)
Re:They have to call it trillian (Score:1)
Re:IA-64? but why? (Score:1)
I want as much choice in the Linux world as possible. The more processors the better in my book.
It is true that there are only so many developers, but choice will cause the better systems to get more work done on them and thus improve.
One of the big differences between linux and M$ winXXXX is that we can move faster as this release shows.
Noel
RootPrompt.org -- Nothing but Unix [rootprompt.org]
wow (Score:1)
I can play Doom on my 386:)
IA-64 is where Linux will finally dominate Windows (Score:1)
Re:I am disappointed. (Score:1)
What's that dream system's specs now ?
How about Linux-2.4 - IBM S/390 Mainframe <grin>
Re:How does it REALLY stack up? (Score:1)
The reason that Merced is less clock speed than Alpha is because it has some obscene number of pipelines. Thats the whole concept of EPIC. Second, the EV6s already hit over 100 watts, so it doesn't really matter if merced does. And I seriously doubt Merced is in order. It is a very parallel processor and no one is stupid enough to make it in-order. Merced is made for some very high end, very specific stuff. Take matrix transformations. Such processes are VERY parallel, and benifet much more from the extra pipes than the extra 100-200 MHz. And matrix transforms are heavily used in 3D, so I guess that Merced might be the ultimate 3D rendering machine.
Well, let's think about this... (Score:1)
What's your problem with id software? They've consistently fought, at their own time and expense, for open standards and alternative platforms, which is more than anyone can say for either Valve or Epic.
Doom and Quake on the Crusoe and Tillian (Score:1)
IA64 where is the steak? (Score:1)
Intel has had plenty of disasters in the past (the X87 stach architecture, the 16-bit segments, the 432 CPU).
AMD's web page has a good critique of IA64 that definitely puts the seeds of doubt in my mind see http://www.amd.com/products/cpg/mpf/pres99/microp
Re:Vaporware (Score:1)
I'm a coder, and have been using Linux for years. However, I shudder to think of installing a Linux system for my mom or grandmother to use, as it is too complex as it stands right now. The potential success for Linux is that ANYONE may change it. The advantage I view M$ having at the moment is a polished, 'idiot level' interface. Linux is on the way with this, but not their yet. As for marketing, I think the common disdain is due to the 'hyping.'
You stated in your post that it is your job as a marketing person is to emphasize technical points. I've found that this emphasis has led to an almost glossing over effect on the downsides of some products that create havoc with the end user (I'm thinking of particular examples of WindRiver's marketing with VxWorks...).
As for your contention that the primary
Re:Interesting (Score:1)
"who control the past control the future, who controls the present controls the past"
is by George Orwell 1984, quite an amazing book
but
"He who control the past control the future, He who controls the present controls the past"
(note the added "he") is by Kane in Red Alert
my $0.02 (not that it maters though)
Re:Vaporware (Score:1)
I agree that marketing isn't that bad. Marketing is essential in commercial software business. The point is that Linux is not commercial. Linux World Domination is an illusion. The idea is, that people will get less dependent on commercial software houses. No wonder that the marketing business doesn't like Linux
I think it's something in between. Marketing tries to say the best things about a product, and to hide the nasty details. Many press releases are worthless, so are ads. Marketing isn't essential to knowledge, it tries to convince you by subjectivity. Slashdot is so cool because of all the different opinions here, not because of yours only. Consumers need a choice. They surely need Windows too, and Linux surely needs marketing to get more support. Even Linux has a "market". The cool thing about Linux is, that Linux' market IS its marketing.
Re:"It's just for servers/workstations" (Score:1)
As the years have passed chips get cheaper to make.
But still I don't think we will see this one en masse on the desktop.
You're not gonna buy a Merced huh? (Score:1)
The Merced is a workstation class chip. It is designed primarily to go into next generation HP/SGI/... you name it workstations. It is just too big/hot/expensive to buy on a "aint it cool" factor (unless you got in on the LNUX IPO that is )
It's heat disapation gaurantees that it will need a large enclosure. Although it will be cheaper than many of today's workstation level CPU's, this is not a chip that everyone will have in the office.
At the workstation level the economics of computing is different. The computer costs so much that the cost of new software is cheap in comarision.
Compare this to Transmeta's chip which is designed to be small and low temp.
Re:64 Bit registers versus 32 (Score:1)
Going where no game has gone before... (Score:1)
Just how many platforms has Doom been ported to by now? Can anyone complete or correct this list:
DOS/x86
Win32/x86
Mac/68x
Mac/PPC
Linux/x86
Linux/IA64
OS/2/x86
Irix/MIPS
Be/x86
NeXT/68x
WinCE
Playstation
N64
SNES (sic)
Atari 2600 (j/k
Saturn?
*BSD?
Solaris?
