UNIX ON RiscPC's ????
Richard Ingram
we have to wait for ArchBSD ?? How is that going now ? I want to
network my old 420/1 and 520ST to a new machine !!
What are the hacks that need to be done to get Linux on the Intel
Proc in the box ?
How about a transputer DEBI card :-)))
Rich.
Richard Ingram
double speed 325ms access, will this work or be supported by
the RiscPC ??
Rich.
Darren Harvey
r...@inmos.co.uk (Richard Ingram) writes:
>
>What are the hacks that need to be done to get Linux on the Intel
>Proc in the box ?
>
linux well enough???
>How about a transputer DEBI card :-)))
>
Now you're talking! (How about some T9000's?!)
Darren.
Mirza Manar Hussain
|> Will there be an official Acorn Unix for the new machines ?? Or will
|> we have to wait for ArchBSD ?? How is that going now ? I want to
|> network my old 420/1 and 520ST to a new machine !!
I don't believe that there will be an official UNIX although many people
(inculding I believe some at Acorn) are working on a free UNIX to one
degree or another. see below.
|> What are the hacks that need to be done to get Linux on the Intel
|> Proc in the box ?
Yeah. Given that LINUX won't even work on all IBM compats. will it be
easy to get it working on the PC upgrade? My intincts say yes since I
believe some people have got LINUX on the Aleph1 PC upgrade (ish).
UNIX on Arcs and the new Risc PC:
A fair few have been working on UNIX ports for the Arcs. I'm not fully
aware of all those involved and what stages they have got to. I think
that it would be highly useful to pull things together a bit more. I
have heard of a mailing list but don't know the details. What I would
like is for everyone interested in UNIX development to mail me with
relevant details, such as:what they are doing, are willing to do, and
a list of anyone with whom they are co-operating.
I will then compile the info. and post back. Hopefully then we can start
to co-ordinate the effort and prevent much wasted duplication.
Whilst I fully support the idea of UNIX on the Arc, I would like to see
an early development of UNIX for the new Risc PC. This prospect is
something that several people at the presentaion on saturday spoke to
G. Taylor from Computer Concepts about. He is very keen to see a UNIX
on the new computers asap as he recognises the large potential for the
Acorn market. Rather than one (or more) people just going of and doing
some work on this I would like to simulate some discussion on the
subject so we wind up with what we all want. BSD or System V release 4?
Re-write (from scratch or minix?) or port of BSD or LINUX ...
Once again, please mail me with some details regarding your interest to
be involved in this and I'll compile things. In the meantime post all
the relevant suggestions you can think of.
I personally favour some kind sole (I have someone in mind, but he's a
bit busy for a couple of months) to write a skeleton kernal from a
fairly low level to meet say system V release 4 (anyone now what the
new OSF has done ny way of setting a standard?). At that point we can
start to involve more people to improve specific parts of the kernal
and write the various other bits. Anyone fancy doing the compiler ?.
Hopefully we can implement a course but good level of support for
multi-processor use. In particular use of two ARM chips for UNIX.
Then I'd be happy to start comparing benchmarks 8-)...
Manar
PS if we're going to have a second ARM card, why not stick sockets
for the 3DO chipset on there too so that we can have option for
a cheap 3DO upgrade!!
|> Rich.
--
Manar Hussain - 127d Holland Road, London. W14 8AS. (071) 602 6324
Oh go on, tell me what to do with the internet site I'm going to set up
when I finish my MSc course. I'm always looking for new ideas/people.
Martin Corley
> Rich.
I _did_ hear a whisper (at Anorak day) that some people were
considering a 4.4BSD port... and if anything comes of it, these people
would certainly be in a position to make a nice job of it...
I _hope_ omething comes of it: it would certainly be my preferred
flavour...
--
Martin Corley ---------
University of Exeter M.M.B.Corley @ exeter.ac.uk
Exeter, UK ---------
Andy Armstrong
m...@doc.ic.ac.uk "Mirza Manar Hussain" writes:
| PS if we're going to have a second ARM card, why not stick sockets
| for the 3DO chipset on there too so that we can have option for
| a cheap 3DO upgrade!!
Ironically 3DO is going to be available on a PC card.
Andy Armstrong, Armstrong Walker Ltd
Phone: 091 2012158 Fax: 091 2303222
Mobile: 0860 922719 EMail: An...@armswalk.demon.co.uk
Richard Ingram
Err mmmm yes :-)
How about SPOC on the Arch (Southampton Portable Occam Compiler ?) for every
one who needs to do Occam programming/prototyping.
Rich.
