Re: [ydl-gen] Linux yellow dog manual for dummies
On Sat, 26 Dec 2009 16:34:23 -0500 Derick Centeno wrote: On Fri, 25 Dec 2009 11:37:34 -0800 Warren Nagourney war...@phys.washington.edu wrote: Thanks, Derick. Although this is a YDL forum, I am afraid to say that there is no comparison between any linux on PPC and OS X. The former simply doesn't have the software base that I need. I used to think that it would be faster than OS X, but after a few installations of linux on Apple computers, I discovered that OS X wins hands down in the speed area as well. I think that linux is optimized for x86 and of course things like flash are only available on x86 linux (I hate flash, but it unfortunately has become a standard for internet video). There are still some PPC optimizations in OS X apps and maybe even some Altivec usage (which allows Quicktime to smoothly run at 1080p on my PPC machines). The tasks involved in writing my book would have been enormously greater if I had used linux instead of OS X. Prior to my relationship with TSS, I tried my hand at being an Apple developer. Every course Apple offered (beyond the one free introduction in programming for the Mac) were expensive. Beyond that you had to complete specialized seminar training at the Apple Campus at Cupertino!! Add to that costs for travel, hotels and accommodations, etc an individual developer like myself could not do that. Corporations and Universities with deep budgets however are another matter. Within YDL however I could write and create things which ran and explore my own technical interests occasionally sharing them as open source projects which may or may not have interested others -- without it costing blood money, mainly mine. There are entertaining applications for OS X, however if you really get into the source of how Apple did things then and does things still, and requires that they be done, nearly any careful programmer would see spaghetti code -- meaning inexplicable layers between the executing program within Apple's operating system and how that program must function to implement hooks into established and approved Apple tools. This is really the secret reason why you see no improvement in efficiency between your version of the Mac OS and the current or recent versions of Mac OS. The spaghetti has gotten longer and there aren't enough cores or processing speed to eat or process it all. The TSS team avoided the spaghetti method of programming implemented by Microsoft and Apple. YDL and other TSS products are faster because all that junk -- that spaghetti -- doesn't exist. Although nearly everyone wants to have the functionality without the spaghetti, it isn't easy to do as Apple and Microsoft have proven by regularly losing their products into baffling code which not only wastes computer cycles, but also costs consumers money by costing time. Straightforward and intentionally well designed programming helps any processor, but with all that junk removed PowerPC systems running YDL have no peer -- period. Consider also that it is rather sad that even all the work Apple has done, in professional settings where operating systems are tested yearly for efficient processing and security -- Linux comes in First, Windows comes second and the Mac sometimes doesn't come in third place because other operating systems are stronger. These tests have been going on for at least 10+ years!! No Apple operating system has ever achieved second place!! Allow me to be clear about this, there is no point on working on any computer whose data can be compromised via theft by breeches in wireless or other network, or system access vulnerabilities. Why would anyone risk it? Yet people do all the time because they are lulled into forgetting how vulnerable their data is as well as intentionally misdirected regarding how strong the operating system they choose to use actually is regarding protecting their personal and business work. You would think that many would understand by this date the threat of theft of their work and their personal and work related identities, but no. That however is a whole different problem. In consideration of the talent which was at Apple or Microsoft, they could and should have done much, much better. Spaghetti is fine for humans to consume as an enjoyable meal together with meat balls, sauces, etc. -- it is not intended for processors which would have to follow Moore's Law advanced infinitely every microsecond to successfully digest all the spaghetti humans can generate just by sheer imagination. The old saying comes to mind What Intel giveth Microsoft taketh away. Add to that Apple now too. = Refranes/Popular sayings: The Taino say:No hay mal que por bien no venga. There is no evil out of which good cannot blossom. ___ yellowdog-general mailing list -
Re: [ydl-gen] Linux yellow dog manual for dummies
On Thu, 24 Dec 2009 15:27:42 -0500 Derick Centeno wrote: On Thu, 24 Dec 2009 10:09:48 +1100 Robert Spykerman robert.spyker...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Dec 24, 2009 at 2:23 AM, Derick Centeno dcent...@ydl.net wrote: ...snip... Be sure to use the YDL Board as a resource so that you meet other PS3 users like yourself, as well as others who program using YDL on various hardware systems. There's a lot a good people there who can help you move forward a lot faster than you going it solo. I completely agree. There are not many online forums for YDL - I believe this mailing list and the YDL board http://www.yellowdog-board.com/ are the only two specific ones. I am new to YDL too myself. I suspect not many people use it very much these days if traffic in these lists or the YDL board is anything to go by, at least relative to the traffic you can see on the ubuntu boards. You are quite right Robert, the traffic regarding PowerPC programming has changed quite a bit over the years. There had been a great deal of traffic here when Apple incorporated the PowerPC in it's computer hardware. When Apple switched to Intel there were many changes in the traffic here and then Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony developed game systems which incorporated not only the most advanced PowerPC system available to date (the Cell) but the most intensively powerful CPU available to consumers. Out of all these companies however only Sony allowed an option which allowed users to use and run YDL on their PS3s thereby turning what had been merely a game computer into the equivalent of a supercomputer available to forward looking consumers. Of course, not everyone who purchased the PS3 would be interested in hi-tech programming on the Cell but that potential was available as long as Sony allowed the OtherOS option to exist. With the OtherOS option all members of the family could not only play games but explore advanced technical areas ranging from introductory to advanced programming concepts of nearly every level of endeavor. The only comparison I can think of is imagining families with the PS3 being awarded a free perpetual opportunity to attend the most advanced computer labs at MIT or Stanford or Yale for their own personal exploration and use. The Cell is that flexible. I hadn't heard that the CELL was end-of-lifed. I guess it's true. But any idea why? Who killed the Cell/BE? Toshiba owns the chip fab? Have they announced anything? I see the Zego vanished. What about the blades based on Cell/BE? Collectivism at work? Too much compute power for the citizen? However for various reasons Sony closed that potential when the Slim version of the PS3 was released while they almost simultaneously announced that no further PS3s would be produced with the OtherOS option which meant that only the previous generation PS3s with the OtherOS option would continue to be sold until the inventory was exhausted. This meant that although there would continue to be persons who ran YDL on PS3s that number would be finite and would not include anyone who purchased the PS3 Slim forward. Fixstars which produces YDL, runs on many PowerPC systems however fewer of these available systems exist at a price which consumers normally purchase between $200-$500. Fixstar's PowerStation for instance can be had for $1000+ and if one wants the Cell included with that there exists a PCI card which one can purchase fits into the PowerStation beginning at $6,000+. There will be lovers of hi-tech and professionals involved in programming advanced systems who will use YDL, YDEL, etc. which run on such PowerPC technologies which may be or become available but this is no longer the family or consumer priced systems which people have considered as reasonably affordable over during the years Apple or Sony sold their systems which means as well that fewer people will have experience with advanced computers. Intel technology is popular and common, but it is not based on radically new thinking as regards computer architecture. Intel rather is very astute in utilizing old architectures in radically new ways. As inventive as such approaches are in my thinking it is akin to considering how many ways a paper clip can bend. In fact, this is exactly why the modern market has developed into the weird reality we find ourselves in where Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony are vendors who each run the Cell in their own very powerful computing game systems but each system is locked in the sense that consumers cannot use Linux to utilize the flexibility of the Cell on any of these systems for themselves or their families. This is great for producing strictly advanced gaming computers however it is terrible for those who want to use those same computers as working systems or family based learning and research systems which run independently designed projects. In fact, families
Re: [ydl-gen] Linux yellow dog manual for dummies