We won't have to worry about Doom going the Ultima 7 way...
Re:Why IA-64? Because it's designed! (Score:1)
Re:Why IA-64? Because it's designed! (Score:1)
Um... sledgehammer will run all x86 stuff natively. Instant software base.
Yeah, but so will Merced (and so will future Intel IA-32 processors). The only competitive advantage of Sledgehammer is that it will have the new "64 bit extensions" - but if no software uses that, that's no an advantage - just bloat.
Now you could argue that Sledgehammer will be faster for IA-32 than Merced will be. However, it will certainly not be as fast for 64 bit as future IA-64 proliferations will be because there are so many limitations to that architecture (number of registers, for example). I also doubt that it will be as fast as Intel's fastest IA-32 implementation at the time, since the 64 bit support will necessarily slow the processor down. It will also be bigger and hotter than a vanilla IA-32 implementation.
If Sledgehammer is AMD's only post-K7 microarchitecture in the works (and I do not know if it is), they do not have a bright outlook. I do not see how Sledgehammer could succeed either at the 64 bit market, or the 32 bit market, just on technical terms, let alone on marketing terms. I actually thought it was something of a joke when I first heard about it, and am surprised that it actually appears to be a product.
Re:Interesting (Score:1)
Re:IA-64? but why? (Score:1)
Re:Why IA-64? Because it's designed! (Score:1)
Re:Why IA-64? Because it's designed! (Score:1)
Re:They have to call it trillian (Score:1)
Re:It's Bill Gates! (Score:1)
Re:Trillian==Linux Port Project, Itanium==Merced (Score:1)
Do you really think I'm that Naive? (Score:1)
On a different topic, what I meant is that we will be able to build machines that can think much more quickly and efficiently. Something along the lines of "DEEP BLUE". Technically they are no more intelligient or smarter just simply faster so they give the appearance that they are smarter. Just some food for thought.
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
NPS Internet Solutions, LLC
www.npsis.com [npsis.com]
This is why... (Score:1)
The new games that will become available with the new 64 bit processors will completey blow away anything you have now in speed and realism. Trust me you will eat those words. Its like complaining that you won't upgrade because you still want to play pong on your atari but then you realize that if you do a whole new world of games come to life such as Pacman, etc...
The computing capabilities of a 64 bit and 128 bit processor are such a vast improvement over the current processors, that we will see a major change in software produced for these machines. Bells and whistles like speech recognition will become commonplace and software approaching true "AI" will begin to show up on shelves as well.
You can keep you Pentium if you wish, but mine is going to be sitting up on my mantle piece as a sort of souvenir of how far we have come...
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
NPS Internet Solutions, LLC
www.npsis.com [npsis.com]
Re:Security through obscurity is no excuse! (Score:1)
Actually, I haven't noticed the images. Not on your home page or private thread wither. Care to explain?
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Re:They have to call it trillian (Score:1)
Actually, they couldn't use "Prefect" because it's to close to the standard they DO hold - "Defect".
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Vaporware (Score:1)
Wow. A coherent first post
Should be easy to merge with mainstream kernel (Score:2)
I Don't Care What You Say... (Score:2)
thank you.
LinuxOne wants YOUR feedback (offtopic) (Score:2)
(Hope this survives Slashdot previewing)
Yes, actually. (Score:2)
You should really check out some of the projects (ZDoom is my current favorite). It's amazing how well the original gameplay has held up. There's still nothing as scary as the Cyberdemon coming after you.
Security through obscurity is no excuse! (Score:2)
Maybe you've noticed all the images popping up on slashdot lately. Well, it's an easy bug to exploit, I've tested it on a hidden thread (and on my user page, it's nice to have a picture).
Well, the long and the short of it is, security through obscurity is no excuse. I encourage you to do something about this, either by moderating UP that anonymous coward who first showed it to us with his funny Bill Gates post, or by posting a harmless image, or by contacting the staff running Slashdot, or by downloading the recently released Slash code, and checking if it's similar enough to be patched for this. Because if slashdot is vulnerable, the hole will have to be patched both on here, *and* on every site that uses their code.
Thank you.
Also, on the topic at hand: cool. It's always good to have Linux on a new processor, especially early. Of course, we knew this was going to happen, they've been working under NDA for a while, and I trust Linus. Also, people will probably still be waiting for the Monterey, and analyzing how Intel will do with its competition from both AMD and Transmeta now. Anyhow, the next few years should be very interesting.
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [152.7.41.11].
But you had to buy them again (Score:2)
You could continue with the same software on that transaction, but you had to buy it again forthe new architecture. It was easy forthe publisher to recompile (the 8086 was designed with thisin mind; it was meant as a transition chip ratherthan the future), but the binaries weren't compatible. I don't remember anyone having an "upgrade," either.
