What's with the so-called "POWER opportunity" ???

Tsuroerusu · Post by **Tsuroerusu** » Wed Nov 30, 2005 4:41 am

Ever since Apple announced that they were going to Intel, I've heard some people talking about a PPC Linux opportunity, I can definiteley see the point of running Linux on older Macs, like 1.3 Ghz iBooks and stuff like that, especially with the new KDE 3.5 release that might do very well.
But what I don't understand is some people saying that a new company could build POWER based workstations now that Apple is moving away from that space, I just don't get this point, what am I missing?
I know the PowerPC architecture is "better" that x86, but if it's just a little bit more expensive than, say a nice Opteron chip, and that I can't a lot of plugins like Flash, or the few Linux games that's on the market, why would I want to use a PowerPC workstation, I'm confused, could someone please explain it to me?

snarkout · Post by **snarkout** » Wed Nov 30, 2005 9:04 am

I agree -- I've always thought people were nuts to drop $3k on a G5 dualie and then install linux on it. Personally, I see linux on PPC as a great opportunity to use hardware that Apple has abandoned -- I have a G3 tangerine toilet seat iBook that runs ubuntu (w/ xfce4) and it runs great. No, you won't be watching any avis on it, or firing up any DVDs, but it's entirely usable for most things, and aside from the lack of flash (which is really a shame) it does everything a kid needs it to.

Tsuroerusu · Post by **Tsuroerusu** » Wed Nov 30, 2005 9:12 am

Snarkout wrote:I agree -- I've always thought people were nuts to drop $3k on a G5 dualie and then install linux on it. Personally, I see linux on PPC as a great opportunity to use hardware that Apple has abandoned -- I have a G3 tangerine toilet seat iBook that runs ubuntu (w/ xfce4) and it runs great. No, you won't be watching any avis on it, or firing up any DVDs, but it's entirely usable for most things, and aside from the lack of flash (which is really a shame) it does everything a kid needs it to.

Over time, I think the GPLFlash project will grow and produce a useable Flash plugin, I don't see PPC Linux being without Flash forever.

Also, when Apple releases Leopard for x86, someone will just crack the thing and then I purchase a copy of Leopard from Apple (They sell Tiger in a box for the current Macs, I think they will do so with Leopard as well) and some cheap-ass Intel hardware and put it on there.

Or I can use KDE 4.0 which will be out by then along with Linux or FreeBSD

Gomer_X · Post by **Gomer_X** » Wed Nov 30, 2005 10:49 am

While Linux has been running on PPC for a long time, remember that Apple is far from the only user of Power processors. There are plenty of other PPC machines that are not Apple, just in the desktop market.

Also, a large percentage of IBM machines run Power processors, and the majority of them (if not all) can run Linux. Power processors are great on the desktop, but on multiprocessor servers the performance is so much better it's not even worth comparison. A dual processor x86 system is something like 1.5 times as fast as a single processor box. A dual processor Power based system is nearly 2x as fast as a single CPU box, and the performance scales pretty much linearly to as many processor as you want.

Apple may be giving up on Power, but it's far from dead.

Tsuroerusu · Post by **Tsuroerusu** » Wed Nov 30, 2005 11:18 am

Well, I have never in my life seen ANY store selling a non-Apple Power-based desktop machine, not a single one, and I've been to quite a few stores here in Denmark. Also the danish equivlent of pricewatch.com (edbpriser.dk) doesn't list ANY non-Apple PowerPC machines.

By the way, what does a PowePC CPU actually cost? The dual-core Athlon 64 X2 3800+ is about 300 bucks or something like that, which is pretty good deal IMHO.

Another thing I've been wondering about is are there any sort of standards for PowerPC motherboards? For x86 we have ATX and all sorts of measurements for big coolers...

Power servers are definiteley out there, but I just don't see desktops around other than current Macs of course.

Wally Balljacker · Post by **Wally Balljacker** » Wed Nov 30, 2005 6:00 pm

Tsuroerusu wrote:Well, I have never in my life seen ANY store selling a non-Apple Power-based desktop machine, not a single one, and I've been to quite a few stores here in Denmark. Also the danish equivlent of pricewatch.com (edbpriser.dk) doesn't list ANY non-Apple PowerPC machines.

By the way, what does a PowePC CPU actually cost? The dual-core Athlon 64 X2 3800+ is about 300 bucks or something like that, which is pretty good deal IMHO.

Another thing I've been wondering about is are there any sort of standards for PowerPC motherboards? For x86 we have ATX and all sorts of measurements for big coolers...

Power servers are definiteley out there, but I just don't see desktops around other than current Macs of course.

http://www.pegasosppc.com/ sells PowerPC hardware. You can check out their prices in the 'purchase' section.

Tsuroerusu · Post by **Tsuroerusu** » Wed Nov 30, 2005 6:18 pm

Wally Balljacker wrote:http://www.pegasosppc.com/ sells PowerPC hardware. You can check out their prices in the 'purchase' section.