From: rhubbell rhubb...@ihubbell.com Reply-To: Discussion List for Yellow Dog Linux User Topics yellowdog-general@lists.fixstars.com To: yellowdog-general@lists.fixstars.com Subject: Re: [ydl-gen] Linux yellow dog manual for dummies Date: Thu, 14 Jan 2010 11:42:35 -0800 (14:42 EST) Mailer: Mail-2.1 Hi Robert: In order to help you get a handle on the whole topic I went back to recover a prior submission I made to this list addressing the end-of-life for the Cell. In fairness, Warren Nagourney, another contributor to this list, mentioned it first. However, he did not provide a specific link or reference. As I don't sit well with mere unverified references I researched the subject matter in Ars Technica and discovered an interview with an IBM rep. which discussed the whole issue in detail. The gist of the article clearly states that although the Cell has been mothballed work is proceeding with a novel approach which integrates what has been learned through working with it. IBM is moving forward with has been described technically as Heterogeneous Multicore systems -- a basic overview of Multicore systems is found surprisingly here: http://www.fixstars.com/en/multicore/processors.html. The good news then is that development from IBM will proceed along the lines of something which acts or looks like the Toshiba SpursEngine or other Heterogeneous design. When development proceeds as it surely will, then will be the time to discover which version of Linux will run on it. There's a lot to be positive and excited about for persons interested in programming advanced architectures. The developments are more interesting as elements of previously diverse and competing architectures have become morphed into one which makes programming these new heterogeneous systems easier, not harder. Determining whether we will see something progressing along the lines of the Toshiba SpursEngine or Nvidia's Tesla design is hard to determine. IBM's vision means more powerful and capable systems way beyond those which exist currently and in the near future. A good head's up for Apple users is that Apple is much more likely to accept IBM's new direction in the effort to maintain Apple's edge as creative hardware and operating system par excellence. Although many here will wait and see what comes, a few will study what IBM does and act accordingly. I can guarantee, as a former Apple developer, that Apple pros are studying IBM's efforts and progress as well. On Thu, 24 Dec 2009 15:27:42 -0500 Derick Centeno wrote: On Thu, 24 Dec 2009 10:09:48 +1100 Robert Spykerman robert.spyker...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Dec 24, 2009 at 2:23 AM, Derick Centeno dcent...@ydl.net wrote: ...snip... Be sure to use the YDL Board as a resource so that you meet other PS3 users like yourself, as well as others who program using YDL on various hardware systems. There's a lot a good people there who can help you move forward a lot faster than you going it solo. ... I hadn't heard that the CELL was end-of-lifed. I guess it's true. But any idea why? Who killed the Cell/BE? Toshiba owns the chip fab? Have they announced anything? I see the Zego vanished. What about the blades based on Cell/BE? Collectivism at work? Too much compute power for the citizen? Forwarded Message From: Derick Centeno dcent...@ydl.net Reply-To: Discussion List for Yellow Dog Linux User Topics yellowdog-general@lists.fixstars.com To: yellowdog-general@lists.fixstars.com Subject: Re: [ydl-gen] Linux yellow dog manual for dummies Date: Sun, 27 Dec 2009 11:23:53 -0500 I thought you, Rob and interested others would find this article interesting as it follows along the lines of what you stated earlier with some different details. First the article: http://arstechnica.com/hardware/news/2009/11/end-of-the-line-for-ibms-cell.ars You'll note that future development and computers (including laptops - Yippee!) will follow along an integrated or morphed design path which implements both AMD/Intel with Cell/PowerPC aspects of handling complex processing. This could well mean systems which look more like the system which is within the Toshiba Qosimo (referring to the Toshiba SpursEngine). I recall discussing details regarding how the Cell's technology was morphed into the SPEC engine with some astute people at the YDL Board awhile ago. IBM's decision therefore kills the Cell as Cell, but not what was derived by learning and working with it. It is interesting that this movement forward comprises methods previously exclusive to disparate architecture families (Intel v. PowerPC); everything running today will need to be rewritten for those newer systems as they will be unlike what has come before. This also means something rather challenging which I hinted at previously, the skills needed to program the new systems will require people familiar programming for PowerPC/Cell and Intel systems. A skill which remains rare
Re: [ydl-gen] Linux yellow dog manual for dummies
On Thu, 14 Jan 2010 18:59:18 -0500 Derick Centeno wrote: From: rhubbell rhubb...@ihubbell.com Reply-To: Discussion List for Yellow Dog Linux User Topics yellowdog-general@lists.fixstars.com To: yellowdog-general@lists.fixstars.com Subject: Re: [ydl-gen] Linux yellow dog manual for dummies Date: Thu, 14 Jan 2010 11:42:35 -0800 (14:42 EST) Mailer: Mail-2.1 In order to help you get a handle on the whole topic I went back to recover a prior submission I made to this list addressing the end-of-life for the Cell. In fairness, Warren Nagourney, another contributor to this list, mentioned it first. However, he did not provide a specific link or reference. As I don't sit well with mere unverified references I researched the subject matter in Ars Technica and discovered an interview with an IBM rep. which discussed the whole issue in detail. The gist of the article clearly states that although the Cell has been mothballed work is proceeding with a novel approach which integrates what has been learned through working with it. IBM is moving forward with has been described technically as Heterogeneous Multicore systems -- a basic overview of Multicore systems is found surprisingly here: http://www.fixstars.com/en/multicore/processors.html. The good news then is that development from IBM will proceed along the lines of something which acts or looks like the Toshiba SpursEngine or other Heterogeneous design. When development proceeds as it surely will, then will be the time to discover which version of Linux will run on it. There's a lot to be positive and excited about for persons interested in programming advanced architectures. The developments are more interesting as elements of previously diverse and competing architectures have become morphed into one which makes programming these new heterogeneous systems easier, not harder. Determining whether we will see something progressing along the lines of the Toshiba SpursEngine or Nvidia's Tesla design is hard to determine. IBM's vision means more powerful and capable systems way beyond those which exist currently and in the near future. A good head's up for Apple users is that Apple is much more likely to accept IBM's new direction in the effort to maintain Apple's edge as creative hardware and operating system par excellence. Although many here will wait and see what comes, a few will study what IBM does and act accordingly. I can guarantee, as a former Apple developer, that Apple pros are studying IBM's efforts and progress as well. I can't keep up with the changes, thanks for distilling it down here. I know that IBM has the multi-core advantage and they aren't going to be losing that it seems. The tools for development hopefully will get enough attention to make it so that they are picked up and used. I know PS3 game developers are still getting up to speed but making strides as the tools mature. How many cores did they get to with Cell/BE? It's not as if it's dead tomorrow. Sony's still selling PS3s and are planning to continue. (heck they are stilling selling PS2s) I bet they run the simulators of the new design on Cell/BE. (^: ___ yellowdog-general mailing list - yellowdog-general@lists.fixstars.com Unsuscribe info: http://lists.fixstars.com/mailman/listinfo/yellowdog-general HINT: to Google archives, try 'lt;keywords site:us.fixstars.com'
Re: [ydl-gen] Linux yellow dog manual for dummies
On Sun, 27 Dec 2009 14:20:18 -0500 Rob Sanders ra...@travelinglightfarm.net wrote: It is an interesting article, and reminds me of some discussions I've had with 'younger' programmers at work. One of my coworkers is an absolutely awesome web developer, using the newer frameworks (Groovy on Grails) to develop from scratch a replacement GUI for out linux security tools (commercial plug - www.trustedcs.com/ securityblanket) in 8 months, having no previous experience with the product. Seeing what he has been able to do using the right tools has been amazing. He enjoys the whole meta-programming way of doing things. But when I've discussed some of the things I've done (some cell code, device driver work, cross-platform porting, C/C++/Fortran, bit level manipulation, etc) he honestly confesses that he is baffled and lost trying to do those things. They just aren't taught much it seems. I've also been amused that several of the programming tricks *required* in cell based work were things I did 'back in the day' trying to get every cycle I could beg, borrow, or steal out of my old Apple II+. When a no-op costs two clock cycles, you learn to count every one of them. Anyone else remember the extra 16 K of memory (or there abouts) you could get by bank-switching the language card? Or programming overlays? Manually figuring out how to bit pack you data so you would actually be able to fit everthing into your limited memory space? Again, skills that (outside of the embedded world perhaps) just aren't taught much anymore. sigh I'm not saying that everyone needs to be able to demonstrate mastery of these skills, but I am a *firm* believer that the concepts should be taught and coded at least once, if only so the developing code can understand what the wiz-bang compiler is doing on their behalf. I appreciate your experience. My own is similar in that I also worked on small systems where memory was extremely tight, next to nonexistent by today's standards, and coding had to be done extremely well. Where you where working on an Apple II+; I couldn't afford one. So having had a few programming courses in Fortran, Basic and become familiar with programming the HP 67 in the early 70's -- I decided to acquire a Hewlett-Packard 41 which I could afford. I was looking for a means to demonstrate that I had solid technical skills, although I had very little course work in Comp. Sci. and my BA was, of all things, in Psychology. The solution was provided by HP itself; it then offered any interested persons who wrote programs judged as technically useful the opportunity to be entered into their user's program catalog which then was published worldwide. The language then used was a proprietary language which implemented Reverse Polish