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PPC SMP Boxes 102

Posted by CmdrTaco from the big-badass-boxes dept.
Luke A. Kanies writes "This company is working on building an SMP PowerPC box that conforms to the open CHRP spec, which was abandoned by Apple. It would definitely run linux, and it is very modular and is being designed by Dave Haynie, the hardware engineer who designed some of the Amigas (3K and 4K, I think). Unfortunately, according to this page, the company is in danger of not making the machine if it has no market--PIOS is not convinced that enough linux people will buy it to justify making the box. So write these guys at domeyer@metabox.de and let them know that your would buy their cheap SMP PPC box and would run linux on it. (Can you say 4-way for under $4K?) "
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PPC SMP Boxes More

PPC SMP Boxes

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  • You bet, I wonder what kind of beowulf cluster I
    could build with a half dozen of these?

    PeterT
  • They'd be better off designing a cheap 4-way or 8-way SMP board for x86 CPUs (preferably PII).

    Wht the PII? The k6-3 article left me wondering why anyone buys PIIs--- Celerons are a fraction of the cost, from the same manufacturer and with identical performance. Is this just marketing? Are there no board that support SMP Celerons?

  • If I could make payments. I want an SMP box so bad I can taste it!
  • I dare say 75% of Slashdot readers couldn't figure out how to make use of more than one processor at all.

    [Clears throat]

    make -j bzImage
    rc5
    povray
    trueSpace4 (non-Linux *gasp*, but quite fun)
    lcdproc (ran several thousand times at once :)

    Guess I must be part of that 25%, or perhaps you're generalizing a *bit* too much.
  • 4 Way SMP usually suffers on beowulfs because the memory bandwidth in the machine is not high enough to feed the processors. In addition, it becomes very easy to saturate the I/O bus if you have to do a lot of communication.

    -Erik
  • Hmmm, good point there. It's been quite some time since I looked at PC specs, especially new stuff. I've had my head in RISC world the past bunch of months.
  • It would be fairly simple for them to build SMP machines that support pretty much any processor. The OpenPIC technology supported by AMD, Cyrix (and PPC?) supports multiple CPUs with no modifications. The problems lie in the bus, but even those can be worked out.

    The big problem is that there is no OS that supports x86 OpenPIC. Although Linux could be modified, it would dramatically decrease the potential market. Windroids couldn't run NT (the whole reason for x86, right?), and the Mac people wouldn't be able to run SheepShaver, so they'd be left out, too.
  • CHRP was the reason why it would take 'an afternoon' to port BeOS.
  • I concur - we run stuff on Origin 2000s and PCAs that could be easily (I won't say trivially) ported to MPI and run on Beowulf clusters - Image processing, neural net classification, atmospheric radiative transfer (RT) codes, canopy RT codes. Canopy ray tracing simulations...

  • Word (Score:1)

    by grahams ( 5366 )
    If it isn't even close to usable why do I stay in it all day every day?

    Oh, I forgot, If I am using Be every day, I must not do anything on my machine.... Wrong, I do all my schoolwork, papers, software, and research in Be. I do all my 'internet crap' from Be. I feel BAD when I have to write software for other platforms, because I have never seen an API as comfortable as Be's.

    What makes Be not usable? What is missing that keeps it from being usable?

    Chime in when you have a clue, ok?

    seanf();
  • A month ago they weren't going to build the box unless Be allowed them to port the OS. Supposedly it was going to take "an afternoon" (according to Haynie and associates) to port BeOS to this thing - and Be was stalling (probably because of their relationship with Intel). I guess they didn't get enough feedback on THAT front, so they're going through the list of OSes.

    Kinda depressing, really - Dave builds good boxes.
  • Apple did SMP? When? I thought all their multi-processor systems were master/slave-type setups.
  • You mean the median person. ;-)
    "Average" is not well-defined, in that it can denote the arithmetic mean, the median, the mode, the root-mean-square, the geometric mean, etc.