Adam Goodfellow
>
> In article <1994Apr20.1...@inmos.co.uk>, r...@inmos.co.uk (Richard Ingram) writes:
>
> Hopefully we can implement a course but good level of support for
> multi-processor use. In particular use of two ARM chips for UNIX.
> Then I'd be happy to start comparing benchmarks 8-)...
>
Would probably make alot of few Unix users sick :-)
RiscPC running ARMiX - 2 x 80MHz ARM8xxs 200-250K dhrystones...
(based Acorns predicted fingures in Risc PC data sheet 1 allowing for
coupling losses...)
> mobius - 66Mhz 601 176K+
> wordsworth - 50Mhz 601 125K+
At a guess:
RiscPC - 30Mhz ARM611 40K
> dibble - 40Mhz SPARC 10 35K
> coffee - 40Mhz SPARC2 39K
> A340 - 27Mhz ARM3 (mode 0) 20K
> mercury - 50Mhz microSPARC 19K
> solaris - xx sun4c 19K
Adam
--
======================================================================
| Computech Tel/Fax: 081 673 7817 email: ad...@comptech.demon.co.uk |
======================================================================
Gary J Palmer
Richard Ingram <r...@inmos.co.uk> wrote:
>Will there be an official Acorn Unix for the new machines ?? Or will
>we have to wait for ArchBSD ?? How is that going now ? I want to
>network my old 420/1 and 520ST to a new machine !!
In order :
No. No. Awfully. Oh.
To elaborate:
Acorn have not revealed anyhthing to indicate any Unix ports on the
RISC PC yet, and have dropped severe hints that they are letting
SCO do the work for them to get their Unix working on the PC 2nd
processor card.
ArchBSD is waiting for the (current) two main coders to end their academic
terms to get more free time. You shouldn't have to wait for it
as the SCO Unix should be aout earlier, as should FreeBSD for the PC card
and Linux for the PC card (oh, yes, and NetBSD for the PC card), from what
I was told today. I', still in two minds whether to believe the assumed
capabilities of a non-existant ASIC
As for whatit'll take to get Linux/FreeBSD/NetBSD/AIX/SCO/Solaris/whatever
running on the Intel / Cyrix chip is anyones guess at the minute. Until
I get hard facts abouts the ASICS performance and play with
one, I really can't comment further. Anyone from Aleph One looking in
who would like to comment further?
Yours
Gary
--
E-Mail: gpa...@g386bsd.first.gmd.de, pe...@xap.com
Member of the ArchBSD development team and the RISC PC Appreciation Club
RISC PC : TNG Technology at last!
Matt Segall
>Will there be an official Acorn Unix for the new machines ??
I asked this exact question to a gentleman at Acorn who claimed to be
the `Network Services Manager'. He launched into a speach about how they
were working on a NFS server, allowing RISC PCs to be plugged into a
network of UNIX machines, or a Novell network etc.. and how RISC PCs
could run !X. He seemed to have completely missed the point. I asked
again, trying to explain that UNIX was not X, or NFS, but I got an
instant replay of the earlier answer.
I then tried someone else, this time in a suit. The answer I got was a
definite NO.
> Or will we have to wait for ArchBSD ??
The only suggestion I could get out of either of them was to wait for
a public domain port, so I guess that the answer is yes.
Meanwhile, on Data Sheet 8 in the RISC PC brochure it says.
" Later versions of the PC Card will offer.... Support will be offered
for ... SCO UNIX and other Intel Binaries."
So, if you buy a PC Card you could run SCO Unix if you wanted to.
This is a great pity. In order to run a supported UNIX on the RISC PC
you have to buy a PC Card. I think that this may cause Acorn to miss
out on a huge potential market. Many Universities want to buy
networks of UNIX machines, and the RISC PC would be able to offer
powerful enough machines at a competitive price compared to most
workstations, especially with an ARM7x0 or ARM8x0. Could you imagine
running UNIX on a *dual* ARM8x0 machine?
The problem is that for an institution to consider buying a machine
as a UNIX box the UNIX it runs must be supported by a LARGE company,
to offer them security if something goes wrong, and to guarantee that
the OS will be maintained. The only company in the Acorn market that
is large enough is Acorn themselves.
So, a Linux or ArcBSD port will be great for enthusiasts, but not much
help for Acorn in the UNIX marketplace.
Come on Acorn, you've got an incredible machine, look for new markets!
Anyone else have any thoughts on this subject?
>Rich.