The concernstoday have largely been thatthe old binaries won'trun (ok, the windows side concerns:)
I am disappointed. (Score:2)
What ever happened to code delays, late shipping and all those other things we have come to expect from software producers ?
Actually I think this was probably just tossed out so Linus and Alan could look at it and asses how they go about merging all that code *before* 2.4.0 hits the road.
What's that dream system's specs now ?
Linux-2.4 - XF86-4.0 - KDE-2.0 - 4way-SMP-Itanium
Re:performance and demonstration (Score:2)
I would guess it's because many idiots would attempt to compare IA-64 software rendered Quake to IA-32 Quake with a 3D accelerator. Since software rendering often isn't even an option with more modern games, it's hard to use more modern games to demo processor performance since what you'll get is video card performance instead. Certainly a lot of people would look at it and go "Hey, my Pentium II runs Quake better than that!" missing the point that the IA-64 was actually doing the work while their Pentium II wasn't.
--
Trillian==Linux Port Project, Itanium==Merced (Score:2)
Trillian is the Linux Port Project and Itanium is the Processor Formerly Known As Merced
I can't comment on win32 vs. win64.
--Joe--
Quite an impressive line up (Score:2)
...and tonight, Mr. Kite will challenge the world
Agent 88
And W2k uses some kind of funky PAE (Score:2)
8Gb (>32 bits) at least on the $3,300 "Advanced Server"
Sounds like segmented addresses all over again.
Agent 64
Re:Security through obscurity is no excuse! (Score:2)
Nuke the post, bitch-slap the user to -5 karma, and if he does it a second time change his password to a 32-character random string so he can't ever use his old handle again.
Re:Security through obscurity is no excuse! (Score:2)
Try reading at a rational moderation level, such as "2".
Re:They have to call it trillian (Score:2)
> -- no way intel holds themself to THAT standard.
Actually, the argument against 'Perfect' is stark proof that the Intel marketing teams have (amazingly) finally mastered the concept of succession -- "What would we call the processor after 'Perfect'?
Let's not forget the red faces at Intel the day after the name 'Pentium' got out, and everyone was asking if the '686' would be Hexium or Sexium.
Re:I am disappointed. (Score:2)
I have always wondered about this. What the Free Software movement has done is amazing. With the free software (As in beer) there are no code delays, late shipping and other MS tatics we have grown use to.
Linux, *BSD's and other notable Free Software have changed that. I think the computer world is moving back to a "Put Up or Shutup" World. Just look back over the last few years and see what has changed. Has a large (Or any) company tried and succeed with a vaporware or overhype tatic? MS is trying with Win2000, but people are bulking. What about Win98? Same thing happened. Win98 came out, and everyone was doing the "I'll see" thing.
Now with companies like MS seeing their reign over the computer industary demishing, alot of hardware companies are now doing what they want. Intel wants to sell chips. It does not care their chips are running Linux, BSD, BeOS or MS. They just want to move thier product out the door. Now, a few years ago, Intel could have never did with the Pentuim and PII line what they are doing with the IA64. Supporting another OS that underminds MS market.
So where is my rambling going? Well, here is how I see it, "code delays, late shipping and all those other things we have come to expect from software producers" are going to deminish greatly.
Why? Simple. With Free Software putting pressure on software makers, software companies are going to start putting their software where they mouths are, since there are free alternitives out there. Why would you risk YOUR job or YOUR business on a promise of another company? Waiting for MS to add some feature into IIS might cost you time, money, or worse, business. Apache with Mod_Perl will deliever more for less money.
Been there, done that (Score:2)
Re:IA-64? but why? (Score:2)
Theoretically, you *can* run your software on IA-64... it's supposed to be fully backward compatible with IA-32, or so says the press release Q&A. I don't know how well this will work in practice (especially it depends, in your case, on how well MS does with Windows for IA-64... but then, there's always wine), but it shouldn't be a problem.
Supreme Lord High Commander of the Interstellar Task Force for the Eradication of Stupidity
Re:He makes a good case for "Burn all gifs" (Score:2)
___________________
Re:Security through obscurity is no excuse! (Score:2)
Re:And W2k uses some kind of funky PAE (Score:2)
Just FYI, Linux 2.3 (the soon-to-be 2.4) also uses PAE if you configure it, allowing you to access up to 64 gigs of RAM. So it isn't some kind of klunky Microsoft extension, it's a klunky Intel one.
Re:Doom and Quake on the Crusoe and Tillian (Score:2)
goys? :) (Score:2)
You know, with names like John Crawford, Don Alpert, and Hans Mulder, Jerry Huck, Bill Worley, and Rajiv Gupta, maybe they are all goys.