    Given a Gaussian distribution (which is the case with IQ), the arithmetic mean, the median and the mode are identical and Mr. Dobbs statement is correct.
    (Just another pointless AC comment.)
    Just another pointless math geek comment.
  • Yeah, but can you totally rid your box of MacOS altogether on those? That's something I've never quite figured out.
  • Doesn't seem right to me. If it's really a 33MHz bus, that would make this thing a pig... Unless I'm missing something. Wintel is up to 100MHz and it ain't all that, either.

  • Awesome (Score:1)

    by 3fer ( 11254 )
    This is great news, especially considering that if they can really do it for $4k, it won't be much more than a high-end, single CPU Mac.

    I'm in.
  • "Folks, it's great technology, but pretty much useless to the average guy."

    1. I agree with you wholeheartedly.
    2. You can say the EXACT same thing about Linux. Go back 10 years and you can say the same thing about VGA. Go back 10 years more and you can say the same thing about microprocessors.
    3. The point is NOT that it's useful to do but that it's kind of fun to learn, and it might be useful someday. Someday a "computer" will be a box that contains multiple independent computers (to use today's meaning of "computer").
  • A further groan that I think you missed.



    A beowulf cluster is good and cool for what it does because it has a good bang for buck ratio. Now these may have a fairly good dollar/spec(int/fp) ratio, but stupid things like Imacs don't. Get real people.

  • Did anyone else notice that the PIOS website hadn't been updated since May 1998? Are these guys still actively developing these systems?

    Steve M
  • a second hand AMD x86 at that... interesting that someone from the AMD corner is taunting a processor that can actually handle SMP.
  • Depends on what you're doing!

    Although I doubt most script kiddies here even use ONE CPU let alone multiple.

  • Okay, I posted this earlier, but the thread I posted it under got a negative score. (Not mine, the "first post"er above mine.) Are we sure this is a real campaign? The last time this sort of thing was posted, some dude got his email account slashdotted.
  • Great news and considering the other SMP PPC options available ...the ones from Motorola were like $3000 just for the board and Apple..well...there are very few (if any left) SMP PPC boxes from them and only the MAC OS would run on them without SMP support until OSX, this is an excellent new alternative at a decent price. I'm impressed.
  • I'd love to have that kind of power, and I know that the ppc is a superior chip to x86, but I simply can't afford to get a box like that - I need something that I can build myself and scavenge parts for. I don't know how many other Slashdot readers are similar to me, but I'm a college student low on resources, and I would think that a number of you are in the same boat.

    I wish I could mail them and tell them to support the PIOS boxes, and I hope they do - when I get out of this school hopefully I'll have the money to get one, or something like it. It's definitely time to ditch x86.
    -lx
  • Why must so many people argue about which OS is better. I use FreeBSD, Linux and BeOS. They each have their strengths and weaknesses.
    Do any of you realize how hard it is to convince someone that their OS choice is a bad one? Especially using a very impersonal platform like this.
    Even if Linus himself came up to me and said "David, stop using FreeBSD, it sucks.", I wouldn't listen to him. I have my reasons, you have yours. The options are out there. It's pointless to drag a "this OS owns that OS" thread when I can't recall even one time when it ended up with someone changing their mind.

    yes. I am a geek.
  • i'm glad be said no to apple and the g3's. steve jobs is an idiot and apple deserves to be unsupported for being unwilling to give be and others information on the g3's. i will never buy another thing from apple as long as they continue their proprietary(sp) practices. apple doesn't deserve my money or money from anyone else with a clue.
  • I used to be on the PIOS mailing list, from what I remember the PIOS 1 project was put on the back burner about a year ago, for a number of reasons, some of them financial. The company was (last time i checked) working on some set top box units that were going to be used in germany for some funky data over TV spectrum thing (I forget the details)
    IIRC they ran linux ;)

    The main problems were that
    a) Apple dumped CHRP
    b) At this point the future of BeOS PPC started looking a bit iffy
    c) money

    Their current project is paying them, working out the problems in the PIOS system wasn't, and without the prospect of MacOS (at least officially) and with doubts being thrown on BeOS PPC either continuing or having an official port, it left Linux as the only real OS that would run, which still isn't such a smart idea to bet on for a small company that's short on cash.

