Of the alternative to the x86 architectures, which are you the biggest fan of, or reallly, what do you wish you could get a hold of so you could run Linux on it.

I've had through the years a Sparc, Ultrasparc, SGI Indy, old world m68k Mac, and PPC, and the most fun to fiddle with really was the ancient Mac with the m68k chip.

OpenBSD on the SparcStation20 took about... 25 hours to compile Firebird and all of its prerequisites. Now that's a fun little machine, 160Mb of RAM and a 75Mhz processor. Kickin' it like its 1995.

Cheers,

Finegan

As usual, the oldies:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=121281
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=123603
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=125816
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=131627
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=133998

I like to use the PPC's and M68k's because they have very cheap imbedded versions that you can throw in imbedded devices really easily. I've developed products using PPC 860 series of chips and Coldfire chips. I am also going to start experimenting with some of the newer imbedded PPC products that run a lot faster and actually have FP units and such.

I care about x86. It helps pay my bills. I also care about DEC alphas and Sun Sparcs for awhile at least. But x86 is tha shiznit when it comes to tha rent, homie.

I would love an Alpha. I had the opportunity to take one home from work a couple of years ago but at the time I was living in a studio apartment and three computers were more than enough.

I also care about PPC because - frankly - who doesn't want an Apple Powerbook "TiBook" G4?

Sparcs are nice as well, and I'm quite fond of the old pizzabox SparStations we had at work (I never used them though).


Håkan

Sorry, but I've to get a bit offtopic:

tja Håkan!. Do you know where one could get a Sparc Station in Sweden? (any store which sells oldies for a cool price?) or maybe you could get me one from your work . I'm 30 minutes away from Stockholm . Tack för hjälpen!

Now on topic:

I really want to get a Sparc for fun. I've heard so much about it, plus I started to love Solaris 9.0 x86. Mac, who does not want one as Håkan suggested? . Who can afford one is a totally different situation though... .

Where's quantum computers? I'd love to get my hands on one of those....

Followup: I had to vote for PPC. I'd also love to have a Dual 2ghz G5 with 8GB of memory, 2 23" displays, and everything else decked out to the max. Oh yeah, you can't forget the Microsoft wavy keyboard

Either Ultracsparcs or Mips sounds interesting.

im going to have to go with the Indy, just because an indy was the first computer i ever heard refered to as a "linux box" was back prior to the release of win95 and the fully shaded 3d cinematics that the sysop showed me as a demonstration were .. *drool*

yeah quantum computers too, for similiar reasons, i remember seing an article in the paper about it during a time period when i was talking quantum theory with anyone who would listen for a while

i need something else, im bored with x86 .. not like i could write an OS or anything though so me caring is me being shallow

edited: nah, im changing my vote, when i was 8 my dad had an ATARI .. im not sure what the processor was, were those old typewriter ataris x86s?

Honestly, just about any of those, but my top two are a PPC or a SPARC workstation,

In an old job I used to have a cluster of SGI Indigos, Octanes and O2's I loved Irix.

But bring back the old Z80a

Say, since this thread looks like it's attracting all of the different-architecture people, maybe someone could answer my question about compiling things. As of now, it hasn't gotten a single response.

Anyway, the computer I use most of the time has a x86 architecture, but I also have an SGI Origin 200 server that uses the Mips architecture, and my Playstation 2 uses the little-endian version of Mips (called mipsel, or more specifically, mipsEEel).

Not sure, but does the PS2 require special kernels from Sony? I somehow got talked out of it, and after using Linux for probably a year, off and on, I think, I've spent $0. Now I wouldn't mind spending money on Linux, but for the computer I'm running it on, it's not worth it. Perhaps later, with a more powerful computer, I'll buy some games for it, possibly StarOffice, and whatnot, but until I'm off a 200mhz P1, I'll just allocate my money elsewhere (like school)

The PS/2 port basically requires you to buy PS/2 Linux, which is either a 3rd party package, or direct from Sony, I can't remember. A friend of mine who put me up for LinuxWorld in SF had it, complained about the ancient kernel they were on, etc...

NetBSD can run on it too, but step 1 is, Install PS/2 Linux.

Cheers,

Finegan

PS2 Linux was made by Sony and uses the 2.1 kernel. At first I thought that the total bill would be $200, but -heh heh- that's just the Playsation 2. In addition to that you need the kit ($200), a memory card ($20), and a monitor adapter ($30). Once everything gets there, you've paid about $100 in shipping/tax. And then, you find that with 32 mb of ram, you can't do much. And then, you realize that nothing will compile (see my other post). And then, the network driver might be incompatible with your version of PS2 (like mine) and you have to download the patch immediately -like, within the the first 32000 bytes of transfer, or you have to reboot and try again.

As you can see, I'm beginning to think it's not worth it. But with so little ram that KDE 1 runs like a snail, man, have I gotten good with the command line. This project really hasn't produced anything substantial, but it has been very educational.

To top it off, I get hooked on Dance Dance Revolution. I won't go into all that, but let's just say I've spent another $500 on that. That's pretty much the main thing that I'm doing with my PS2 right now.

Overall, I certainly didn't plan it this way, but I am almost pleased with the outcome of this. ... I guess.

I think the general purpose of the PS2 linux kit was so that you could try to program your own games. I remember checking out the PS2 Linux forums a lot, and there were plenty of ideas, just barely anyone doing anything. The PS2 Linux kit comes directly from Sony, I'm pretty sure, because you order it from their website. But, like you said, with only 200mhz and 32MB ram, it's not practical to use as your desktop computer. The target group was supposed to be a niche of people that think they might want to have a future carier as a game programmer. Unfortunately, I think the only system you can program and compile stuff for PS2 games is on a PS2, you can't test it on a desktop....