Why DOOM? Maybe because (Score:2)
2. GLDoom has already been ported to 64-bit CPU platforms--my other computer is an SGI O2; it comes with GLDoom. SGI is also writing the C-compiler and other core parts of Linux/IA-64. You figure it out...
What X Windows Server were they using at the demo? Was is a port of real OpenGL, or recompiled XFree86-3.3.x? Or XFree86-4.0beta + Mesa?
What Graphics card?
(guess I should read the article)
Re:They have to call it trillian (Score:2)
Demo? (Score:2)
I only thought that this was trade secreted or some such. Where can you get the demo? Are there any chips that are somewheat using IA-64?
CPU/Project name confusion (Score:2)
Re:IA-64? but why? (Score:2)
Re:A mirror for those who missed the fun (Score:2)
Never knock on Death's door:
Re:Been there, done that (Score:3)
--
Re:Intel is no longer register starved!!!! (Score:3)
And it's obvious from this page from a document that's been out for quite a while [hp.com] that it has 128 general-purpose regs and 128 floating-point regs, although it uses a register window scheme so you may have to shuffle windows to get at more than the 32 global registers and the 32 registers in the current window (at least for the general registers).
Documentation for the user-mode side of IA-64 has been available for a while; take your choice of Intel's PDF version [intel.com], HP's PDF version [hp.com], or HP's HTML version [hp.com].
(There's some other IA-64 documentation on the HP site, e.g. the IA-64 Software Conventions and Runtime Architecture manual [hp.com] and, if a link to it hasn't already been posted, (an old - August 1999) paper on "The Making of Linux/ia64" [hp.com].
How does it REALLY stack up? (Score:3)
Re:They have to call it trillian (Score:3)
Re:And W2k uses some kind of funky PAE (Score:4)
PAE is a 36 bit physical address format. The Linux development kernel uses that mode as well for userspace pages that won't be the target of DMA (DMA is not supported for memory that cannot be addressed in 32 bits due to hardware limitations). Fortunatly, it's not braindead as segmented memory was in real mode.
The zoning of physical memory in the kernel will (probably has) come in handy for the merced port since it will need to deal with 32 and 64 bit bus mastering PCI for some time to come.
They have to call it trillian (Score:4)
"Prefect" sounds too close to "perfect" -- no way intel holds themself to THAT standard.
"Zaphod" and "Beeblebrox" are to hard to remember.
(Tomorrow I will look back on this post and say, "My God, what was I thinking?")
IA-64? but why? (Score:5)
At one point (about a year back) I was, but the picture has all changed.
Most of the software I have is distinctly x86 bound. Most of it isn't open, and came to me via binaries. A large portion of it runs on an OS from that company in Washington State. Almost none of it can pretend to be anything other than games.
For my money, I can't think of anything that looks more interesting in the processor market than TransMeta's Crusoe chip. Technically this is still on the "coming-to-market real-soon-now" list, but so is the Merced (now officialy IA-64).
Given that, I'd rather settle for continuing to be able to run my existing software. I upgrade my system bit-by-bit. Compatibility and continuity are very important!
some interesting information... (Score:5)
Q6: What is the contribution of each of the members of the Trillian project?
A6: Cygnus is porting GNUPro Toolkit (GCC, G++, GDB). HP is provided the initial kernel and glibc port, and continues to work on the kernel. IBM is providing kernel support. Intel is providing IA-32 support, IA-64 platform port, Apache port, and various drivers. SGI is providing an optimized C compiler and kernel support. VA is leading the project and providing kernel support, boot loader, commands and libraries, Xfree86, Mesa, E & GNOME, and the GIMP.
Wow. Look at all the large companies behind this. IBM, SGI, Intel. All big players. One of the biggest problems that linux faces with hardware, is that of always playing "catch up" with Windows for hardware support. Efforts such as these can only be considered to be a Good Thing for Linux in general.
Re:Why IA-64? Because it's designed! (Score:5)
As such, one of the things Intel did very right was avoiding the craziness when switching between IA-32 and IA-64 code. It looks VERY straightforward: a new instruction in the IA-32 instruction set that jumps to IA-64 code and an IA-64 instruction that jumps to IA-32 code. The IA-32 registers are mapped into the lowest 32 registers on the IA-64 side. This is very much unlike the (IMO) stupid way Intel did protected mode/real mode switching in the IA-32 instruction set, which is complex and downright nasty at times.
As to the other features of the processor (the 128 GP integer registers set up in a processor-managed rotating stack, the 128 FP registers, the 3 different sub-instruction-sets that allow the processor to be seperated into modular pieces, predication, and explicit parallelism), they are shockingly well-designed and make sense from both an engineering and programming viewpoint. I am very much looking forward to running on one!
The crux of the matter is that IA-32 applications should run with no modifications under a properly written IA-64 OS and it should even be possible to run a IA-32 OS with no problems on an IA-64 processor!