Re: OpenSPARC.... hmmm.
Nathanael Nerode wrote:
>
> So I just discovered that Sun has released the Verilog code for one of its
> SPARC chips under the GPL. http://opensource.sys-con.com/read/198798.htm
> This is very cool: I think it's the first commercial core to be GPLed.
> It suddenly revived my interest in SPARC.
OTOH building a computer from chips is a big enough job, without having to
fabricate the chips as well.
The one area that does interest me (although I quite simply don't have the
resources to be able to do more than drool) is whether it would be possible to
modify a design like this to insert an encryption circuit in the instruction
path, with matching modifications to the gcc code generator. It would make life
/really/ difficult for anybody trying a buffer overflow attack if every company
had incompatible binaries on what for testing purposes was basically the same
architecture.
> Apparently David S. Miller already has Linux booting on the UltraSparc T1
> ("Niagara"), which is the basis of the OpenSPARC release. And has even finished
> porting work for it and put it into the main tree. And his test logs are from
> Ubuntu. The Sun Fire T1000 is an expensive box though. Perhaps someone can convince
> Sun to donate one to Debian?
Granted that this is rather old news by now, but it seems a little odd to me
that on the one hand we're told that the T1 is great for certain types of server
application, and on the other that Ubuntu is primarily a desktop operating
system.
> Bush admitted to violating FISA and said he was proud of it.
> So why isn't he in prison yet?...
Yeah- now what about our banking privacy? :-/
--
Mark Morgan Lloyd
markMLl .AT. telemetry.co .DOT. uk
[Opinions above are the author's, not those of his employers or colleagues]
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