From owner-freebsd-platforms Tue Aug 31 21:38:55 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-platforms@freebsd.org Received: from picnic.mat.net (picnic.mat.net [206.246.122.133]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C9A8514C4C for ; Tue, 31 Aug 1999 21:38:50 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from chuckr@picnic.mat.net) Received: from localhost (chuckr@localhost) by picnic.mat.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id AAA85304; Wed, 1 Sep 1999 00:38:28 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from chuckr@picnic.mat.net) Date: Wed, 1 Sep 1999 00:38:28 -0400 (EDT) From: Chuck Robey To: Leonard Sitongia Cc: freebsd-platforms@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: PowerPC Platforms In-Reply-To: <37CC9022.B3775831@uswest.net> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-platforms@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Tue, 31 Aug 1999, Leonard Sitongia wrote: > I'm interested in FreeBSD on PowerPC, especially on Apple. > > Is anyone working on this? Never heard anything at all on this. The only real port at this time is the Alpha (besides our flagship Intel support). There has been work done towards some other ports, like sparc, but nothing has yet come of those. Never heard a single word about the PowerPC. > > I know about NetBSD's work. I'm interested in FreeBSD. FreeBSD > is going on Alpha. How about PowerPC? > > The PowerPC chip line is hot. Take a look at the new G4 from > Apple (www.apple.com), with reportedly 1GFLOP sustained, vector > processing (SIMD) instructions, etc. It looks like a really nice > processor to me. Hasn't got anything to do with it, what controls is how many programmers have enough interest to really support it. > > I've run Linux on Apple PowerPC for some time, but I always > longingly return to my interest in BSD, for reasons on my > own experience (starting with 4.2BSD on VAX). Sure, we all > know the story about how USL encumbered the freedom of BSD, > launching Linux on it's way. > > Waxing even more generally here, into advocacy, I wonder how > BSD should/can/will distinguish itself from Linux (I think it > should)? There are major differences, but this is flamebait, and I don't think you'll find many here willing to indulge in that. If you want to explore the differences, look at the handbook, available from www.freebsd.org. I think the areas of interest are: SMP, cluster > computing, high-performance computing. Embedded processors > is another interesting area, worthy of work. > > So how about work on Apple PowerPC and the G4? > > Thanks for your time, > -- > --- > Leonard Sitongia > sitongia@uswest.net > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-platforms" in the body of the message > ---------------------------+----------------------------------------------- Chuck Robey | Interests include any kind of voice or data chuckr@picnic.mat.net | communications topic, C programming, and Unix. 213 Lakeside Drive Apt T-1 | Greenbelt, MD 20770 | picnic.mat.net: FreeBSD/i386 (301) 220-2114 | jaunt.mat.net : FreeBSD/Alpha ---------------------------+----------------------------------------------- To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-platforms" in the body of the message