I know that MHz isn't the best way to measure performance, but !! $799.00 !! for a freaking 1 GHz machine!!!!!
Dude, you can get a sweet Shuttle XPC with an AMD64 CPU for that money, boy, no PPC for me, long live AMD64

Gomer_X · Post by **Gomer_X** » Thu Dec 01, 2005 12:42 pm

Tsuroerusu wrote: I know that MHz isn't the best way to measure performance, but !! $799.00 !! for a freaking 1 GHz machine!!!!!
Dude, you can get a sweet Shuttle XPC with an AMD64 CPU for that money, boy, no PPC for me, long live AMD64

I think the fastest IBM Power processor runs at about 1.8 Ghz, but it will hands down blow away anything AMD has on the market.

As far as PPC desktops, I know IBM made them. There was at least one company making Apple compatible hardware for a while. Also, isn't there a PPC based Amiga?

Post by **Patrick** » Thu Dec 01, 2005 12:46 pm

Wally Balljacker wrote:http://www.pegasosppc.com/ sells PowerPC hardware. You can check out their prices in the 'purchase' section.

I've traded a bunch of emails with the people from Pegasos. They seem to be constantly traveling somewhere:
http://bbrv.blogspot.com/

Tsuroerusu · Post by **Tsuroerusu** » Thu Dec 01, 2005 12:46 pm

Gomer_X wrote:
Tsuroerusu wrote: I know that MHz isn't the best way to measure performance, but !! $799.00 !! for a freaking 1 GHz machine!!!!!
Dude, you can get a sweet Shuttle XPC with an AMD64 CPU for that money, boy, no PPC for me, long live AMD64
I think the fastest IBM Power processor runs at about 1.8 Ghz, but it will hands down blow away anything AMD has on the market.

As far as PPC desktops, I know IBM made them. There was at least one company making Apple compatible hardware for a while. Also, isn't there a PPC based Amiga?

Isn't the fastest PPC CPU the one in the Xbox 360 and the 2.7 GHz G5 that Apple currently uses?

Anyway, even IF it blows away anything AMD has, the price is just too high and disadvantage of not being able play Windows Media files and anything that depends on Windows DLL files is just too big a disadvantage for me to use PowerPC.

Gomer_X · Post by **Gomer_X** » Thu Dec 01, 2005 1:25 pm

Tsuroerusu wrote:
Gomer_X wrote: I think the fastest IBM Power processor runs at about 1.8 Ghz, but it will hands down blow away anything AMD has on the market.
Isn't the fastest PPC CPU the one in the Xbox 360 and the 2.7 GHz G5 that Apple currently uses?

Anyway, even IF it blows away anything AMD has, the price is just too high and disadvantage of not being able play Windows Media files and anything that depends on Windows DLL files is just too big a disadvantage for me to use PowerPC.

You're confusing Power architecture with Power PC processor. They're not the same thing. There are much more advanced processors than the G5. The IBM Power processors are all dual core by default and can do multithreading in hardware. They're not in the same price or performance class as anything on the desktop (or in the Xbox).

The point I'm trying to make is that the Mac is a tiny piece of the whole Power architecture picture, and Linux has a great future ahead of itself on Power. I saw Chris Hicks from IBM talk about this at the Ohio Linuxfest a couple months ago and am still planning on writing up an article on it when I get time (yeah right!). IBM has a lot invested in seeing Linux succeed on their hardware, and the Power processors are central to that.

Tsuroerusu · Post by **Tsuroerusu** » Thu Dec 01, 2005 2:35 pm

Gomer_X wrote:
Tsuroerusu wrote:
Gomer_X wrote: I think the fastest IBM Power processor runs at about 1.8 Ghz, but it will hands down blow away anything AMD has on the market.
Isn't the fastest PPC CPU the one in the Xbox 360 and the 2.7 GHz G5 that Apple currently uses?

Anyway, even IF it blows away anything AMD has, the price is just too high and disadvantage of not being able play Windows Media files and anything that depends on Windows DLL files is just too big a disadvantage for me to use PowerPC.
You're confusing Power architecture with Power PC processor. They're not the same thing. There are much more advanced processors than the G5. The IBM Power processors are all dual core by default and can do multithreading in hardware. They're not in the same price or performance class as anything on the desktop (or in the Xbox).

The point I'm trying to make is that the Mac is a tiny piece of the whole Power architecture picture, and Linux has a great future ahead of itself on Power. I saw Chris Hicks from IBM talk about this at the Ohio Linuxfest a couple months ago and am still planning on writing up an article on it when I get time (yeah right!). IBM has a lot invested in seeing Linux succeed on their hardware, and the Power processors are central to that.

Now I get it, multithreading in hardware? How does that work?

I know IBM is very happy to have Linux run on POWER but isn't that mostly servers?

Gomer_X · Post by **Gomer_X** » Fri Dec 02, 2005 11:13 am

Tsuroerusu wrote: Now I get it, multithreading in hardware? How does that work?

Here is a basic overview of Power architecture. Essentially not only is every processor a dual processor, they also have multiple independent integer and floating point units and each sub-processor can execute at least 2 instructions at once. So a Power5 can execute minimum 4 instructions at once, and under some conditions up to 7 or 8.

Tsuroerusu wrote: I know IBM is very happy to have Linux run on POWER but isn't that mostly servers?

Yes, this is mostly servers. I agree that the Power architecture doesn't have much of a future on the desktop. The main reason Apple dropped the PowerPC processor though is cost, so it's possible someone will still build PPC machines in situations where the performance is worth the cost.

I doubt any of us will need to own one, though.