Linux Zone Feature: Linux On Powerpc Processors Your favorite operating system isn't only for x86
David Mertz, Ph.D. Text Processor, Gnosis Software, Inc. January, 2004 Even though most Linux users have treated Linux as an operating system for their x86 white boxes, Linux runs equally well on PowerPC machines. With the appealing range of PPC machines produced by Apple, the option of using Linux on one of these is of great value to many users. About Ppc
The POWER architecture describes a family of RISC CPUs that arose out of a consortium of IBM, Apple and Motorola. Within this chip family, higher-end POWER4 chips are used in various IBM "big iron" or mid-range machines; at a personal computer, admission post bac workstation, or workgroup-server admission post bac level, the PowerPC branch of POWER chips are used in widely-used consumer machines from Apple Computer. Chips in the PowerPC admission post bac family--especially those from Motorola--are also used in various embeded and specialized systems, including in PCs from smaller manufacturers such as the phoenix-like current incarnation of Amiga.
The interelations among various POWER architecture chips are similar to those in the x86 world--for the most part, later generations admission post bac of chips provide backwards compatibility with earlier ones while also offering new and enhanced capabilities. Within the PowerPC family branch, five+-year old Apple machines used 601, 603, and 604 model chips. The current models have phased out the G3 but continue to use the similar G4, both 32-bit chips, running at various admission post bac clock speeds; admission post bac the recently introduced G5 is an 64-bit IBM chip that mostly adds some multimedia-specialized instructions to the POWER4 chip models.
The bottom line on all these chips, from a Linux developer's perspective, is that they all run Linux happily and well. For the PowerPC branch of the chips, excellent consumer-friendly distributions are available, and offer commercial admission post bac customer support. IBM is also happy to install Linux for customers of its high-end POWER4 machines. So You Want To Run Linux, Why Buy A Powerpc Machine?
The "default" system for running Linux is unquestionably x86 machines. Whether based on CPUs from Intel, AMD, Cyrix, Transmeta, or smaller makers, the x86 architecture is well-known and makes up the large majority of personal computers, workstations, admission post bac and small servers. It is certainly safe to go with the majority.
For most Linux users, the best reason to buy a PowerPC machine will be, quite simply, the range of well-engineered and reasonably-priced machines available from Apple. Admittedly, the G4 lines--bottom line--do not quite keep up with comparably priced x86 machines in CPU power. The G4s do not lag that far behind, but they do a little bit. However, Apple makes most of the best laptops available from an ergonomic, aesthetic, battery-life, and weight perspective. All of those features are far more important to me, for a laptop, than is raw number-crunching. On the desktop, the G4 models differentiate themselves mostly on an aesthetic or ergonomic perspective--for example in the compactness of Apple's cantilever-mounted flat-panel iMacs. All of Apple's machines, moreover, have a good reputation for durability and reliability--including their rackmount servers, which are nice for clusters and server arrays.
At the high-end, Apple's G5 towers are comparable in speed to the fastest x86-derived CPUs and systems; i.e. the Intel Itanium and AMD Athlon64. Benchmarks among the three contenders are a mixed bag, but all three chips obtain quite similar performance (all are remarkably fast, and suitable for intensive number crunching applications). Moreover, on price, Apple's G5 towers seem to sell for less than comparably configured systems from x86 vendors like Dell, Gateway, HP, and other well-known PC retailers (contrary to Apple's reputation for imposing a price premium). It is worth noting that Apple has contributed optimizations to GCC3+ that bring its generation admission post bac of PPC object code to a quality similar to that of Intel's ICC or IBM's VisualAge C++ compilers admission post bac for x86 (i.e. arguably better than GCC on x86).