Notation as a form of hybrid Assembly language. The HP 41 had the vast RAM capacity of 6.4KB. Here are some links just as a matter of sharing a bit of my world back then. It may interest you to view something of the code language used then which was also implemented into the HP 41: An discussion regards the HP 67 with an example of coding: http://www.rskey.org/detail.asp?manufacturer=Hewlett-Packardmodel=HP-67 An discussion of HP41 with links to technical details: http://www.hpcc.org/calculators/hp41.html After that it is pretty straightforward how I could move into PowerPC assembly language and so on. The value of exposure to and experience with technical foundations cannot be overstated. The fact that unless one knows what is entailed to resolve a difficulty without resort to an application it will be terribly difficult to understand not only why and how it functions, but more importantly when that tool cannot be used for a task. Then such understanding can help move one forward towards a task or strategy which does work. Ok, I will now step down from one of my many soapboxes. -Rob Hey Rob, don't consider it odd that I'll cheer for you to get back onto any one of the soapboxes anytime. = Refranes/Popular sayings: The Taino say:No hay mal que por bien no venga. There is no evil out of which good cannot blossom. signature.asc Description: PGP signature ___ yellowdog-general mailing list - yellowdog-general@lists.fixstars.com Unsuscribe info: http://lists.fixstars.com/mailman/listinfo/yellowdog-general HINT: to Google archives, try 'lt;keywords site:us.fixstars.com'
Re: [ydl-gen] Linux yellow dog manual for dummies
I found an article discussing IBM's decision to cancel the Cell which I'm posting for others here. I'm satisfied it comes close enough to what he described. Here's that article: http://arstechnica.com/hardware/news/2009/11/end-of-the-line-for-ibms-cell.ars On Thu, 24 Dec 2009 12:46:10 -0800 Warren Nagourney war...@phys.washington.edu wrote: I might also add that, due to recent announcements from IBM, the future of the Cell processor is in doubt. In November, IBM announced ... = Refranes/Popular sayings: The Taino say:No hay mal que por bien no venga. There is no evil out of which good cannot blossom. signature.asc Description: PGP signature ___ yellowdog-general mailing list - yellowdog-general@lists.fixstars.com Unsuscribe info: http://lists.fixstars.com/mailman/listinfo/yellowdog-general HINT: to Google archives, try 'lt;keywords site:us.fixstars.com'
Re: [ydl-gen] Linux yellow dog manual for dummies
I thought you, Rob and interested others would find this article interesting as it follows along the lines of what you stated earlier with some different details. First the article: http://arstechnica.com/hardware/news/2009/11/end-of-the-line-for-ibms-cell.ars You'll note that future development and computers (including laptops - Yippee!) will follow along an integrated or morphed design path which implements both AMD/Intel with Cell/PowerPC aspects of handling complex processing. This could well mean systems which look more like the system which is within the Toshiba Qosimo (referring to what Toshiba calls it's SPEC engine). I recall discussing details regarding how the Cell's technology was morphed into the SPEC engine with some astute people at the YDL Board awhile ago. IBM's decision therefore kills the Cell as Cell, but not what was derived by learning and working with it. It is interesting that this movement forward comprises methods previously exclusive to disparate architecture families (Intel v. PowerPC); everything running today will need to be rewritten for those newer systems as they will be unlike what has come before. This also means something rather challenging which I hinted at previously, the skills needed to program the new systems will require people familiar programming for PowerPC/Cell and Intel systems. A skill which remains rare and becoming rarer still. However those skills are transferable and advantageous in leaping forward into seriously working with this new hybrid. The new hybrid will be further advanced than the system within the Qosimo. As the hardware moving forward has changed so must Linux and commercial operating systems. YDL won't remain what it is; it will have to morph into something else to meet what is coming. That choice, if any is made, is up to Fixstars. I hope that they choose well so that they are right in the thick of it. The best to all... On Sat, 26 Dec 2009 12:46:22 -0800 Warren Nagourney war...@phys.washington.edu wrote: That's very interesting, Rob. Were the apps compiled using the same compilers (with the same degree of optimization) in both cases? Were the time differences actual CPU time of just elapsed time? ... = Refranes/Popular sayings: The Taino say:No hay mal que por bien no venga. There is no evil out of which good cannot blossom. signature.asc Description: PGP signature ___ yellowdog-general mailing list - yellowdog-general@lists.fixstars.com Unsuscribe info: http://lists.fixstars.com/mailman/listinfo/yellowdog-general HINT: to Google archives, try 'lt;keywords site:us.fixstars.com'
Re: [ydl-gen] Linux yellow dog manual for dummies
It is an interesting article, and reminds me of some discussions I've had with 'younger' programmers at work. One of my coworkers is an absolutely awesome web developer, using the newer frameworks (Groovy on Grails) to develop from scratch a replacement GUI for out linux security tools (commercial plug - www.trustedcs.com/ securityblanket) in 8 months, having no previous experience with the product. Seeing what he has been able to do using the right tools has been amazing. He enjoys the whole meta-programming way of doing things. But when I've discussed some of the things I've done (some cell code, device driver work, cross-platform porting, C/C++/Fortran, bit level manipulation, etc) he honestly confesses that he is baffled and lost trying to do those things. They just aren't taught much it seems. I've also been amused that several of the programming tricks *required* in cell based work were things I did 'back in the day' trying to get every cycle I could beg, borrow, or steal out of my old Apple II+. When a no-op costs two clock cycles, you learn to count every one of them. Anyone else remember the extra 16 K of memory (or there abouts) you could get by bank-switching the language card? Or programming overlays? Manually figuring out how to bit pack you data so you would actually be able to fit everthing into your limited memory space? Again, skills that (outside of the embedded world perhaps) just aren't taught much anymore. sigh I'm not saying that everyone needs to be able to demonstrate mastery of these skills, but I am a *firm* believer that the concepts should be taught and coded at least once, if only so the developing code can understand what the wiz-bang compiler is doing on their behalf. Ok, I will now step down from one of my many soapboxes. -Rob On Dec 27, 2009, at 11:23 AM, Derick Centeno wrote: I thought you, Rob and interested others would find this article interesting as it follows along the lines of what you stated earlier with some different details. First the article: http://arstechnica.com/hardware/news/2009/11/end-of-the-line-for- ibms-cell.ars You'll note that future development and computers (including laptops - Yippee!) will follow along an integrated or morphed design path which implements both AMD/Intel with Cell/PowerPC aspects of handling complex processing. This could well mean systems which look more like the system which is within the Toshiba Qosimo (referring to what Toshiba calls it's SPEC engine). I recall discussing details regarding how the Cell's technology was morphed into the SPEC engine with some astute people at the YDL Board awhile ago. IBM's decision therefore kills the Cell as Cell, but not what was derived by learning and working with it. It is interesting that this movement forward comprises methods previously exclusive to disparate architecture families (Intel v. PowerPC); everything running today will need to be rewritten for those newer systems as they will be unlike what has come before. This also means something rather challenging which I hinted at previously, the skills needed to program the new systems will require people familiar programming for PowerPC/Cell and Intel systems. A skill which remains rare and becoming rarer still. However those skills are transferable and advantageous in leaping forward into seriously working with this new hybrid. The new hybrid will be further advanced than the system within the Qosimo. As the hardware moving forward has changed so must Linux and commercial operating systems. YDL won't remain what it is; it will have to morph into something else to meet what is coming. That choice, if any is made, is up to Fixstars. I hope that they choose well so that they are right in the thick of it. The best to all... On Sat, 26 Dec 2009 12:46:22 -0800 Warren Nagourney war...@phys.washington.edu wrote: That's very interesting, Rob. Were the apps compiled using the same compilers (with the same degree of optimization) in both cases? Were the time differences actual CPU time of just elapsed time? ... = Refranes/Popular sayings: The Taino say:No hay mal que por bien no venga. There is no evil out of which good cannot blossom. ___ yellowdog-general mailing list - yellowdog-general@lists.fixstars.com Unsuscribe info: http://lists.fixstars.com/mailman/listinfo/ yellowdog-general HINT: to Google archives, try 'lt;keywords site:us.fixstars.com' ___ yellowdog-general mailing list - yellowdog-general@lists.fixstars.com Unsuscribe info: http://lists.fixstars.com/mailman/listinfo/yellowdog-general HINT: to Google archives, try 'lt;keywords site:us.fixstars.com'
Re: [ydl-gen] Linux yellow dog manual for dummies
