Date: Wed, 11 Dec 2002 11:52:21 +1030 From: Greg Lewis <glewis@eyesbeyond.com> To: Mike Hoskins <mike@adept.org> Cc: freebsd-cluster@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: sharing files within a cluster Message-ID: <20021211115221.A11632@misty.eyesbeyond.com> In-Reply-To: <20021210164505.H80831-100000@fubar.adept.org>; from mike@adept.org on Tue, Dec 10, 2002 at 04:51:32PM -0800 References: <20021211103556.A11403@misty.eyesbeyond.com> <20021210164505.H80831-100000@fubar.adept.org>
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On Tue, Dec 10, 2002 at 04:51:32PM -0800, Mike Hoskins wrote: > On Wed, 11 Dec 2002, Greg Lewis wrote: > > I'm assuming I need some assembly skills and familiarity with BIOS calls > > to look at the LinuxBIOS piece? Or do you have a good handle on the > > problem and just need to railroad the changes through? > > I'm sure I'm missing something... What about, > > http://www.openfirmware.org/ > > It already works with Sun, LinuxPPC (where I liked what I saw back > around '95/96) and some BSDs. Why start a new project with Linux in > the name when a good solution is already underway? It seems like it would > have benefitted everyone if the LinuxBIOS folks worked with the > OpenFirmware folks. Actually, I happen to like OpenFirmware :). However its not the problem I'd like to see solved at the moment. OpenFirmware is: 1. Only available on Sparc and PowerPC machines. 2. Generally a proprietary product. Yes, it does have an open standard describing it, but there is no accompanying source code. So, you would need to start from scratch and write something for all the x86 motherboards you wanted to target that met the OpenFirmware standard. Sorry, thats a project for somebody a bit more ambitious :). In comparison, LinuxBIOS exists and is designed for booting nodes in a cluster (among other things). All I'd like to see is to add the necessary changes so it can boot FreeBSD. Its code is available, so is the FreeBSD booting code. They just need to be taught to cooperate with each other :). Apart from that, consider that LinuxBIOS is in use on production clusters right now and is responsible for several million dollars of Linux cluster sales this year. The relatively simple task of making it boot FreeBSD should take a relatively short time (for someone with the know how) and would be a helpful boost to FreeBSD's "clusterability". IMHO of course :). -- Greg Lewis Email : glewis@eyesbeyond.com Eyes Beyond Web : http://www.eyesbeyond.com Information Technology FreeBSD : glewis@FreeBSD.org To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-cluster" in the body of the message
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