From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from cthulhu.engr.sgi.com (cthulhu.engr.sgi.com [192.26.80.2]) by neteng.engr.sgi.com (950413.SGI.8.6.12/960327.SGI.AUTOCF) via ESMTP id NAA03811; Tue, 23 Apr 1996 13:20:59 -0700 Return-Path: Received: by cthulhu.engr.sgi.com (950511.SGI.8.6.12.PATCH526/911001.SGI) for linux-list id NAA15112; Tue, 23 Apr 1996 13:20:53 -0700 Received: from ares.esd.sgi.com by cthulhu.engr.sgi.com via ESMTP (950511.SGI.8.6.12.PATCH526/911001.SGI) for id NAA15105; Tue, 23 Apr 1996 13:20:52 -0700 Received: from fir.esd.sgi.com by ares.esd.sgi.com via ESMTP (951211.SGI.8.6.12.PATCH1042/950213.SGI.AUTOCF) id NAA24196; Tue, 23 Apr 1996 13:20:51 -0700 Received: by fir.esd.sgi.com (940816.SGI.8.6.9/920502.SGI.AUTO) id NAA20245; Tue, 23 Apr 1996 13:20:50 -0700 Date: Tue, 23 Apr 1996 13:20:50 -0700 From: wje@fir.esd.sgi.com (William J. Earl) Message-Id: <199604232020.NAA20245@fir.esd.sgi.com> To: Mike McDonald CC: linux@cthulhu.engr.sgi.com Subject: Re: David Miller is on the list In-Reply-To: <199604231951.MAA01292@titian> References: <199604231951.MAA01292@titian> Sender: owner-linux@cthulhu.engr.sgi.com Precedence: bulk Mike McDonald writes: > > > A dumb question, what exactly is the purpose of porting Linux to > SGI/Mips boxes? At one time, it was proposed as a way that all of the > people how just got dropped from support to maintain there machine's > usefull life. Now, people are talking about embedding linux in > printers and Nintendo boxes! Or as an alternative to Irix on our > current machines. Personally, I think the port should concentrate on > R3K boxes with/without graphics. (It'd be nice if we could release the > info so that X11R6 could be built on the old boxes.) The port should > be a 32 bit port. (Does gcc even support 64 bit MIPS 27 ISA?) It also > be nice if the R3K port would also work on the R4K machines that are > fading away, ie. Indy's, Indigo2's. Different people have different motivations, and you have heard some of them. My main interest is in two parts. First, on current-production low-end workstations, I would like to compare linux performance to IRIX performance. If linux is much better on most measures, in ways which matter to end users, then we would need to consider it as a choice for low-end systems. If it is better only in some dimensions, then we can use it as an existence proof that there are ways to improve IRIX in those dimensions. It is hard to compare software running on different hardware, but software running on identical hardware is directly comparable. Second, I believe that UNIX-based systems are gratuitously incompatible, compared to NT, and that this is an impediment to competing against NT in low-end servers and workstations. Since most efforts to standardize interfaces and administration for UNIX systems have been very slow and incomplete, due to conflicting interests of the vendors involved, I would like to try using linux as a vehicle for creating a de facto standard. Where appropriate, we should give away some enabling technology, such as Web-based administration scripts. We really compete on application performance. Trying compete in areas such as administrative commands, which are peripheral to the user's main interests, is, on balance, almost certainly counterproductive. This will be even more the case as we begin selling into larger installations (with a large number of units, not the odd one or two systems we often sell at present). linux for older boxes is a fine thing, and not unduly difficult to do, at least on the workstations, but there are a lot more R4000-and-better boxes out there now. As for embedded systems, there are actually pretty decent real time systems, some with POSIX compliance, which support MIPS processors. I doubt that the success of MIPS processors in embedded systems is much limited by software availability.