I haven't done much with YDL in some time as I've changed jobs, but I'd just like to chime in that several years ago that the PPC Linux's ( YDL for Mac, full RedHat/SuSE on some IBM OpenPower720 hardware) was running rings around the equivalent x86 -or- Alpha based platforms we were doing some work on. Tried to get my bosses customers more interested in it and hit the wall of 'but it isn't x86'. sigh. At the time, a direct comparison of the *same* base code on a Mac XServe G5 running on YDL4 vice OS X 10.3 had the YDL code twice as fast as the OS X code. Lots of double precision floating point math, and multiple processes (not threads) communicating via shared memory. We would routinely max out any box we were running on. -Rob On Dec 25, 2009, at 2:37 PM, Warren Nagourney wrote: Thanks, Derick. Although this is a YDL forum, I am afraid to say that there is no comparison between any linux on PPC and OS X. The former simply doesn't have the software base that I need. I used to think that it would be faster than OS X, but after a few installations of linux on Apple computers, I discovered that OS X wins hands down in the speed area as well. I think that linux is optimized for x86 and of course things like flash are only available on x86 linux (I hate flash, but it unfortunately has become a standard for internet video). There are still some PPC optimizations in OS X apps and maybe even some Altivec usage (which allows Quicktime to smoothly run at 1080p on my PPC machines). The tasks involved in writing my book would have been enormously greater if I had used linux instead of OS X. I notice an increasing dominance of ARM in low power portable devices. This is unfortunate, since ARM simply doesn't have the computational power that PPC has - I am not sure it even has a floating point data type. It is too bad that IBM did such a poor job of promoting PPC; we will need to reinvent the wheel with ARM when we could have had advanced multi-purpose chips with low power consumption from the PPC manufacturers (such as PA semi, which Apple bought and converted to ARM). Anyway, the improvement in the performance of Apple products since the switch has been less than stellar, much less than expected from Moore's law. My 4 year old G5 has a 1.15 GHz memory bus and an 16x dual layer superdrive, which is very competitive with the best that Apple can come up with now (for reasonable prices). It cost much less than a current machine and doesn't require a several thousand dollar investment in software, which I would need to make if I use one of Apple's intel superboxes. Cheers, Warren Nagourney On Dec 24, 2009, at 2:28 PM, Derick Centeno wrote: You may want to know that you may find decent parts for your system from http://macsales.com/ I think we may have to really keep our PowerPC running for longer than that although I did hear of someone developing a multicore PowerPC laptop a month or so ago. I've got to search for who this fellow is again as I lost track, but I did hear of a fellow who created a working Cell based laptop which ran the GameOS and had the OtherOS option. Pretty neat! Caveat: If you replace the power supply or other support parts you shouldn't have trouble running YDL from it. Be careful regarding other components however such as DVD drives: if those go it may be wiser to consider an external DVD drive in that situation. I'm unsure if anyone we knew remains at Fixstars from TSS; it may not be so easy to get the kind of support we became accustomed to. In any case, I'd advise you to consider reviewing what notations remain regarding their advisories regarding which hardware works with YDL and which do not. As best I recall, the past emphasis (by TSS) was to support original Apple parts. So the problems to watch for may not be RAM as much as internal associated devices, such as a newer hard drive or modem or something similar. It may be better to just get an HD which resides on a PCI card which your system should recognize with no problem as an external system; I don't think such a drive would be able to be booted from within YDL. It would be interesting to try that out as a concept though. Anyway enjoy and all the best!! On Thu, 24 Dec 2009 13:57:49 -0800 Warren Nagourney war...@phys.washington.edu wrote: Thanks, Derick. I still love the PPC architecture and recently bought an Apple dual core 2.3 GHz G5 for very little money and am finding it to be absolutely as fast as I could ever hope for. I will keep it for the next 3-5 years (assuming I can keep the power supply running) and maybe then, the dominance of x86 may have lessened (it can't last forever!). Merry Christmas and Happy 2010, Warren N = Refranes/Popular sayings: The Taino say:No hay mal que por bien no venga. There is no evil out of which good cannot blossom.
Re: [ydl-gen] Linux yellow dog manual for dummies
I think one needs to distinguish between the OS and the CPU. My experience with the G5 is that its floating point performance is between 1.5x and 2x as fast as the equivalent x86. Unfortunately, the fixed point advantages are not there. I use LaTeX a lot and heard that the typesetting speed improved on Macs (running OS X) when Apple switched to intel (same TeX source - this might me in part a reflection on the poorer PPC optimizations in gcc). The intel advantage might be 20% in LaTeX typesetting (this is a single data point from a commercial TeX). On the other hand, the performance of the OS is another matter. Every linux I have installed on a Mac (or PS3) was much less responsive than OS X for similar operations. This is a combination of things like application launching speed and particularly graphics operations, which are slow in PPC linux since there are no good PPC drivers for video cards in linux. This is entirely a user interface issue and a PPC linux server might do very well compared to the competition (I have no experience with this). Of course, the speed of apps which don't use graphics should be the same between linux and OS X since they both use the same compilers. Cheers, Warren Nagourney On Dec 26, 2009, at 8:09 AM, Rob Sanders wrote: I haven't done much with YDL in some time as I've changed jobs, but I'd just like to chime in that several years ago that the PPC Linux's ( YDL for Mac, full RedHat/SuSE on some IBM OpenPower720 hardware) was running rings around the equivalent x86 -or- Alpha based platforms we were doing some work on. Tried to get my bosses customers more interested in it and hit the wall of 'but it isn't x86'. sigh. At the time, a direct comparison of the *same* base code on a Mac XServe G5 running on YDL4 vice OS X 10.3 had the YDL code twice as fast as the OS X code. Lots of double precision floating point math, and multiple processes (not threads) communicating via shared memory. We would routinely max out any box we were running on. -Rob On Dec 25, 2009, at 2:37 PM, Warren Nagourney wrote: Thanks, Derick. Although this is a YDL forum, I am afraid to say that there is no comparison between any linux on PPC and OS X. The former simply doesn't have the software base that I need. I used to think that it would be faster than OS X, but after a few installations of linux on Apple computers, I discovered that OS X wins hands down in the speed area as well. I think that linux is optimized for x86 and of course things like flash are only available on x86 linux (I hate flash, but it unfortunately has become a standard for internet video). There are still some PPC optimizations in OS X apps and maybe even some Altivec usage (which allows Quicktime to smoothly run at 1080p on my PPC machines). The tasks involved in writing my book would have been enormously greater if I had used linux instead of OS X. I notice an increasing dominance of ARM in low power portable devices. This is unfortunate, since ARM simply doesn't have the computational power that PPC has - I am not sure it even has a floating point data type. It is too bad that IBM did such a poor job of promoting PPC; we will need to reinvent the wheel with ARM when we could have had advanced multi-purpose chips with low power consumption from the PPC manufacturers (such as PA semi, which Apple bought and converted to ARM). Anyway, the improvement in the performance of Apple products since the switch has been less than stellar, much less than expected from Moore's law. My 4 year old G5 has a 1.15 GHz memory bus and an 16x dual layer superdrive, which is very competitive with the best that Apple can come up with now (for reasonable prices). It cost much less than a current machine and doesn't require a several thousand dollar investment in software, which I would need to make if I use one of Apple's intel superboxes. Cheers, Warren Nagourney On Dec 24, 2009, at 2:28 PM, Derick Centeno wrote: You may want to know that you may find decent parts for your system from http://macsales.com/ I think we may have to really keep our PowerPC running for longer than that although I did hear of someone developing a multicore PowerPC laptop a month or so ago. I've got to search for who this fellow is again as I lost track, but I did hear of a fellow who created a working Cell based laptop which ran the GameOS and had the OtherOS option. Pretty neat! Caveat: If you replace the power supply or other support parts you shouldn't have trouble running YDL from it. Be careful regarding other components however such as DVD drives: if those go it may be wiser to consider an external DVD drive in that situation. I'm unsure if anyone we knew remains at Fixstars from TSS; it may not be so easy to get the kind of support we became accustomed to. In any case, I'd advise you to consider reviewing
Re: [ydl-gen] Linux yellow dog manual for dummies
