[geeks] SGI & linux

[nick at snowman.net]

That's unrelated.  Bacchus is just doing a cleanup.
	Nick

On Tue, 29 Jul 2003, Rob Fielding wrote:

> Mike F wrote:
> > On Tue, 29 Jul 2003 06:59:50 -0500
> > "Joshua D. Boyd" <jdboyd at celestrion.net> wrote:
> > 
> > 
> >>On Tue, Jul 29, 2003 at 03:39:15PM +1200, Gavin Hubbard wrote:
> >>
> >>>Just saw the following over at the Inquirer:
> >>>
> >>>http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=10708
> >>>
> >>>I know the inq isn't the most reliable of news sources, but oh
> >>>dear. Say it ain't so. 
> >>
> >>I don't know what will officially happen, or actually happen, but
> >>that's what the ex-SGI guy here has been hearing from friends still in
> >>SGI as well. 
> > 
> > 
> > What does this mean for MIPS hardware? Linux does not run on any recent
> > MIPS hardware (to my knowledge) and if SGI is to drop IRIX and focus on
> > Linux, will they port Linux to newer MIPS hardware, or drop MIPS?
> 
> They have a vested interest in keeping MIPS/IRIX for at least another half a 
> dozen years.
> 
> I've noted from quickly scanning kernel announcements a fair number of patches 
> to arch/mips and arch/mips64 recently. I don't know if these are anything SGI 
> box specific. AFAIK theres still nothing more than ip22 ip27 and ip32 
> specifics. However they're other legasy is X Windows. There's no XFree86 
> support for their hardware and their X Windows system is undoubtedly as 
> foreboding a challenge as keeping IRIX going. Perhaps further reason for them 
> to stop making custom GFX and adopting 3rd party ones...
> 
> I would imaging IRIX and Linux will co-exist at SGI. All thetre current 
> hardware is probably going to remain IRIX. All old hardware (Octane down) will 
> remain IRIX. Any new hardware (starting headless, like the Altix) will 
> probably get Linux support from the people who'd write the IRIX hardware 
> support. With ATi based GFX I doubt serious work would be required to start a 
> line of SGI Linux/XFree86 boxes. Also a good idea to reduce down to a single 
> hardware line (O350?) to derive other products from.
> 
> It strikes me that SGI have been consolodating themselves into a state where 
> it wont actually matter whether they are MIPS or ia64, IRIX or Linux.
> 
> 
> Just my 2p.
> 
> -- 
> 
> 
> Rob Fielding	
> rob at dsvr.net	Development	www.dsvr.co.uk
> _______________________________________________
> GEEKS:  http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/geeks