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No more hp ia64 workstations

Computerworld reports

Hewlett-Packard Co. has stopped selling workstations based on Intel Corp.'s Itanium 2 microprocessor, a company spokeswoman confirmed today.

Citing market conditions, the company ceased selling workstations based on the 64-bit processors on Sept. 1. That's just two months after the first processor based on Intel's 64-bit architecture for x86 systems, called EM64T (Extended Memory 64 Technology) 64-bit x86 architecture, began shipping. [...]

HP will continue to provide support for the Itanium workstations until 2009, HP's Sowards said.

The decision to get out of the workstation business has no impact on HP's Itanium-based server products, Sowards said. "HP continues with successful Integrity server line," she said.

posted Mon 27 Sep 2004 in /computers/ia64 | link

ia64 debian firegl XFree86 config

I thought that getting the ATI FireGL Z1/X1 card that ships in the hp zx6000 to work on Debian would be a big pain; it turned out to be only a small pain.

This is the secret plan (lifted from a RHEL3 install and tweaked): XF86Config-4

That seems to work with the kernel and xserver-xfree86 4.3 that comes with debian without needing any binary junk. I think it doesn't get AGPGART or 3D working very well, but 2d is fast and that's enough for me for the moment.

...

I have to admit the RHEL3 installation process is very slick. On the other hand, Red Hat's new business model means you lose one of the great advantages of open source, that you can just download and use it without all the hassles of getting media, authorization keys, etc. The price doesn't bother me, but the lack of clarity in their licence does.

posted Fri 3 Sep 2004 in /computers/ia64 | link

serial/network console on rx2600 linux

Getting the serial/network console to work on rx2600 is more difficult than it should be.

The trick is:

Use the EFI menu to configure exactly one UART as the input/output/error channel. (I find it works better to use the PCI rather than PNP hardware path, but that may be just superstition.)

Choose Cold Reset from the EFI menu. Merely booting Linux after changing the devices won't work!

Boot with linux console=ttyS0.

posted Mon 30 Aug 2004 in /computers/ia64 | link

Intel to Remove Xeon's Advantages to Push Itanium

Intel to Remove Xeon's Advantages to Push Itanium:

After nearly a decade of 64-bit processing in the RISC server market, it might be reasonable to accept that 64-bit computing for Intel X86 processors was a foregone conclusion. Since 1996, Intel has been making the case publicly for its 64-bit Itanium and its EPIC (explicitly parallel instruction computing) instruction set. It has not been an easy run for Intel, but the company has a plan to make Itanium take off: Remove the advantages that 32-bit Xeons have on Itaniums, and stress the advantages the Itanium architecture brings.

Whenever a discussion of Xeon versus Itanium begins, it inevitably ends with a discussion of a 64-bit variant of the Pentium 4 core. So let's get this out of the way right now. Itanium is a radically new core that Intel and HP designed for the long haul, and they expected a very long ramp up. One of the things that was not on the public roadmaps that executives in Intel's Enterprise Platforms Group was presenting yesterday in a meeting with press and analysts was the co-called "Yamhill" 64-bit version of the Pentium 4 processor that people have been talking about for several years.

It is no secret that some of the server vendors--especially those who are not enthusiastic about the jump from the P4 to Itanium instruction sets and/or who have their own RISC/Unix markets to protect--would love to see Itanium go the way of all flesh and to see Intel bring out an Opteron-like processor that supports 32-bit and 64-bit modes on the same P4 core. No server maker admits this publicly, but privately they sure do.

posted Tue 27 Jan 2004 in /computers/ia64 | link

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