From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Dec 11 06:39:49 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B6AEC16A415 for ; Mon, 11 Dec 2006 06:39:49 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from ph.schulz@gmx.de) Received: from mail.gmx.net (mail.gmx.net [213.165.64.20]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 165EC43CAD for ; Mon, 11 Dec 2006 06:38:33 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from ph.schulz@gmx.de) Received: (qmail invoked by alias); 11 Dec 2006 06:39:47 -0000 Received: from dslb-084-056-249-215.pools.arcor-ip.net (EHLO [192.168.1.6]) [84.56.249.215] by mail.gmx.net (mp048) with SMTP; 11 Dec 2006 07:39:47 +0100 X-Authenticated: #1954550 Message-ID: <457CFD31.9000603@gmx.de> Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2006 07:39:45 +0100 From: "Philip S. Schulz" User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.8 (Macintosh/20061025) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Eprha Carvajal References: In-Reply-To: X-Enigmail-Version: 0.94.1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Y-GMX-Trusted: 0 Cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: New Challenges ( FreeBSD on PS3 ) X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2006 06:39:49 -0000 on 11.12.2006 5:11 Uhr Eprha Carvajal said the following: > > Is possible to the Sony/IBM/Toshiba documents for the Cell Processor ? > Is there any specific linux patch set for the PS3 ? ( Looks like there is > none, will have more info once i try both installs ) > What is the approach of LINUX with the cell processor and the 8 cores ? > The NVIDIA RSX video Card was designed for the PS3, any chance they will > support this ? > The Cell Processer consists of PPE, a 64-Bit Power-core very similar to the PowerPC 970 (aka "G5") and eight so-called SPEs, which are SIMD units with local memory. You can run code compiled for the 970 directly and w/o any modifications on the PPE but with some performance loss. Linux uses the Power core to run the operating system and normal, non-Cell-aware applications. It provides SPUfs [1] which allows application developers to use the SPEs. The SPUfs is in the Linux tree it seems, so that could serve as "documentation" but I'm not sure right now if there is public documentation for the SPEs. In order to run FreeBSD on the Cell you'd need a working port for the PowerPC 970 CPU plus possibly some extra bits in order to be able to boot on the PS3. HTH, Phil. [1] http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/power/library/pa-cell/ -- Don't fix it if it ain't broke.