On 04/13/14 20:47, Zeljko Jovanovic wrote: > On 09.04.2014. 18:24, Fil Di Noto wrote: >> Is there any hope of OpenBSD running on IBM Power hardware (System P, >> LPAR) in the future? > ... >> OS on that hardware without cooperation from IBM? I don't see any >> Linux distros that do not have a relationship with IBM that run on >> Power. > > Slackware Linux has an IBM port, although it has not been updated for several > years now: http://www.slack390.org
um. Linux kernel 2.4? Are you kidding me? dead dead dead. > I am not sure what are the differences between largest IBM machines (System > Z, > formerly known as System/390), and smaller systems such as System P. But I am > sure that Slackware project certainly does not have a relationship with any > company. > > By the way, as you probably know, Slackware is the oldest surviving Linux > distribution, and adversises as the most "UNIX-like" among Linuxes. Also, its > /etc layout is of BSD type, not System V like in other Linux distribution. > The > overall "look and feel" after instalation is similar to OpenBSD. Even the BSD > games packages, with fortune program enabled by default is there. :) There are a bunch of things that are needed for an OpenBSD port, including at least: 1) Interest by a developer. 2) Hardware in the developer's hand. 3) Availability of hardware for other developers at a reasonable price. 4) A user base to stimulate #1 There's not a lot of hardware out there to be had, not a lot of it in developer's hands, and what's there isn't overly cheap. And it probably won't do anything better than other hardware out there to stimulate developer interest, either. I've got a couple IBM Power machines -- one with the performance of maybe a iMac G3, the other with the performance of a single processor G5. I could put a second processor in it, IF I could find an IBM processor module for a price I was willing to pay ($5 might do it. $20, definitely not. "free" would be the only "definitely" for me). As I recall, some years ago, someone managed to use a NetBSD boot loader to boot an OpenBSD kernel on something akin to my G3-ish machine, and the bloody thing actually kinda came up (missing a lot of hw, but still). The problem is... so what? If I do something serious with either of these machines, my ability to get a spare /cheaply/ is low, and for a fraction of the price and power consumption, I can get a BETTER in every way i386 or amd64 system...or a scrap MacPPC system. There's a lot of reasons developers can be interested in particular hardware when pure logic might dictate that "mainstream Intel-ish is better" but I'm not seeing much about those IBM systems to make them overly lovable from either a purely rational or emotional standpoint. If you disagree, go ahead, do the work to make it run, submit the code, keep it running, and your reward will be seeing a new platform supported by OpenBSD...as long as you do the work to keep it running. Wow, that sounds really depressing when I put it that way. Nick.
