The POWER and PowerPC General Discussion / News Thread

New firmware for the talos ii is much more friendly. I gotta get that vid out

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Adding some of henriok’s speculation, I think I can summarize what we know:

Variable name Codename Cores Modules
POWER8 Venice 12 × SMT8 Turismo SCM
POWER8E Murano 6 × SMT8 Stradale DCM
POWER8NVL Naples 12 × SMT8 ?
POWER9N Nimbus 12 × SMT8
24 × SMT4
Sforza SCM
Monza SCM
LaGrange SCM
POWER9C Cumulus 12 × SMT8
24 × SMT4
Sforza SCM
Monza SCM
LaGrange SCM
POWER9P Axone 12 × SMT8
24 × SMT4
?

SMT_ is how many threads per core
SCM is Single Chip Module
DCM is Dual Chip Module

To be clear though, I’m not entirely sure about:

  • Naples being SCM, though I think I read this somewhere
  • Cumulus modules being the same as Nimbus, though I am confident SMT4 vs SMT8 does not affect module name
  • Axone being optionally 12c or 24c, though if it’s a minor modification from Cumulus/Nimbus, I can’t image it not sharing the same properties

It is interesting that the skiboot code/documentation groups SMT4 and SMT8 together like this, I assume this means that SMT4 vs SMT8 really is just the same silicon. I wonder if it is possible to turn a SMT4 chip into SMT8 or vice versa…

Raptor-specific News

Looks like that single socket LaGrange mainboard they mentioned on Twitter last year is coming along nicely; they mentioned it unprompted in a recent tweet:

EDIT: Wendell posted it in its own thread finally :slight_smile:

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Dank as fuck.

@wendell is there aaaaany chance that I could be alloweb to remote into yours and play with it? Please techno senpai?

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“Power Architecture” and Wikipedia

Apparently earlier this year, Wikipedia editors decided to restructure a bunch of the Power-related articles to remove references to “Power Architecture”:


I’m not sure what to make of that, is it really so different from how we refer to x86-64 and x86 (or more precisely, “IA-32”) as x86, or all the different variantions of ARM as ARM architecture?

Personally I’m just annoyed that all the specsheets for tme ppc machines are wrong on the site. Some of the models are mixed up, a lot of the listed processors are wrong or missing, entire versions of machines gone, no mention of the cost and price difference of the emac and how they had sold 3 versions of the same machine at the same time…

brb I’m too amped about a shit website xD

New post over at Talospace:

Some highlights

the OzLabs developers like the T2 so much they’re ordering more as workstations

He mentions the mapping between some prototype names and the final products they became:
Romulus → Talos II
Witherspoon → AC922
Palmetto → Tyan GN70-BP010
Stratton → S821LC
Briggs → S822

And we finally have a picture of all three modules next to each other:

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Blackbird board GA scheduled for May 22nd

The users guide has also been uploaded to the wiki:

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Oh, that’s real soon! Nice. I’ve been lusting over the pre-order…

Void Linux on the Wii :slight_smile:
https://twitter.com/FoxletFox/status/1130263359201452033?s=09

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god

fugking

dammit

(I kinda wanted to try that actually lol)

I now have to annoy foxlet for images of what comes up in hardware listings lol

Power9 Blackbird motherboard has just reached General Availability!

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http://fienixppc.blogspot.com/

Fienix is dropping a proper G5 compatible ISO soon that will actually boot.

I’m ecstatic.

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@stenstorp can it be talked about yet

Presentation about building of the two US POWER9 supercomputers, Summit & Sierra. at Linux Conf AU 2019:


I don’t think I have posted this before, but sorry if I have

New codenames discovered:
Boston → LC922

Notes about Stepping (at 13:45)

DD1 was for prototyping, DD2 for customer release

6 months between major steppings, with 2 months of that spent waiting after submitting design to fab.

DD1 - received 2017 January

Partly proprietary firmware

For Summit/Sierra:

  • Infrastructure nodes (LC922) use proprietary Supermicro BMC firmware
  • Compute nodes (AC922) use OpenBMC

Can what be?

The iso me boi

Yeah sure, share the links.

Cool so void ppc. Made on ppc macs and related machines, at least partially (kek).

https://mega.nz/#!aohyjaLR!C7IhVpNzL1fizoO8-E3u_UvJ4VKMiQOt8dZLkSGqkmY

32 bit


https://mega.nz/#!KlomSAjY!U7-PW1UVPLS_7SDGu6PBcK0Q4TYNxmgTWprEDJEvVPk

64 bit


Instructions to install


Github of our lord and saviour @stenstorp

https://github.com/void-power

2 Likes