Matt
--
Matt
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Matthew Segall Matthew...@comlab.ox.ac.uk
Programming Research Group
Philip Sainty
Matt Segall <c93...@comlab.ox.ac.uk> wrote:
>Could you imagine
>running UNIX on a *dual* ARM8x0 machine?
Well frankly no, as it's fairly meaningless, but I agree
that having a good port of UNIX would be a definite boost
for the Acorn machines!
Philip
Mirza Manar Hussain
In article <7A20T...@comptech.demon.co.uk>, ad...@comptech.demon.co.uk (Adam Goodfellow) writes:
|> Yes - WTH can't RISCiX be brought upto date, and made a little more
|> affordable. Surely that must be easier than doing a new port from scratch...
|> If dual ARM processor support was incorporated, then there would be
|> potential for a fairly fast unix box.
I made a post to here a few days ago, but think that not everyone
interested may have got it. Along with a few other people, I spoke
to Gordon Taylor of CC (marketing) during the Saturday Risc PC
presentation. He confirmed that he was actively seeking a native
UNIX for the Risc PC, and was prepared to support any moves in this
direction. I am calling for ALL people interested in being involved
with this to email me. I'll post back to the net once a get a reasonable
response, and I am more than happy to continue to act as a liason
between the net (and anyone interested) and the project.
In additition I wa trying to stimulate a discussion on the desgin
details of a new UNIX project for the Risc PC. For example it is now
clear that we would like dual ARM ability - and thus ought to
co-ordinate with any companies involved designing a second ARM
capibility for the Risc PC. As an aside I am also keen to lobby
for second ARM card(s) to have 3DO upgradability - if this is not
too cost prohibitive.
Other important issues are which type of UNIX (standard) to conform
to. Do we start from scratch (hmm) or from minix (not as tedious as
from scratch but still with plenty of scope to optimise the
implementation to the Risc PC - also I know of at least one minix
pseudo-port we could start with), or from one of freeBSD / LINUX.
To finish of, I would like to make clear that this project is about
getting a UNIX up that works on the ARM chip(s) in a Risc PC machine.
I very much support the idea of a UNIX on the older Arcs, and indeed
of a UNIX running on a 486 processor card - but I also feel that the
new Risc PC deserves its own optimised UNIX. Hopefully there are some
others of you out there who feel the same.
|> Adam
Manar
Robert Black
: c93...@comlab.ox.ac.uk (Matt Segall) writes:
: > This is a great pity. In order to run a supported UNIX on the RISC PC
: > you have to buy a PC Card. I think that this may cause Acorn to miss
: > out on a huge potential market. Many Universities want to buy
: > networks of UNIX machines, and the RISC PC would be able to offer
: > powerful enough machines at a competitive price compared to most
: > workstations, especially with an ARM7x0 or ARM8x0. Could you imagine
: > running UNIX on a *dual* ARM8x0 machine?
Stuff deleted...
: Yes - WTH can't RISCiX be brought upto date, and made a little more
: affordable. Surely that must be easier than doing a new port from scratch...
: If dual ARM processor support was incorporated, then there would be
: potential for a fairly fast unix box.
AFAIK RISCiX includes some licensed UNIX code which means that part of the
price you pay for it goes in royalties. This means that even if Acorn released
their part of it free of charge, it would still cost about #300 to the user.
The only way to avoid this problem is to rewrite all the licensed bits and by
the time you have done this it is probably just as easy to port FreeBSD or Linuxor, even, to write the whole thing from scratch.
I've been looking into what would be involved in a project like this, but I
won't be doing anything (or at least not admitting to it :) until (a) I have
finished writing my thesis and (b) I
can afford a Risc-PC. Any donations to help with (b) greatly appreciated :)
: Adam
Rob
Adam Goodfellow
> This is a great pity. In order to run a supported UNIX on the RISC PC
> you have to buy a PC Card. I think that this may cause Acorn to miss
> out on a huge potential market. Many Universities want to buy
> networks of UNIX machines, and the RISC PC would be able to offer
> powerful enough machines at a competitive price compared to most
> workstations, especially with an ARM7x0 or ARM8x0. Could you imagine
> running UNIX on a *dual* ARM8x0 machine?
>
> The problem is that for an institution to consider buying a machine
> as a UNIX box the UNIX it runs must be supported by a LARGE company,
> to offer them security if something goes wrong, and to guarantee that
> the OS will be maintained. The only company in the Acorn market that
> is large enough is Acorn themselves.
>
> So, a Linux or ArcBSD port will be great for enthusiasts, but not much
> help for Acorn in the UNIX marketplace.
>
> Come on Acorn, you've got an incredible machine, look for new markets!
>
> Anyone else have any thoughts on this subject?
