On Wed, Jun 25, 2003 at 04:46:50PM +0000, paubert wrote: > On Wed, Jun 25, 2003 at 01:12:35PM +0200, Sven Luther wrote: > > On Wed, Jun 25, 2003 at 11:03:51AM +0000, paubert wrote: > > > On Wed, Jun 25, 2003 at 10:32:10AM +0200, Sven Luther wrote: > > > > On Wed, Jun 25, 2003 at 09:33:33AM +0100, Bastien Nocera wrote: > > > > > On Wed, 2003-06-25 at 06:26, Sven Luther wrote: > > > > > > On Wed, Jun 25, 2003 at 12:55:04AM +0100, Bastien Nocera wrote: > > > > > > > On Wed, 2003-06-25 at 00:24, Leandro Guimarães Faria Corsetti > > > > > > > Dutra > > > > > > > wrote: > > > > > > > > Anyone has it working already with Debian? > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Read the announcement properly, they won't ship until September > > > > > > > in the > > > > > > > US... > > > > > > > > > > > > Err, august that is, no ? > > > > > > > > > > Same difference, it's not shipping for quite some time :) > > > > > > > > Notice that IBM also plan to ship some ppc 970 using boxes, so these > > > > would probably make decent linux boxes and support would be provided. > > > > > > > > This would not help for the applce specific chipset though. > > > > > > The question is how much of the chipset is Apple or IBM specific > > > and how much will be shared. I don't believe that doing two > > > completely independent designs makes much sense. > > > > So you think that the north-bridge could be an Apple-IBM common design ? > > Not exactly since there are several claims that this is an Apple design, > but the 970 bus "was designed exclusively for Apple" according to IBM. > I'm speculating, but I would not be surprised if in exchange IBM had > the right to use the northbridge in its own designs (they > also manufacture it in the same process as the 970). > > In any case, this would probably be the cheapest way for IBM to build > its own PPC970 based systems. The other possibility is that they > build a hostbridge which includes only the processor and memory controller > of Apple's ASIC and modify the rest to better suit their needs, for example > by removing AGP and HT to make room for PCI-X interfaces on the host brigde. > Anyway, we'll see when IBM ships the 970 based products.
Would make sense for IBM i guess, but this would bring us back to the current situation, where nobody beside of apple makes true desktop motherboards. > > Naturally, one could even build a PPC 970 motherboard with This > > IBM/Apple northbridge, > > Provided the chips are offered to third parties, that's a big if. Yep, it would be a shame if they are not though, but i could understand it if a Apple would want to keep it for them. > > some PCI bridge, and Nvidia's HT connected > > southbridges, not that we have much drivers for them though. > > Drivers for which part? HT configuration is very similar For the whole lot of stuff on the southbridge ? the nice Audio controller for example. But then, as i usually boycott > to PCI AFAIR. Many devices nowadays (USB, FW) have a few > standardized interfaces. Only network interfaces still seem > to be very varied (at least of the kinds of devices which > are important to me). > > > Regards, > Gabriel
