From owner-freebsd-platforms Tue Jul 25 04:02:23 1995 Return-Path: platforms-owner Received: (from majordom@localhost) by freefall.cdrom.com (8.6.11/8.6.6) id EAA21299 for platforms-outgoing; Tue, 25 Jul 1995 04:02:23 -0700 Received: from prinny.pavilion.co.uk (prinny.pavilion.co.uk [193.131.160.34]) by freefall.cdrom.com (8.6.11/8.6.6) with ESMTP id EAA21289 for ; Tue, 25 Jul 1995 04:02:20 -0700 Received: from line0c.gunn-du.pavilion.co.uk (line0c.gunn-du.pavilion.co.uk [193.131.160.109]) by prinny.pavilion.co.uk (8.6.5/8.6.5) with SMTP id MAA00968 for ; Tue, 25 Jul 1995 12:07:43 +0100 Date: Tue, 25 Jul 1995 12:07:43 +0100 Message-Id: <199507251107.MAA00968@prinny.pavilion.co.uk> X-Sender: aledm@mailhost.pavilion.co.uk Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: freebsd-platforms@freebsd.org From: aledm@pavilion.co.uk (Aled Morris) Subject: What Platform? X-Mailer: Sender: platforms-owner@freebsd.org Precedence: bulk I've just subscribed to this list (plaforms) but there doesn't seem to be much traffic, so I thought I'd generate some. What is the perceived wisdom on PowerPC vs. Alpha (in terms of FreeBSD porting, obviously). Which is most likely to be easiest? Most useful? In progress? DEC are almost giving away Alpha systems, and they do have a mean CPU. Will they survive? On the other hand, the Motorola PowerPC platform (PCI bus etc.) isn't expensive, and would make a fine BSD based server platform. Is the Motorola system "standard", or will future PowerPC systems follow some Apple or IBM design, rendering a Motorola style system obsolete? My interest is from the point of view of an Internet Service Provider looking for scalable, manageable platforms for Internet services (WWW, mail processing, etc.) Getting a 10% CPU performance boost from Intel every six months isn't enough. My biggest worry is that by choosing FreeBSD over Sun (say) I'm losing out on that scalability (want to support more users on your SS20? Easy, add more CPUs. Full? Go to a 1000). Comments? Aled -- telephone +44 973 207987