Cheap PPC Linux Machines From IBM

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mdma wrote:
From Slashdot:
"According to this story, IBM is planning on introducing low-end SMP servers and deskside machines based on the PPC970. The machines would be able to run Linux and AIX. A 4-way machine is expected to cost less than $3500! IBM expects a 20x increase in the number of PPC Linux servers by 2006."

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,1197450,00.asp

Yup, and since they use OF, expect to see AROS on them :-)

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CodeSmith wrote:
@bloodline:

Although OF is a pretty good idea, you're a bit limited in the gfx cards that you can use (ie "Mac" gfx cards), and they are usually more expensive.  It might be a good idea to add a UBoot driver to AROS, so you can have both.  With UBoot you can use cheap "PC" gfx cards (it's got a built-in x86 emulator so the card's BIOS can run on that).  Since it's on SourceForge (or if not, should be by the time AOS4 is released), it should not be too difficult to find out what you need.

As Michal has already said, UBoot support will be added to AROS as soon as we are able to get a UBoot based machine (i.e. an AmigaONE).

At the moment Michal only has OF based PPC machines and so that is all we can support for now.  :-(

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mschulz wrote:

All other drivers in Linux (and X) depend on the card being set up by the BIOS. This is the problem.

But it doesn't have to: Scitech X86 Emulator
 :-)

Hmmm.... The Emu is designed to allow GFX cards POST using their own BIOS rom chips.

maybe this emu would someday be come part of the chipset of every platform...