>
Yes - WTH can't RISCiX be brought upto date, and made a little more
affordable. Surely that must be easier than doing a new port from scratch...
If dual ARM processor support was incorporated, then there would be
potential for a fairly fast unix box.
Adam
Matt Segall
>Adam Goodfellow (ad...@comptech.demon.co.uk) wrote:
>: Yes - WTH can't RISCiX be brought upto date, and made a little more
>: affordable. Surely that must be easier than doing a new port from scratch...
>: If dual ARM processor support was incorporated, then there would be
>: potential for a fairly fast unix box.
>
>AFAIK RISCiX includes some licensed UNIX code which means that part of the
>price you pay for it goes in royalties. This means that even if Acorn released
>their part of it free of charge, it would still cost about #300 to the user.
>The only way to avoid this problem is to rewrite all the licensed bits and by
>the time you have done this it is probably just as easy to port FreeBSD or Linuxor, even, to write the whole thing from scratch.
I realise that RISCiX contains some AT&T code, which makes it very
unnatractive price-wise. I also realise the work in porting FreeBSD or
even writing a kernal from scratch, my point is that it is probably worth
the effort.
The problems that Acorn have had with RISCiX in the past have been caused
by trying to run it on underpowered machines (already solved), and the
extra cost involved due to the AT&T royalties.
I recon Acorn should bite the bullet and go for a `home grown' UNIX,
it could open up whole new markets.
>: Adam
>Rob
Matt
From: c93...@comlab.ox.ac.uk (Matt Segall)
Path: comlab.ox.ac.uk!c93mds
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: UNIX ON Risc PC's ????
Expires:
References: <1994Apr25....@magi.comlab.ox.ac.uk> <7A20T...@comptech.demon.co.uk> <1994Apr26....@inca.comlab.ox.ac.uk>
Sender:
Followup-To:
Distribution: world
Organization: Oxford University Computing Laboratory, UK
Keywords:
In article <1994Apr26....@inca.comlab.ox.ac.uk> bl...@teaching.physics.ox.ac.uk (Robert Black) writes:
>Adam Goodfellow (ad...@comptech.demon.co.uk) wrote:
>: Yes - WTH can't RISCiX be brought upto date, and made a little more
>: affordable. Surely that must be easier than doing a new port from scratch...
>: If dual ARM processor support was incorporated, then there would be
>: potential for a fairly fast unix box.
>
>AFAIK RISCiX includes some licensed UNIX code which means that part of the
>price you pay for it goes in royalties. This means that even if Acorn released
>their part of it free of charge, it would still cost about #300 to the user.
>The only way to avoid this problem is to rewrite all the licensed bits and by
>the time you have done this it is probably just as easy to port FreeBSD or Linuxor, even, to write the whole thing from scratch.
I realise that RISCiX contains some AT&T code, which makes it very
unnatractive price-wise. I also realise the work in porting FreeBSD or
even writing a kernal from scratch, my point is that it is probably worth
the effort.
The problems that Acorn have had with RISCiX in the past have been caused
by trying to run it on underpowered machines (already solved), and the
extra cost involved due to the AT&T royalties.
I recon Acorn should bite the bullet and go for a `home grown' UNIX,
it could open up whole new markets.
>: Adam
>Rob
Matt
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Matthew Segall Matthew...@comlab.ox.ac.uk
Programming Research Group
Oxford University
Jeff Diamond
n article 13...@msc2.comlab.ox.ac.uk, c93...@comlab.ox.ac.uk (Matt Segall) writes:
> >
[....]
> I recon Acorn should bite the bullet and go for a 'home grown' UNIX,
> it could open up whole new markets.
Especially since UNIX users are a more "intelligent" market in that they don't
care what brand machine they are buying... If a UNIX box appears to perform
better than another, that's all the justification they need to buy it.
And since the majority of UNIX users don't purchase machines with their own
money, there's no real limit to the amount they'd pay or number of machines
they'd buy!
Joe Walker
> In article <1994Apr20.1...@inmos.co.uk> r...@inmos.co.uk (Richard Ingram) writes:
> >Will there be an official Acorn Unix for the new machines ??
>
> definite NO.
> > Or will we have to wait for ArchBSD ??
>
> The only suggestion I could get out of either of them was to wait for
> a public domain port, so I guess that the answer is yes.
Acorn have recently stopped the help they were giving to ArchBSD
in the form of low-level code.
> " Later versions of the PC Card will offer.... Support will be offered
> for ... SCO UNIX and other Intel Binaries."
>
> So, if you buy a PC Card you could run SCO Unix if you wanted to.