Warren, I'd concur. This application was hugely floating point intensive. Graphics ops were not an issue for us. The app used only low-level X11 calls (no Motif, or Xt calls even), so what graphics there were under OSX had to go through Apple's X11 layer before being seen. Most of the testing I had done was using the XServe as the compute host, with graphics being redirected to a remote terminal. But I still consistently saw about a 2x speed improvement when the app ran on YLD 4 vice OSX 10.3. sigh Many fond memories -Rob On Dec 26, 2009, at 3:00 PM, Warren Nagourney wrote: I think one needs to distinguish between the OS and the CPU. My experience with the G5 is that its floating point performance is between 1.5x and 2x as fast as the equivalent x86. Unfortunately, the fixed point advantages are not there. I use LaTeX a lot and heard that the typesetting speed improved on Macs (running OS X) when Apple switched to intel (same TeX source - this might me in part a reflection on the poorer PPC optimizations in gcc). The intel advantage might be 20% in LaTeX typesetting (this is a single data point from a commercial TeX). On the other hand, the performance of the OS is another matter. Every linux I have installed on a Mac (or PS3) was much less responsive than OS X for similar operations. This is a combination of things like application launching speed and particularly graphics operations, which are slow in PPC linux since there are no good PPC drivers for video cards in linux. This is entirely a user interface issue and a PPC linux server might do very well compared to the competition (I have no experience with this). Of course, the speed of apps which don't use graphics should be the same between linux and OS X since they both use the same compilers. Cheers, Warren Nagourney On Dec 26, 2009, at 8:09 AM, Rob Sanders wrote: I haven't done much with YDL in some time as I've changed jobs, but I'd just like to chime in that several years ago that the PPC Linux's ( YDL for Mac, full RedHat/SuSE on some IBM OpenPower720 hardware) was running rings around the equivalent x86 -or- Alpha based platforms we were doing some work on. Tried to get my bosses customers more interested in it and hit the wall of 'but it isn't x86'. sigh. At the time, a direct comparison of the *same* base code on a Mac XServe G5 running on YDL4 vice OS X 10.3 had the YDL code twice as fast as the OS X code. Lots of double precision floating point math, and multiple processes (not threads) communicating via shared memory. We would routinely max out any box we were running on. -Rob On Dec 25, 2009, at 2:37 PM, Warren Nagourney wrote: Thanks, Derick. Although this is a YDL forum, I am afraid to say that there is no comparison between any linux on PPC and OS X. The former simply doesn't have the software base that I need. I used to think that it would be faster than OS X, but after a few installations of linux on Apple computers, I discovered that OS X wins hands down in the speed area as well. I think that linux is optimized for x86 and of course things like flash are only available on x86 linux (I hate flash, but it unfortunately has become a standard for internet video). There are still some PPC optimizations in OS X apps and maybe even some Altivec usage (which allows Quicktime to smoothly run at 1080p on my PPC machines). The tasks involved in writing my book would have been enormously greater if I had used linux instead of OS X. I notice an increasing dominance of ARM in low power portable devices. This is unfortunate, since ARM simply doesn't have the computational power that PPC has - I am not sure it even has a floating point data type. It is too bad that IBM did such a poor job of promoting PPC; we will need to reinvent the wheel with ARM when we could have had advanced multi-purpose chips with low power consumption from the PPC manufacturers (such as PA semi, which Apple bought and converted to ARM). Anyway, the improvement in the performance of Apple products since the switch has been less than stellar, much less than expected from Moore's law. My 4 year old G5 has a 1.15 GHz memory bus and an 16x dual layer superdrive, which is very competitive with the best that Apple can come up with now (for reasonable prices). It cost much less than a current machine and doesn't require a several thousand dollar investment in software, which I would need to make if I use one of Apple's intel superboxes. Cheers, Warren Nagourney On Dec 24, 2009, at 2:28 PM, Derick Centeno wrote: You may want to know that you may find decent parts for your system from http://macsales.com/ I think we may have to really keep our PowerPC running for longer than that although I did hear of someone developing a multicore PowerPC laptop a month or so ago. I've got to search for who this fellow is
Re: [ydl-gen] Linux yellow dog manual for dummies
On Fri, 25 Dec 2009 11:37:34 -0800 Warren Nagourney war...@phys.washington.edu wrote: Thanks, Derick. Although this is a YDL forum, I am afraid to say that there is no comparison between any linux on PPC and OS X. The former simply doesn't have the software base that I need. I used to think that it would be faster than OS X, but after a few installations of linux on Apple computers, I discovered that OS X wins hands down in the speed area as well. I think that linux is optimized for x86 and of course things like flash are only available on x86 linux (I hate flash, but it unfortunately has become a standard for internet video). There are still some PPC optimizations in OS X apps and maybe even some Altivec usage (which allows Quicktime to smoothly run at 1080p on my PPC machines). The tasks involved in writing my book would have been enormously greater if I had used linux instead of OS X. Prior to my relationship with TSS, I tried my hand at being an Apple developer. Every course Apple offered (beyond the one free introduction in programming for the Mac) were expensive. Beyond that you had to complete specialized seminar training at the Apple Campus at Cupertino!! Add to that costs for travel, hotels and accommodations, etc an individual developer like myself could not do that. Corporations and Universities with deep budgets however are another matter. Within YDL however I could write and create things which ran and explore my own technical interests occasionally sharing them as open source projects which may or may not have interested others -- without it costing blood money, mainly mine. There are entertaining applications for OS X, however if you really get into the source of how Apple did things then and does things still, and requires that they be done, nearly any careful programmer would see spaghetti code -- meaning inexplicable layers between the executing program within Apple's operating system and how that program must function to implement hooks into established and approved Apple tools. This is really the secret reason why you see no improvement in efficiency between your version of the Mac OS and the current or recent versions of Mac OS. The spaghetti has gotten longer and there aren't enough cores or processing speed to eat or process it all. The TSS team avoided the spaghetti method of programming implemented by Microsoft and Apple. YDL and other TSS products are faster because all that junk -- that spaghetti -- doesn't exist. Although nearly everyone wants to have the functionality without the spaghetti, it isn't easy to do as Apple and Microsoft have proven by regularly losing their products into baffling code which not only wastes computer cycles, but also costs consumers money by costing time. Straightforward and intentionally well designed programming helps any processor, but with all that junk removed PowerPC systems running YDL have no peer -- period. Consider also that it is rather sad that even all the work Apple has done, in professional settings where operating systems are tested yearly for efficient processing and security -- Linux comes in First, Windows comes second and the Mac sometimes doesn't come in third place because other operating systems are stronger. These tests have been going on for at least 10+ years!! No Apple operating system has ever achieved second place!! Allow me to be clear about this, there is no point on working on any computer whose data can be compromised via theft by breeches in wireless or other network, or system access vulnerabilities. Why would anyone risk it? Yet people do all the time because they are lulled into forgetting how vulnerable their data is as well as intentionally misdirected regarding how strong the operating system they choose to use actually is regarding protecting their personal and business work. You would think that many would understand by this date the threat of theft of their work and their personal and work related identities, but no. That however is a whole different problem. In consideration of the talent which was at Apple or Microsoft, they could and should have done much, much better. Spaghetti is fine for humans to consume as an enjoyable meal together with meat balls, sauces, etc. -- it is not intended for processors which would have to follow Moore's Law advanced infinitely every microsecond to successfully digest all the spaghetti humans can generate just by sheer imagination. = Refranes/Popular sayings: The Taino say:No hay mal que por bien no venga. There is no evil out of which good cannot blossom. signature.asc Description: PGP signature ___ yellowdog-general mailing list - yellowdog-general@lists.fixstars.com Unsuscribe info: http://lists.fixstars.com/mailman/listinfo/yellowdog-general HINT: to Google archives, try 'lt;keywords site:us.fixstars.com'
Re: [ydl-gen] Linux yellow dog manual for dummies
On Fri, Dec 25, 2009 at 8:44 AM, Derick Centeno dcent...@ydl.net wrote: I wasn't aware of IBM's announcement. I guess we are the lucky ones who got these marvelous computers while they could be had. Too bad others won't have the opportunity to explore and develop varied programming skills which these systems allow. I went down to the local EB the other day hoping the fat ps3s (be they second hand or old stock) would be significantly cheaper with the express notion of purchasing another Alas... not :( But hmm... there are a few interesting cheap-ish options. Been thinking of looking into these Sheeva thingies... ie http://www.plugcomputer.org/ No particular reason. Just because they exist and are not x86's - Thank heavens they did not put atoms in them - I think one would make a really nice home server with low energy costs, but it won't be fast for number crunching. Cheap ARM netbooks are probably also on the way. Hmm... if these succeed maybe we may see the evolution of small desktop ARM jobs...and maybe followed by bigger badder multicore ARMS with a lot of grunt. Hah, wishful thinking eh? Knowing ARM, probably not...but still they could try. IBM sure don't seem to be. I'm bitterly disappointed at (what I perceive to be) the continued decline of the powerpc architecture I have to say. But hey, I have a ps3. It runs linux (for now). And I can mess with it and mess with it I shall. Well, Warren, have a wonderful celebration of the holidays and a most splendid New Year!! Likewise to all who are here!!! Likewise, seasons greetings to all! Cheers Robert -- chown -R us ./base ___ yellowdog-general mailing list - yellowdog-general@lists.fixstars.com Unsuscribe info: http://lists.fixstars.com/mailman/listinfo/yellowdog-general HINT: to Google archives, try 'lt;keywords site:us.fixstars.com'
Re: [ydl-gen] Linux yellow dog manual for dummies
