Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1999 10:06:25 -0500 From: "Pedro F. Giffuni" <pfgiffun@bachue.usc.unal.edu.co> To: platforms@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Anyone working on a SGI PC? Message-ID: <36AB36F1.E61B2198@bachue.usc.unal.edu.co>
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There is a comment in slashdot about Linux supporting the new SGI
workstations, but since even M$-Windows works there it shouldn't be
difficult to run FreeBSD:
_________________
The SGI Visual Workstations 320 and 540 are Intel based SMP (Symmetrical
Multiprocessing) workstations with standard PC drivers (serial,
parallel, floppy, ethernet, PCI etc.) However, the similarity ends here.
These machines are based on a novel UMA (Unified Memory
Architecture), an architecture which provides I/O and Graphics
performance significantly higher (6 times AGP 2x speed, 12 times PCI-64
speed) than what's available in common PC clones and provides much
greater flexibilty (i.e. VRAM is not separate from the main RAM).
The booting process isn't standard. The VisWs uses ARC-PROM
rather than that ancient BIOS technology, so it doesn't need LILO and
you can boot directly from any image file on various devices.
The main additions to the Linux kernel consist of code to
detect and initialize the SGI Cobalt and Arsenic chipset.
Please note that while this enables you to boot Linux on the Visual
Workstations, it does not include graphics like X11, not to mention
hardware accelerated OpenGL. In other words, there's a lot of work still
to be done to make Linux really shine on these machines and use all the
power of the hardware.
________________
Further information on:
http://visual.sgi.com/
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