From owner-freebsd-alpha Tue Jan 27 11:30:16 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id LAA18342 for alpha-outgoing; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 11:30:16 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from gateway.sequent.com (gateway.sequent.com [138.95.18.1]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id LAA18331 for ; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 11:30:05 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from seifert@sequent.com) Received: from eng4.sequent.com (eng4.sequent.com [138.95.7.64]) by gateway.sequent.com (8.8.5/8.6.9) with ESMTP id LAA01010 for ; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 11:29:28 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost (seifert@localhost) by eng4.sequent.com (8.8.5/8.6.9) with SMTP id LAA25216 for ; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 11:29:26 -0800 (PST) Message-Id: <199801271929.LAA25216@eng4.sequent.com> X-Authentication-Warning: eng4.sequent.com: seifert@localhost didn't use HELO protocol To: freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: FreeBSD/Alpha Date: Tue, 27 Jan 98 11:29:26 PST From: David Seifert Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org > The question for me remains more of "are there enough ALPHAs out there > doing especially sexy things to justify keeping the port alive as a > transition aid for the next 2-3 years?" Is this all the FreeBSD'ers see Alpha as, a platform to use for getting FreeBSD LP64 clean while waiting for merced, not as an end in itself? This makes it sound like FreeBSD is in bed with intel? Alpha is faster, better and cheaper than intel today, and is very likely to be faster cheaper and better than merced when merced finally comes out. > The Linux people have been > crowing for some time, for example, that the special effects for the > movie "Titanic" were all done on a 150 processor Linux/ALPHA farm This is the first big money project I've heard of that depended on free software. It says that free software is ready for prime time. I see this as a big deal, a serious feather in Linux's cap. > Are these > people worth trying to get on board just on the basis of what they're > doing with the technology rather than just counting sheer numbers? Most people doing free software are interested in creating the best software they can, and aren't worried about market share. This makes it sound like FreeBSD is just the opposite. NetBSD supports a platform (ns32532 based) of which less than 200 were ever built. Clearly they aren't worried about market share. I want to run the best software on the best hardware. The best CPU today and for the forseeable future is Alpha. I hear great things about FreeBSD, but I can't try it because it doesn't support any of my platforms. -Dave