At admission post bac the end of the day, the differences admission post bac between Linux/x86 and Linux/PPC are remarkably minimal. This article admission post bac will cover a bit more detail on distributions below, but generally, on Linux/PPC you can use the same window managers, run the same utilities, host the same servers, and so on, as you might on any x86 box. Unless you look at the physical hardware--or are a rare user with a need for precise performance characteristics of various operations (e.g. your application is specially designed around the PPC Altivec vector extensions)--you admission post bac will not even know which architecture you are running Linux on. The screen will look exactly the same, most configuration files will contain the same settings, and the same bytes will go out over the wired. So You Own A Mac, Why Run Linux? admission post bac
To a surprising degree, operating systems (other than those from the highly-propr
David Mertz, Ph.D. Text Processor, Gnosis Software, Inc. January, 2004 Even though most Linux users have treated Linux as an operating system for their x86 white boxes, Linux runs equally well on PowerPC machines. With the appealing range of PPC machines produced by Apple, the option of using Linux on one of these is of great value to many users. About Ppc
The POWER architecture describes a family of RISC CPUs that arose out of a consortium of IBM, Apple and Motorola. Within this chip family, higher-end POWER4 chips are used in various IBM "big iron" or mid-range machines; at a personal computer, admission post bac workstation, or workgroup-server admission post bac level, the PowerPC branch of POWER chips are used in widely-used consumer machines from Apple Computer. Chips in the PowerPC admission post bac family--especially those from Motorola--are also used in various embeded and specialized systems, including in PCs from smaller manufacturers such as the phoenix-like current incarnation of Amiga.
The interelations among various POWER architecture chips are similar to those in the x86 world--for the most part, later generations admission post bac of chips provide backwards compatibility with earlier ones while also offering new and enhanced capabilities. Within the PowerPC family branch, five+-year old Apple machines used 601, 603, and 604 model chips. The current models have phased out the G3 but continue to use the similar G4, both 32-bit chips, running at various admission post bac clock speeds; admission post bac the recently introduced G5 is an 64-bit IBM chip that mostly adds some multimedia-specialized instructions to the POWER4 chip models.
The bottom line on all these chips, from a Linux developer's perspective, is that they all run Linux happily and well. For the PowerPC branch of the chips, excellent consumer-friendly distributions are available, and offer commercial admission post bac customer support. IBM is also happy to install Linux for customers of its high-end POWER4 machines. So You Want To Run Linux, Why Buy A Powerpc Machine?
The "default" system for running Linux is unquestionably x86 machines. Whether based on CPUs from Intel, AMD, Cyrix, Transmeta, or smaller makers, the x86 architecture is well-known and makes up the large majority of personal computers, workstations, admission post bac and small servers. It is certainly safe to go with the majority.
For most Linux users, the best reason to buy a PowerPC machine will be, quite simply, the range of well-engineered and reasonably-priced machines available from Apple. Admittedly, the G4 lines--bottom line--do not quite keep up with comparably priced x86 machines in CPU power. The G4s do not lag that far behind, but they do a little bit. However, Apple makes most of the best laptops available from an ergonomic, aesthetic, battery-life, and weight perspective. All of those features are far more important to me, for a laptop, than is raw number-crunching. On the desktop, the G4 models differentiate themselves mostly on an aesthetic or ergonomic perspective--for example in the compactness of Apple's cantilever-mounted flat-panel iMacs. All of Apple's machines, moreover, have a good reputation for durability and reliability--including their rackmount servers, which are nice for clusters and server arrays.
At the high-end, Apple's G5 towers are comparable in speed to the fastest x86-derived CPUs and systems; i.e. the Intel Itanium and AMD Athlon64. Benchmarks among the three contenders are a mixed bag, but all three chips obtain quite similar performance (all are remarkably fast, and suitable for intensive number crunching applications). Moreover, on price, Apple's G5 towers seem to sell for less than comparably configured systems from x86 vendors like Dell, Gateway, HP, and other well-known PC retailers (contrary to Apple's reputation for imposing a price premium). It is worth noting that Apple has contributed optimizations to GCC3+ that bring its generation admission post bac of PPC object code to a quality similar to that of Intel's ICC or IBM's VisualAge C++ compilers admission post bac for x86 (i.e. arguably better than GCC on x86).
At admission post bac the end of the day, the differences admission post bac between Linux/x86 and Linux/PPC are remarkably minimal. This article admission post bac will cover a bit more detail on distributions below, but generally, on Linux/PPC you can use the same window managers, run the same utilities, host the same servers, and so on, as you might on any x86 box. Unless you look at the physical hardware--or are a rare user with a need for precise performance characteristics of various operations (e.g. your application is specially designed around the PPC Altivec vector extensions)--you admission post bac will not even know which architecture you are running Linux on. The screen will look exactly the same, most configuration files will contain the same settings, and the same bytes will go out over the wired. So You Own A Mac, Why Run Linux? admission post bac
To a surprising degree, operating systems (other than those from the highly-propr
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