On Sat, 26 Dec 2009 00:55:12 +1100 Robert Spykerman robert.spyker...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Robert, may you and all here and elsewhere enjoy the upcoming celebrations and New Year! I haven't had the time to pursue or discover the article or articles which Warren referred to. If I do discover anything along those lines which approach what he shared, I'll post them in this thread. Regarding what you posted however despite all the running around about this new architecture you do understand that media people and engineers paid to do media are rather loose in their definitions of what they mean by new or really anything else -- even their mathematics find new inventive realities which more often are explorations of that dimension of imaginary numbers. Remember that universe of estimations and calculations affected by and related to the square root of negative one? The vast production of data generated by media are like that. It may be entertaining and many other things but one, no one, should believe or accept the production at face value, no matter what it is or who produces it. The new thing which you should have noted from Plug Computer is what the name tells you itself. They are merely propagating what is old as new; the new thing is the redesign of ARM technology so that it does new functions at low energy costs -- which is truly a good thing. But this is as I shared elsewhere no more interesting that bending a paper clip in a new way. There are more uses for utilizing such a clip bent in that new manner, but it is and remains just a paper clip -- Plug Computer's new thingy is no more than that. Here's one page which almost approaches the essence of the truth regarding what they actually are doing -- read between the words and the lines and you'll discover for yourself that there is a lot less to their efforts than the hoopla they are creating around it. Here's the link: http://www.marvell.com/technologies/cputech.jsp Now I've got to run lest my relatives proceed to engage upon my demise in creative ways I would not be able to foresee. Happy Holidays!! On Fri, Dec 25, 2009 at 8:44 AM, Derick Centeno dcent...@ydl.net wrote: I wasn't aware of IBM's announcement. I guess we are the lucky ones who got these marvelous computers while they could be had. Too bad others won't have the opportunity to explore and develop varied programming skills which these systems allow. I went down to the local EB the other day hoping the fat ps3s (be they second hand or old stock) would be significantly cheaper with the express notion of purchasing another Alas... not :( But hmm... there are a few interesting cheap-ish options. Been thinking of looking into these Sheeva thingies... ie http://www.plugcomputer.org/ No particular reason. Just because they exist and are not x86's - Thank heavens they did not put atoms in them - I think one would make a really nice home server with low energy costs, but it won't be fast for number crunching. Cheap ARM netbooks are probably also on the way. Hmm... if these succeed maybe we may see the evolution of small desktop ARM jobs...and maybe followed by bigger badder multicore ARMS with a lot of grunt. Hah, wishful thinking eh? Knowing ARM, probably not...but still they could try. IBM sure don't seem to be. I'm bitterly disappointed at (what I perceive to be) the continued decline of the powerpc architecture I have to say. But hey, I have a ps3. It runs linux (for now). And I can mess with it and mess with it I shall. Well, Warren, have a wonderful celebration of the holidays and a most splendid New Year!! Likewise to all who are here!!! Likewise, seasons greetings to all! Cheers Robert = Refranes/Popular sayings: The Taino say:No hay mal que por bien no venga. There is no evil out of which good cannot blossom. signature.asc Description: PGP signature ___ yellowdog-general mailing list - yellowdog-general@lists.fixstars.com Unsuscribe info: http://lists.fixstars.com/mailman/listinfo/yellowdog-general HINT: to Google archives, try 'lt;keywords site:us.fixstars.com'
Re: [ydl-gen] Linux yellow dog manual for dummies
Thanks, Derick. Although this is a YDL forum, I am afraid to say that there is no comparison between any linux on PPC and OS X. The former simply doesn't have the software base that I need. I used to think that it would be faster than OS X, but after a few installations of linux on Apple computers, I discovered that OS X wins hands down in the speed area as well. I think that linux is optimized for x86 and of course things like flash are only available on x86 linux (I hate flash, but it unfortunately has become a standard for internet video). There are still some PPC optimizations in OS X apps and maybe even some Altivec usage (which allows Quicktime to smoothly run at 1080p on my PPC machines). The tasks involved in writing my book would have been enormously greater if I had used linux instead of OS X. I notice an increasing dominance of ARM in low power portable devices. This is unfortunate, since ARM simply doesn't have the computational power that PPC has - I am not sure it even has a floating point data type. It is too bad that IBM did such a poor job of promoting PPC; we will need to reinvent the wheel with ARM when we could have had advanced multi-purpose chips with low power consumption from the PPC manufacturers (such as PA semi, which Apple bought and converted to ARM). Anyway, the improvement in the performance of Apple products since the switch has been less than stellar, much less than expected from Moore's law. My 4 year old G5 has a 1.15 GHz memory bus and an 16x dual layer superdrive, which is very competitive with the best that Apple can come up with now (for reasonable prices). It cost much less than a current machine and doesn't require a several thousand dollar investment in software, which I would need to make if I use one of Apple's intel superboxes. Cheers, Warren Nagourney On Dec 24, 2009, at 2:28 PM, Derick Centeno wrote: You may want to know that you may find decent parts for your system from http://macsales.com/ I think we may have to really keep our PowerPC running for longer than that although I did hear of someone developing a multicore PowerPC laptop a month or so ago. I've got to search for who this fellow is again as I lost track, but I did hear of a fellow who created a working Cell based laptop which ran the GameOS and had the OtherOS option. Pretty neat! Caveat: If you replace the power supply or other support parts you shouldn't have trouble running YDL from it. Be careful regarding other components however such as DVD drives: if those go it may be wiser to consider an external DVD drive in that situation. I'm unsure if anyone we knew remains at Fixstars from TSS; it may not be so easy to get the kind of support we became accustomed to. In any case, I'd advise you to consider reviewing what notations remain regarding their advisories regarding which hardware works with YDL and which do not. As best I recall, the past emphasis (by TSS) was to support original Apple parts. So the problems to watch for may not be RAM as much as internal associated devices, such as a newer hard drive or modem or something similar. It may be better to just get an HD which resides on a PCI card which your system should recognize with no problem as an external system; I don't think such a drive would be able to be booted from within YDL. It would be interesting to try that out as a concept though. Anyway enjoy and all the best!! On Thu, 24 Dec 2009 13:57:49 -0800 Warren Nagourney war...@phys.washington.edu wrote: Thanks, Derick. I still love the PPC architecture and recently bought an Apple dual core 2.3 GHz G5 for very little money and am finding it to be absolutely as fast as I could ever hope for. I will keep it for the next 3-5 years (assuming I can keep the power supply running) and maybe then, the dominance of x86 may have lessened (it can't last forever!). Merry Christmas and Happy 2010, Warren N = Refranes/Popular sayings: The Taino say:No hay mal que por bien no venga. There is no evil out of which good cannot blossom. ___ yellowdog-general mailing list - yellowdog-general@lists.fixstars.com Unsuscribe info: http://lists.fixstars.com/mailman/listinfo/yellowdog-general HINT: to Google archives, try 'lt;keywords site:us.fixstars.com' ___ yellowdog-general mailing list - yellowdog-general@lists.fixstars.com Unsuscribe info: http://lists.fixstars.com/mailman/listinfo/yellowdog-general HINT: to Google archives, try 'lt;keywords site:us.fixstars.com'
Re: [ydl-gen] Linux yellow dog manual for dummies
On Thu, Dec 24, 2009 at 2:53 AM, Aaron Urbain aaron.urb...@gmail.com wrote: Read the gentoo wiki I would on one hand encourage the OP to try gentoo, as there is a lot to be learnt from doing it that way but on the other I would say that unfortunately for a beginner it may be better off learning about gentoo on the x86 where it is more error free and tested. By the way, the gentoo ppc handbook on the gentoo site will only partially work... The kernel on the liveCD from 'experimental' dates back to 2007 and is slightly incompatible with the current stage3. chroot into your new stage3 gentoo and run portage and the new chroot python/glibc on it will choke. If you want to do it this way, you will need to patch one of the python scripts that makes that offending glibc call in portage just to emerge and build the kernel, then boot with the new kernel. I can't remember which file it was in, but python will tell you where the bad call is, I just fed it the numbers it wanted and it worked. I would then undo that patch and proceed per normal gentoo install. Cheers Robert -- chown -R us ./base ___ yellowdog-general mailing list - yellowdog-general@lists.fixstars.com Unsuscribe info: http://lists.fixstars.com/mailman/listinfo/yellowdog-general HINT: to Google archives, try 'lt;keywords site:us.fixstars.com'
Re: [ydl-gen] Linux yellow dog manual for dummies
