Re: Apple PowerMac G5
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
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