> Well, I don't think we accept that any of our Alpha machines are
> low-end ;-) Having said that, the major drive for Linux on Alpha has
> come from within Digital's semiconductor organisation (Digital
> Semiconductor) and DS have no multiprocessor chipsets or hardware
> platforms. Therefore, it is unlikely that there will be any point in
> doing Alpha SMP for a year or two.
> Neal. European Semiconductor Applications Engineering Digital
> Semiconductor.
Neal forgets that the "major drive for Linux on the Alpha" has come from the
Linux community, and that although the bulk of Digital's engineering work has
been done by Digital Semiconductor, that Linux now runs on machines sold
by our workstation group, Components and Peripherals Group, our server
group and even OEMs who use our chips to build their own boards.
Early in the project my interest was piqued by someone who had actually
taken an early kernel and tried to boot it on an 8400 and had shown great joy
at getting out at least a few console messages before the kernel crashed.
Sadly I have lost that mail.
If enough people feel that they want to run Linux on our existing servers,
or if an OEM comes forward with a multi-CPU board, I am sure that Digital
Semiconductor will be happy to help the Linux community with engineering
issues to make this happen. And it may be a lot sooner than "a year or so".
md
-- =============================================================================== Jon "maddog" Hall Officer - Linux International Senior Leader Mailstop ZK03-2/U15 UNIX Software Group Digital Equipment Corporation Internet: maddog@zk3.dec.com 110 Spit Brook Rd. Voice: 603.881.1341 Nashua, N.H. 03062-2698 Fax: 603.881.6059