On Thu, 24 Dec 2009 10:09:48 +1100 Robert Spykerman robert.spyker...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Dec 24, 2009 at 2:23 AM, Derick Centeno dcent...@ydl.net wrote: ...snip... Be sure to use the YDL Board as a resource so that you meet other PS3 users like yourself, as well as others who program using YDL on various hardware systems. There's a lot a good people there who can help you move forward a lot faster than you going it solo. I completely agree. There are not many online forums for YDL - I believe this mailing list and the YDL board http://www.yellowdog-board.com/ are the only two specific ones. I am new to YDL too myself. I suspect not many people use it very much these days if traffic in these lists or the YDL board is anything to go by, at least relative to the traffic you can see on the ubuntu boards. You are quite right Robert, the traffic regarding PowerPC programming has changed quite a bit over the years. There had been a great deal of traffic here when Apple incorporated the PowerPC in it's computer hardware. When Apple switched to Intel there were many changes in the traffic here and then Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony developed game systems which incorporated not only the most advanced PowerPC system available to date (the Cell) but the most intensively powerful CPU available to consumers. Out of all these companies however only Sony allowed an option which allowed users to use and run YDL on their PS3s thereby turning what had been merely a game computer into the equivalent of a supercomputer available to forward looking consumers. Of course, not everyone who purchased the PS3 would be interested in hi-tech programming on the Cell but that potential was available as long as Sony allowed the OtherOS option to exist. With the OtherOS option all members of the family could not only play games but explore advanced technical areas ranging from introductory to advanced programming concepts of nearly every level of endeavor. The only comparison I can think of is imagining families with the PS3 being awarded a free perpetual opportunity to attend the most advanced computer labs at MIT or Stanford or Yale for their own personal exploration and use. The Cell is that flexible. However for various reasons Sony closed that potential when the Slim version of the PS3 was released while they almost simultaneously announced that no further PS3s would be produced with the OtherOS option which meant that only the previous generation PS3s with the OtherOS option would continue to be sold until the inventory was exhausted. This meant that although there would continue to be persons who ran YDL on PS3s that number would be finite and would not include anyone who purchased the PS3 Slim forward. Fixstars which produces YDL, runs on many PowerPC systems however fewer of these available systems exist at a price which consumers normally purchase between $200-$500. Fixstar's PowerStation for instance can be had for $1000+ and if one wants the Cell included with that there exists a PCI card which one can purchase fits into the PowerStation beginning at $6,000+. There will be lovers of hi-tech and professionals involved in programming advanced systems who will use YDL, YDEL, etc. which run on such PowerPC technologies which may be or become available but this is no longer the family or consumer priced systems which people have considered as reasonably affordable over during the years Apple or Sony sold their systems which means as well that fewer people will have experience with advanced computers. Intel technology is popular and common, but it is not based on radically new thinking as regards computer architecture. Intel rather is very astute in utilizing old architectures in radically new ways. As inventive as such approaches are in my thinking it is akin to considering how many ways a paper clip can bend. In fact, this is exactly why the modern market has developed into the weird reality we find ourselves in where Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony are vendors who each run the Cell in their own very powerful computing game systems but each system is locked in the sense that consumers cannot use Linux to utilize the flexibility of the Cell on any of these systems for themselves or their families. This is great for producing strictly advanced gaming computers however it is terrible for those who want to use those same computers as working systems or family based learning and research systems which run independently designed projects. In fact, families and individuals who purchase the Xbox, Wii and PS3 Slim now have to also purchase other computers as their work/research stations at home. The consumer is paying very much more than twice over all these purchases. A range of technical details exploring various views exists within the YDL Board for those who are interested in researching the topic. As much as I hate saying this, you may want to check out Ubuntu as an alternative
Re: [ydl-gen] Linux yellow dog manual for dummies
I might also add that, due to recent announcements from IBM, the future of the Cell processor is in doubt. In November, IBM announced that it was canceling the next iteration of the Cell, the one with 32 SPE cores. I would therefore hesitate in investing any time in learning Cell programming. As a result of IBM's announcement, there was a flurry of talk on tech- savvy sites (such as ars technica) about the end of the Cell and since IBM made no attempt to refute these inferences, I can only assume that they are phasing out the Cell. Too bad, as it is the only interesting computer architecture I have seen in a while. I like your simile likening Intel architecture to the rebending of a paper clip, Derick! The dominance of computing by one architecture makes the whole (hardware) enterprise fairly dull, in my opinion. Cheers, Warren Nagourney On Dec 24, 2009, at 12:27 PM, Derick Centeno wrote: On Thu, 24 Dec 2009 10:09:48 +1100 Robert Spykerman robert.spyker...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Dec 24, 2009 at 2:23 AM, Derick Centeno dcent...@ydl.net wrote: ...snip... Be sure to use the YDL Board as a resource so that you meet other PS3 users like yourself, as well as others who program using YDL on various hardware systems. There's a lot a good people there who can help you move forward a lot faster than you going it solo. I completely agree. There are not many online forums for YDL - I believe this mailing list and the YDL board http://www.yellowdog-board.com/ are the only two specific ones. I am new to YDL too myself. I suspect not many people use it very much these days if traffic in these lists or the YDL board is anything to go by, at least relative to the traffic you can see on the ubuntu boards. You are quite right Robert, the traffic regarding PowerPC programming has changed quite a bit over the years. There had been a great deal of traffic here when Apple incorporated the PowerPC in it's computer hardware. When Apple switched to Intel there were many changes in the traffic here and then Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony developed game systems which incorporated not only the most advanced PowerPC system available to date (the Cell) but the most intensively powerful CPU available to consumers. Out of all these companies however only Sony allowed an option which allowed users to use and run YDL on their PS3s thereby turning what had been merely a game computer into the equivalent of a supercomputer available to forward looking consumers. Of course, not everyone who purchased the PS3 would be interested in hi-tech programming on the Cell but that potential was available as long as Sony allowed the OtherOS option to exist. With the OtherOS option all members of the family could not only play games but explore advanced technical areas ranging from introductory to advanced programming concepts of nearly every level of endeavor. The only comparison I can think of is imagining families with the PS3 being awarded a free perpetual opportunity to attend the most advanced computer labs at MIT or Stanford or Yale for their own personal exploration and use. The Cell is that flexible. However for various reasons Sony closed that potential when the Slim version of the PS3 was released while they almost simultaneously announced that no further PS3s would be produced with the OtherOS option which meant that only the previous generation PS3s with the OtherOS option would continue to be sold until the inventory was exhausted. This meant that although there would continue to be persons who ran YDL on PS3s that number would be finite and would not include anyone who purchased the PS3 Slim forward. Fixstars which produces YDL, runs on many PowerPC systems however fewer of these available systems exist at a price which consumers normally purchase between $200-$500. Fixstar's PowerStation for instance can be had for $1000+ and if one wants the Cell included with that there exists a PCI card which one can purchase fits into the PowerStation beginning at $6,000+. There will be lovers of hi-tech and professionals involved in programming advanced systems who will use YDL, YDEL, etc. which run on such PowerPC technologies which may be or become available but this is no longer the family or consumer priced systems which people have considered as reasonably affordable over during the years Apple or Sony sold their systems which means as well that fewer people will have experience with advanced computers. Intel technology is popular and common, but it is not based on radically new thinking as regards computer architecture. Intel rather is very astute in utilizing old architectures in radically new ways. As inventive as such approaches are in my thinking it is akin to considering how many ways a paper clip can bend. In fact, this is exactly why the modern market has developed into the weird reality we find ourselves in where Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony are vendors who each
Re: [ydl-gen] Linux yellow dog manual for dummies
Good to hear from you Warren!! It's been a long time!! Glad you liked my analogy. I wasn't aware of IBM's announcement. I guess we are the lucky ones who got these marvelous computers while they could be had. Too bad others won't have the opportunity to explore and develop varied programming skills which these systems allow. You are not alone in considering how dull the modern environment is. Unfortunately, we've become like that tiny core of professionals who served with Henry II at the Battle of Agincourt mentioned by none other than Shakespeare -- We few, we happy few... I would have liked to have had more people experience gaining from the skill of working with these systems. But if the hardware isn't available then that's pretty much it, unless one chooses to get gouged on ebay. Well, Warren, have a wonderful celebration of the holidays and a most splendid New Year!! Likewise to all who are here!!! On Thu, 24 Dec 2009 12:46:10 -0800 Warren Nagourney war...@phys.washington.edu wrote: I might also add that, due to recent announcements from IBM, the future of the Cell processor is in doubt. In November, IBM announced that it was canceling the next iteration of the Cell, the one with 32 SPE cores. I would therefore hesitate in investing any time in learning Cell programming. As a result of IBM's announcement, there was a flurry of talk on tech- savvy sites (such as ars technica) about the end of the Cell and since IBM made no attempt to refute these inferences, I can only assume that they are phasing out the Cell. Too bad, as it is the only interesting computer architecture I have seen in a while. I like your simile likening Intel architecture to the rebending of a paper clip, Derick! The dominance of computing by one architecture makes the whole (hardware) enterprise fairly dull, in my opinion. Cheers, Warren Nagourney = Refranes/Popular sayings: The Taino say:No hay mal que por bien no venga. There is no evil out of which good cannot blossom. signature.asc Description: PGP signature ___ yellowdog-general mailing list - yellowdog-general@lists.fixstars.com Unsuscribe info: http://lists.fixstars.com/mailman/listinfo/yellowdog-general HINT: to Google archives, try 'lt;keywords site:us.fixstars.com'