    Forgive the vagueness, as I said, it has been a while since I checked, and my memory is shite at the best of times :)
  • read about em a few days ago on BeNews.com and BeOSCentral.com ...support them, they are the best hope of BeOS staying alive on PPC and are superior architecture to x86 boxen

    cheers

  • Ditto (Score:1)

    by Kludge ( 13653 )
    Ditto
  • Hell, I'd even get one of the girls in the office to take you out to dinner with half of that $1000 to spend, just so long as we get to keep that 64 node cluster after you leave. That would be cool, a 400%(or so) performance boost in our sims.

  • This reminds me of the BeBox that Be used to make.. I really wish they still made them those computers were soo cool
  • When I first started using linux back in 0.9.18 the big slam against linux was how difficult it was to use and the lack of hardware support. I didn't mind the pain in getting it to work becuase when I did, it worked properly which is more than you could say for windows 3.1 (which didn't work at all)

    Remember BeOS for intel has been publicly available for less than a year.. they're doing a pretty good job so far IMO and its not even based on 25 years old technology!
  • Yup. Remember, this is news for nerds. We nerds work in jobs where we run calculation intensive programs for which multiprocessing is quite applicable. Our simulation and analysis programs regularly run on several computers at once.
  • "a T3E or an O2K would easily blow away your cluster simply due to RPC overhead."

    You are probably right. However, with SMP, the overhead due to RPC would be drastically reduced. Would you not agree?

    I don't have millions of dollars to spend on a Cray. But, I may be able to spend $10,000USD on hardware to build a Beowulf system. And the fact that SMP boards for PPC's are becoming available means that I get more power per watt than if I used x86.

    Beowulf brings SuperComputing into the realm of possibility for the average Joe/Jane. What a wonderful thing it is to have such power available to you. Makes basement experimentation and research possible in this highly technical, expensive and fast moving world!

    That's the real point isn't it?
  • $2049 for a machine with a 250MHz PPC604, 16M RAM and a 2.1G disk (the PIOS Magna 250 [metabox.de]? I don't fscking think so! Not when I could get a 400MHz K6-2 with 64M RAM, 8.4G disk, DVD-ROM (w/MPEG decoder), 56K modem & a (wimpy 15") monitor (the Boldata Challeng er II DVD [boldata.com]). Not that I'm buying one of those, either, but I'd pick it over the PIOS in a heartbeat! I like the PPC & all (esp. the 604e), but I want one that can compete, price/performance-wise.
  • What's up with this knee-jerk reflex? Oh, that hardware is sooo cool, I want one or ten or five thousand. I'll beowulf it. What the hell are you gonna run on it? POV-Ray? Come on...
  • I think the Pios One is a way cool idea, but it's a way cool idea that I have serious doubts will go anywhere. The PowerPC is effectively a dead-end for future BeOS and p.OS (an AmigaDOS workalike) use.

    Yes, that leaves PPC Linux, and yes, you can obviously sell boxes that are "Linux only." But the economic argument is still weak, and it's weak for the same reason that it's weak for people to make non-Macintosh BeOS PPC boxes. As elegant as the architecture may be, one of the "Ming Specials" specced out on Be's web pages is better on a price-to-performance basis -- and it'd be better for Linux, too.

    By going with PPC specifically to run either of those "alternative" operating systems, your primary benefit is intangible, and that only if you believe you need to strike a blow against the evil Intel empire. Most of the best arguments for the Macintosh platform over the PC platform aren't related to speed, they're related to ease-of-use; those arguments are irrelevant when you're not using MacOS. (BeOS is almost as easy to use as MacOS, but it's almost as easy to use on PC hardware, too. If you're using Linux, ease-of-use probably isn't the argument that's floating your boat anyway.)
  • Check out www.be.com
    They've got quite a bit of info about what makes this OS unique.
  • Ive been following the PIOS stuff since they started it and have to say this machine is VERY nice!

