From owner-freebsd-ppc@freebsd.org Wed Dec 2 19:13:10 2015 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-ppc@mailman.ysv.freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) by mailman.ysv.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7DC23A3E414; Wed, 2 Dec 2015 19:13:10 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from lsorense@csclub.uwaterloo.ca) Received: from mail.csclub.uwaterloo.ca (mail.csclub.uwaterloo.ca [129.97.134.52]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 559921B4A; Wed, 2 Dec 2015 19:13:10 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from lsorense@csclub.uwaterloo.ca) Received: from caffeine.csclub.uwaterloo.ca (caffeine.csclub.uwaterloo.ca [129.97.134.17]) by mail.csclub.uwaterloo.ca (Postfix) with SMTP id 8DCC22DD20; Wed, 2 Dec 2015 14:05:53 -0500 (EST) Received: by caffeine.csclub.uwaterloo.ca (sSMTP sendmail emulation); Wed, 02 Dec 2015 14:05:53 -0500 From: "Lennart Sorensen" Date: Wed, 2 Dec 2015 14:05:53 -0500 To: Joe Nosay Cc: FreeBSD PowerPC ML , Eric Oyen , FreeBSD Hackers , freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org, "www@openbsd.org" , Bill Buros , vinux-support@googlegroups.com, "SELCommunityAffairs@am.sony.com" , SCA_CSR@sonyusa.com, "qemu-ppc@nongnu.org" , Torfinn Ingolfsen , Debian powerpc Mailinglist , Juergen Lock , outro.pessoa@gmail.com, Paul Davis , team@powerpc-notebook.org Subject: Re: A proposal and a challenge Message-ID: <20151202190553.GC25177@csclub.uwaterloo.ca> References: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.23 (2014-03-12) X-Mailman-Approved-At: Wed, 02 Dec 2015 19:57:55 +0000 X-BeenThere: freebsd-ppc@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.20 Precedence: list List-Id: Porting FreeBSD to the PowerPC List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 02 Dec 2015 19:13:10 -0000 On Wed, Dec 02, 2015 at 12:39:00PM -0500, Joe Nosay wrote: > I know that everyone is familiar with the one laptop per child program; > and, that is good. Let's take it one step further. The debian team wants to > build a powerpc laptop. FreeBSD is working on the POWER8 with the PPC team. > The problem is convincing IBM to publicly open the CPU for a good purpose. > What's the sale's pitch? Let it be for education. Do you know what the power consumption of a POWER8 chip is? > Four operating systems on a single machine - the apm layout is capable of > doing it with a boot, main, and swap. That's only twelve spaces used. > Yes, it can be concentrated down to 64 GB. > What can be done with it? > It's a POWER machine, load-store, learn. ARM and MIPS are load-store machines too, and usually much cheaper and more power friendly. Sure powerpc has 32 registers and arm only has 16, but so what? That's what each core has and many things have multiple cores these days. Mips has 32 as well. > 64 bit. How many free registers usually? About five? Yes? > Enough for one application. Two would do for the application and system. > Let's make it real. Two chips. Four processors each. > Running about 2.0 to 2.25 GHz. ARM chips certainly exist that are 64bit and run that kind of speeds. Not sure what speeds mips are at these days but it has had 64bit versions for a long time. > Let the kernel match that. Debian at 1Khz - unless someone can do a patch > to make the kernel go the necessary mile. > Open and Net BSD have their own thing; so, this is for FreeBSD for the > kernel rate. Latency should match frequency. I have no idea what BSD has to do with this, but then again I am not sure what you are even trying to describe. Besides have you heard of kvm? Virtual machines are a commodity these days and simple to do. > GRUB should be able to handle four options on a screen. > > Oh, Open graphics and sound. > Accessibility. Development. Creativity. > Show it. > > Let them know what it can do. > > Sound. Music. > > Art. Design. > > Programming. > > Let them see it from the start to finish. > > > Make it affordable. > > For students, children, people to learn. > > All of you can do this. > > Why not me? > > I am not able to afford it. > > Yet, the rest of you are able to do such. > > It will pay for itself and you know it. Well OLPC certainly seems to have been a flop done by someone without a clue what actual problems needed to be solved. > Don't reply, just think on it. > > You know my requirements: Don't pay me, just do it. > > > And respect. > > > > Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for taking the time to read this. > Enjoy life. I wish it had made sense what I read, but it did not. -- Len Sorensen