Re: [ydl-gen] Linux yellow dog manual for dummies
Thanks, Derick. I still love the PPC architecture and recently bought an Apple dual core 2.3 GHz G5 for very little money and am finding it to be absolutely as fast as I could ever hope for. I will keep it for the next 3-5 years (assuming I can keep the power supply running) and maybe then, the dominance of x86 may have lessened (it can't last forever!). Merry Christmas and Happy 2010, Warren N On Dec 24, 2009, at 1:44 PM, Derick Centeno wrote: Good to hear from you Warren!! It's been a long time!! Glad you liked my analogy. I wasn't aware of IBM's announcement. I guess we are the lucky ones who got these marvelous computers while they could be had. Too bad others won't have the opportunity to explore and develop varied programming skills which these systems allow. You are not alone in considering how dull the modern environment is. Unfortunately, we've become like that tiny core of professionals who served with Henry II at the Battle of Agincourt mentioned by none other than Shakespeare -- We few, we happy few... I would have liked to have had more people experience gaining from the skill of working with these systems. But if the hardware isn't available then that's pretty much it, unless one chooses to get gouged on ebay. Well, Warren, have a wonderful celebration of the holidays and a most splendid New Year!! Likewise to all who are here!!! On Thu, 24 Dec 2009 12:46:10 -0800 Warren Nagourney war...@phys.washington.edu wrote: I might also add that, due to recent announcements from IBM, the future of the Cell processor is in doubt. In November, IBM announced that it was canceling the next iteration of the Cell, the one with 32 SPE cores. I would therefore hesitate in investing any time in learning Cell programming. As a result of IBM's announcement, there was a flurry of talk on tech- savvy sites (such as ars technica) about the end of the Cell and since IBM made no attempt to refute these inferences, I can only assume that they are phasing out the Cell. Too bad, as it is the only interesting computer architecture I have seen in a while. I like your simile likening Intel architecture to the rebending of a paper clip, Derick! The dominance of computing by one architecture makes the whole (hardware) enterprise fairly dull, in my opinion. Cheers, Warren Nagourney = Refranes/Popular sayings: The Taino say:No hay mal que por bien no venga. There is no evil out of which good cannot blossom. ___ yellowdog-general mailing list - yellowdog-general@lists.fixstars.com Unsuscribe info: http://lists.fixstars.com/mailman/listinfo/yellowdog-general HINT: to Google archives, try 'lt;keywords site:us.fixstars.com' ___ yellowdog-general mailing list - yellowdog-general@lists.fixstars.com Unsuscribe info: http://lists.fixstars.com/mailman/listinfo/yellowdog-general HINT: to Google archives, try 'lt;keywords site:us.fixstars.com'
Re: [ydl-gen] Linux yellow dog manual for dummies
You may want to know that you may find decent parts for your system from http://macsales.com/ I think we may have to really keep our PowerPC running for longer than that although I did hear of someone developing a multicore PowerPC laptop a month or so ago. I've got to search for who this fellow is again as I lost track, but I did hear of a fellow who created a working Cell based laptop which ran the GameOS and had the OtherOS option. Pretty neat! Caveat: If you replace the power supply or other support parts you shouldn't have trouble running YDL from it. Be careful regarding other components however such as DVD drives: if those go it may be wiser to consider an external DVD drive in that situation. I'm unsure if anyone we knew remains at Fixstars from TSS; it may not be so easy to get the kind of support we became accustomed to. In any case, I'd advise you to consider reviewing what notations remain regarding their advisories regarding which hardware works with YDL and which do not. As best I recall, the past emphasis (by TSS) was to support original Apple parts. So the problems to watch for may not be RAM as much as internal associated devices, such as a newer hard drive or modem or something similar. It may be better to just get an HD which resides on a PCI card which your system should recognize with no problem as an external system; I don't think such a drive would be able to be booted from within YDL. It would be interesting to try that out as a concept though. Anyway enjoy and all the best!! On Thu, 24 Dec 2009 13:57:49 -0800 Warren Nagourney war...@phys.washington.edu wrote: Thanks, Derick. I still love the PPC architecture and recently bought an Apple dual core 2.3 GHz G5 for very little money and am finding it to be absolutely as fast as I could ever hope for. I will keep it for the next 3-5 years (assuming I can keep the power supply running) and maybe then, the dominance of x86 may have lessened (it can't last forever!). Merry Christmas and Happy 2010, Warren N = Refranes/Popular sayings: The Taino say:No hay mal que por bien no venga. There is no evil out of which good cannot blossom. signature.asc Description: PGP signature ___ yellowdog-general mailing list - yellowdog-general@lists.fixstars.com Unsuscribe info: http://lists.fixstars.com/mailman/listinfo/yellowdog-general HINT: to Google archives, try 'lt;keywords site:us.fixstars.com'
Re: [ydl-gen] Linux yellow dog manual for dummies
On Thu, Dec 24, 2009 at 2:23 AM, Derick Centeno dcent...@ydl.net wrote: ...snip... Be sure to use the YDL Board as a resource so that you meet other PS3 users like yourself, as well as others who program using YDL on various hardware systems. There's a lot a good people there who can help you move forward a lot faster than you going it solo. I completely agree. There are not many online forums for YDL - I believe this mailing list and the YDL board http://www.yellowdog-board.com/ are the only two specific ones. I am new to YDL too myself. I suspect not many people use it very much these days if traffic in these lists or the YDL board is anything to go by, at least relative to the traffic you can see on the ubuntu boards. As much as I hate saying this, you may want to check out Ubuntu as an alternative for a beginner for the following reason - there appear to be more distro specific 'current' books on the shelves of local bookshops, and at a brief glance, their forums appear to be more active. No doubt some questions and issues you will have will be ps3 specific but they have a forum for that too. People say ubuntu gnome or kde (kubuntu) is a big of a memory hog so some say xubuntu (xfce desktop) is possibly the best variant to install on the ps3. Your mileage may vary, I chose YDL and have stuck with it for a number of reasons namely the reputation and I have not ever tried an rpm distro before. By the way, you may find that some advice or tips for Red hat Enterprise Linux / CentOS 5.2 may apply to YDL too (big 'may' there) as I believe that's the base source YDL is compiled from. Cheers, happy Christmas. Robert -- chown -R us ./base ___ yellowdog-general mailing list - yellowdog-general@lists.fixstars.com Unsuscribe info: http://lists.fixstars.com/mailman/listinfo/yellowdog-general HINT: to Google archives, try 'lt;keywords site:us.fixstars.com'
Re: [ydl-gen] Linux yellow dog manual for dummies
Read the gentoo wiki On Dec 23, 2009 6:09 PM, Robert Spykerman robert.spyker...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Dec 24, 2009 at 2:23 AM, Derick Centeno dcent...@ydl.net wrote: ...snip... Be sure to use the YDL Board as a resource so that you meet other PS3 users like yourself, as ... I completely agree. There are not many online forums for YDL - I believe this mailing list and the YDL board http://www.yellowdog-board.com/ are the only two specific ones. I am new to YDL too myself. I suspect not many people use it very much these days if traffic in these lists or the YDL board is anything to go by, at least relative to the traffic you can see on the ubuntu boards. As much as I hate saying this, you may want to check out Ubuntu as an alternative for a beginner for the following reason - there appear to be more distro specific 'current' books on the shelves of local bookshops, and at a brief glance, their forums appear to be more active. No doubt some questions and issues you will have will be ps3 specific but they have a forum for that too. People say ubuntu gnome or kde (kubuntu) is a big of a memory hog so some say xubuntu (xfce desktop) is possibly the best variant to install on the ps3. Your mileage may vary, I chose YDL and have stuck with it for a number of reasons namely the reputation and I have not ever tried an rpm distro before. By the way, you may find that some advice or tips for Red hat Enterprise Linux / CentOS 5.2 may apply to YDL too (big 'may' there) as I believe that's the base source YDL is compiled from. Cheers, happy Christmas. Robert -- chown -R us ./base ___ yellowdog-general mailing list - yellowdog-general@lists.fixstars.com Unsuscribe info: http://lists.fixstars.com/mailman/listinfo/yellowdog-general HINT: to Google archives, try 'lt;keywords site:us.fixstars.com' ___ yellowdog-general mailing list - yellowdog-general@lists.fixstars.com Unsuscribe info: http://lists.fixstars.com/mailman/listinfo/yellowdog-general HINT: to Google archives, try 'lt;keywords site:us.fixstars.com'