How much is SCO on Intel these days?
> This is a great pity. In order to run a supported UNIX on the RISC PC
> you have to buy a PC Card. I think that this may cause Acorn to miss
> out on a huge potential market. Many Universities want to buy
> networks of UNIX machines, and the RISC PC would be able to offer
> powerful enough machines at a competitive price compared to most
> workstations, especially with an ARM7x0 or ARM8x0. Could you imagine
> running UNIX on a *dual* ARM8x0 machine?
In the UNIX world you need to buy application support.
Motorola fell fowl of this one in the same way that RiscIX did.
Anyone even heard of a Motorola MPC300?
Fairly quick parallel processor 88000 RISC Unix box.
Motorola did not pay a lot of money to Informix, Oracle, Interleaf &c
to do porting work. Thus it didn't get done. The old catch-22 thing.
Inside Motorola we have just moved to SPARCs.
The only difference between Motorola & Acorn here is that Acorn have
an excuse for not shelling out the millions for porting work.
Having been bitten once I doubt very much whether they would even
consider trying again.
SCO on Intel seams a much better bet for Acorn.
Unix where they don't have to pay for support or app porting charges.
Thought: Why does everyone (inc. Acorn) keep saying SCO.
If DOOM will run unaltered on RiscPC then why not also Solaris, Unixware etc.
So why does everyone keep on saying SCO?
Is is possible that SCO are doing some work for a second processor?
Probably not, just a thought.
--
____ EMail: walk...@rtsg.mot.com
|___ | ___ ___ SMail: Motorola European Cellular Infrastructure Division,
_ | |/ _ \| __| 16 Euroway, Blagrove, SWINDON, SN5 8YQ, UK
| |_| | (_) | _| Tel: [+44/0] 793 54 5346
\___/ \___/|___| Fax: [+44/0] 793 54 1228
A. J. Doherty
> And since the majority of UNIX users don't purchase machines with their own
> money, there's no real limit to the amount they'd pay or number of machines
> they'd buy!
Hence as a UNIX user I'd get my department to buy a high end SUN, DEC or SGI
workstation. Pleased as I may be to see the new Risc PC (yes I'll be getting one ;->
to replace the increasingly aged A310) it's never going to cut it in the UNIX world
on a performance basis - Arm 800 or not.
I'd agree with a previous comment in the group that ARM Ltd ought to go for a balls
out, relatively high power consumption (not Pentium level thou') ARM chip. If simply to
demonstrate that ARM chips aren't going to be constantly relegated to the backwaters
of performance tables ... if you look at what will be coming out of other processor
manufacturers factories by 1995 the Arm 800 is going to have a *lot* of catching up
to do. This hypothetical chip might be expensive compared to the others but I've no
doubt that we of the Acorn badged anorak brigade - and newcomers who pay attention to
performance ratings - would buy it.
Andy.
Anthony Finch (PFUE)
I would have thought this is an argument against buying Acorn.
OTOH, if a factor of 5 in the price is significant, then Acorn
woule be a better choice. But then there's cheap Unix on PCs...
--
Anthony Finch fa...@inmos.co.uk
Campaign against using `#' for Pounds Sterling!
Disclaimer: Any coincidence with real opinions is entirely resemblential.
Adam Goodfellow
> The problems that Acorn have had with RISCiX in the past have been caused
> by trying to run it on underpowered machines (already solved), and the
> extra cost involved due to the AT&T royalties.
>
> Matt
> --
Well running it on two 32/64 bit CPUs should solve that problem...
BTW anyone have any details of the ARM8xx - ie *is* it going to 64bit
internal? (be handy for speeding up 16.16 fixed point arith)
Simon Proven CES90
>Thought: Why does everyone (inc. Acorn) keep saying SCO.
>If DOOM will run unaltered on RiscPC then why not also Solaris, Unixware etc.
>So why does everyone keep on saying SCO?
>Is is possible that SCO are doing some work for a second processor?
Or NeXT Step? :-)
--
"If you want something done properly, kill Baldrick before you start"
-- Edmund Blackadder
Simon Proven, spr...@cs.strath.ac.uk
Martin Corley
Whoa! Are you sure buyers "don't care" what type of UNIX (rather than
UNIX box) they buy? Bear in mind that sun has had to release 4.1.3
for just about _all_ its post-solaris architectures, because of
pressure from users...
I wouldn't be happy with a "home-grown" UNIX if I knew I was going to
spend the rest of my life facing porting problems... I would be most
interested in seeing a "standard modern" UNIX on the Arc; 4.4BSD anyone?