    Cool modular design, and lots of functionality... Would be a shame if it didnt come out... Ive had a lot of Amiga's in the past and the 3000 Tower (one of dave's machines :) has the best design of all of them
  • If the guy wants an Alpha, x86 or PPC SMP Beowulf cluster then let him. He might want to use it for Distributed.net or something, he may want to solve the Towers of Hanoi, maybe calculate PI to the next level of precision, maybe delve deeper into physics, perfect a virtual reality system. The point is that with SMP systems, it makes Beowulf even more powerful. Four processors in one machine are faster than four processors on separate motherboards (especially when running a *nix variant.) Couple SMP systems together in a Beowulf cluster and you have a substantial increase in power.

    So, go back to perfecting Wolfpack - Bill.
  • Folks, it's great technology, but pretty much useless to the average guy.

    This is news for nerds, who cares what the average people want? Let them be happy with their average little lives, while we quitely take over the WORLD! Hahahhahahahhaahahahahahaha, ha... um...

    er.

    Sorry.

    Got a little maniacal for a second there. It's
    been a long day.

    -Lungo
    "You know how dumb the average person is? Well, by definition, half of them are even dumber than that."
    J.R."Bob" Dobbs
  • Becuase BeOS just screams on multiple cpus.. most apps written for be are multi-threaded so one app can be distributed across the cpus.. for computationly intense tasks, an app can simply spawn as many calulation/rendering threads as there are cpus and let the scheduler take care of the rest.
  • I cab explain a bit, this is what I have heard anyway.

    Apple won't tell BeOS the information on their G3 computers, not just the processer. So Because this company is using apples clones, they can. However the systemboard probably won't take use of the G3 the way the apple board does. BeOS can port them selves to other clone apple boards.
    It like why one a apple clone the computer can boot straight into be with out having that damn smiling mac. But on real apples, non-clones that is you have to have boot loader for the OS.
  • Um, ah... *whisper* "what does IMHO mean?"
  • My point is not that Linux is dated, but that becasue unix has beeen around for a long time the the rough edges have been knocked off, its well understood, and, as you point out, good.
    Therefore there was plenty of knowledge and willing participants around when linux was first developed, making the development and hardware support easier. Calling linux 25yr old technology was not really meant as a slam, but one of the things I do like about BeOS is that it is a fresh approach and builds on what CS has learnt over the last 25 years.
  • Having worked on single-CPU computers for years I
    changed to a 2-CPU SGI system. Suddenly you don't
    notice that a compile is going on, or you are running
    something CPU-demanding in the background.. or somebody else is.. the whole
    thing feels much smoother. Now, when I compile Mozilla
    on my single-CPU Intel box I can as well go home.
    Well, later I got two more CPUs installed in that
    SGI box (for a total of 4), and this is just great.. Compiling XEmacs
    in two minutes flat and the system *still* feels
    smooth. I'm in for a new Linux box now and I really don't want a 1-CPU box :-(
  • otherwise im more likely to get an alpha, or
    a VPC depending on its graphics support when the time comes.
  • And how do you propose to do 4 way or 8 way SMP with a PII?? They can only do 2 way and even with a Xeon, they are limited to 4 way. And forget AMD SMP....

    For low cost SMP that does not require NT, PPC is the only way to go. Look at the RS/6000's and AS/400's or Bull computing in france.
    --
    Corruption breeds insanity.
    Insanity breeds power.
    Power breeds curruption...
    --
    Now we're nothing.
  • True, but what i meant was, if YOU need to run NT, not the machine.
    --
    Corruption breeds insanity.
    Insanity breeds power.
    Power breeds curruption...
    --
    Now we're nothing.
  • He also designed the Amiga 2000 and is responsible unless memory serves me wrong, for the original design of the Zorro3 slot on the Amiga. Not that many people even remember the Amiga or care to but hey.. remember your roots right?. Anyway.. The boxes look fun. Too bad they aren't that nice blue Be colour like the original BeBox was.... End of line.
  • there are embedded ppc boards that are little endian. little endian is better for programming, but big is better for reading dumps, hex editing, ie. more human readable.
  • We do parallel scientific computing, and regularly use Cray T3E's with 500 processors. While I agree that ordinary end-users don't benefit from this kind of parallelism, there are lots of important applications that do.

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