On Thu, 26 Jun 2003 08:30:17 +0200, Sven Luther wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 25, 2003 at 06:28:48PM +0200, Leandro Guimarães Faria Corsetti
> Dutra wrote:
>> I mean, YD has a commitment to support the PowerMacs in the
>> US, bringing drivers and all that up to date and integrated. Not
>> applicable to Debian nor to Europe -- French Switzerland in
>> particular.
>
> I think Benjamin Herrenschmidt and other are doing that, even there is
> no legal contract.
Let's put it this way: this is a client, not a domestic
server. And I am a contractor, not an employee or manager. Thus I
need to be double sure everything works. It is not practical for me
to contract Herr Herrenshmidt. It would be practical for a
distributor of GNU/Linux (either as a software distribution like Red
Hat or as a PowerPC ISV like YD or Relec.ch), but not for me. Since
Relec's support isn't yet here, there is no YD in Switzerland -- and
anyway G4s are too damned noisy, G5s not being here yet as well -- I
think I have to go x86.
Sure there is IBM, Sun and SGI as RISC vendors, but I really
don't have the time to cultivate a relationship with their ISVs and
find out about Debian support for each. Relec supporting Debian on
both the A1 and the Pegasos will be nice once it's there, and I sure
would love to have committed Debian RISC ISVs in my area.
> The easiest way to do this is to pay yourself for the driver
> developpment, but i agree with you that this may be expensive, and
> not what you want, that it would be better if a third party company
> will do that.
To put it in other words, I'm not big or smart enough. I need
a package. Right now I can get an x86 thru a partner with top-notch
in-site three-years warranty, with all components supported by drivers
integrated into the mainstream kernel.
If I had a constant stream of business I would be more than
happy of not paying for driver develpment, but rather proposing to
some vendor to standardise on their systems if they supported it. As
this is my first project with my first client, I have to take what is
there.
> Also, the geographical limitation on the support is moot, we are
> in a global world, especially in what regards linux and debian in
> particular, which is a world spanning organisation.
>
> hardware warranty is another thing though.
Bingo. I need on-site hardware support, just because x86 has
it and I can't justify settling for less.
> but on the driver side, i guess it will get supported by debian as soon
> as the various linuxppc kernels support it, and if YD adds support for
> it to the official kernel, it will work just as well with debian.
You are talking future.
>> I could buy a IBM machine, but it is probably not silent and I
>> am not sure of getting all drivers for it. "Linux" for them probably
>> means SuSE and Red Hat. I could buy a Pegasos or A1, but their
>> support and integration story still is not there, at least not in the
>> timeframe I need -- second week of July.
>
> Yep, i understand, too bad.
Let's see, next time if we have luck. My partner is in
conversations with a big organisation that may want 500 X terminals.
That would make for a nice server farm... and this brings me to ask what
is the current history on SMP RISC with GNU/Linux.
--
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