[fpc-devel] progress of freepascal for mips

[Mark Morgan Lloyd]

microcode at zoho.com wrote:
> On Mon, 4 Jun 2012 14:56:06 -0700 (PDT)
> Leonardo M. Ramé <martinrame at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
>> You are right, the machine
>> (http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/power/hardware/560/specs.html) doesn't
>> have a MIPS processor, but an IBM's Power6.
>>
>> BTW, does anyone know which Linux distribution runs on that machine?, can
>> FPC be compiled to run on it?. 
>> Leonardo M. Ramé
>> http://leonardorame.blogspot.com
> 
> Congrats, that's a nice box. POWER6 is one generation behind but from what
> I read it can still run the latest version of AIX.
> 
> The best OS is the one IBM made for it, AIX which is a POSIX UNIX with
> IBM extensions (and great doc!). You should be able to get a copy without
> too much difficulty if one isn't already installed.
> 
> On the same page you linked above, there is a list of some Linux that are
> certified to run on your box. Running Linux on it would be a horrible
> waste of a good server. You can probably virtualize Linux and BSD instances
> under AIX though, as you had mentioned in your first post.

With the caveat that, as I understand it, this is a hardware-assisted 
partitioning operation and is likely to have a very different "feel" 
from things like VMWare. As an example (and possibly you can confirm 
this), my understanding is that there are facilities in the system 
firmware, i.e. accessed from something analogous to a "BIOS setup 
screen", that dictate how SCSI devices will be distributed between LPARs.

In any event, if Leonardo successfully runs Linux or BSD in a partition 
I hope he writes it up somewhere. My PPC system is only an old Mac 
running Debian, but I think having the info would be useful.

-- 
Mark Morgan Lloyd
markMLl .AT. telemetry.co .DOT. uk

[Opinions above are the author's, not those of his employers or colleagues]