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You are here: MacNN Forums > Software - Troubleshooting and Discussion > macOS > Mac OS X Server for SGI, Sun, IBM or HP?

View Poll Results: Which of SGI, Sun, IBM or HP would you like to see Mac OS X Server on??
Poll Options:
SGI (Itanium) 3 votes (10.71%)
HP (Itanium) 1 votes (3.57%)
IBM (Power) 19 votes (67.86%)
Sun (SPARC) 5 votes (17.86%)
Voters: 28. You may not vote on this poll
Mac OS X Server for SGI, Sun, IBM or HP?
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rmendis
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Apr 19, 2003, 06:33 AM
 
If Apple were to partner with a server vendor for Mac OS X, which server platform would you like to see Mac OS X Server on?

SGI: Itanium, MIPS
HP: PA-RISC, MIPS, Alpha, Itanium
Sun: SPARC
IBM: POWER
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D'Espice
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Apr 19, 2003, 06:53 AM
 
I don't think that any of these partners is willing to run a crappy server OS like Mac OS X Server. No CLI? Come on Apple, this is a SERVER !!!
"Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in one
pretty and well preserved piece, but to skid across the line broadside,
thoroughly used up, worn out, leaking oil, shouting GERONIMO!"
     
Gul Banana
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Apr 19, 2003, 08:00 AM
 
...no CLI? O_o
Have you ever actually used Mac OS X Server? Or even Mac OS X?
[vash:~] banana% killall killall
Terminated
     
JLL
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Apr 19, 2003, 08:00 AM
 
Originally posted by D'Espice:
I don't think that any of these partners is willing to run a crappy server OS like Mac OS X Server. No CLI? Come on Apple, this is a SERVER !!!
No CLI? I demand your stars removed!!!!
JLL

- My opinions may have changed, but not the fact that I am right.
     
SubGeniux
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Apr 19, 2003, 08:05 AM
 
I'd love to see X client version on SGI, I have a couple of SGI's here for video and film work, the hardware is unrivaled for throughput, PC's and Macs don't come close, buut IRIX, the SGI os is a pain in the a** to use, never liked it. If Aple did that, I could move the whole studio on to Mac hardware, exceptforthe 1 pc running Softimage XSI, come on Softimage, get it ported.

sub
     
Cipher13
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Apr 19, 2003, 12:14 PM
 
Originally posted by SubGeniux:
the hardware is unrivaled for throughput
Did you see the "IBM" option there?
     
Catfish_Man
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Apr 19, 2003, 12:33 PM
 
Originally posted by D'Espice:
I don't think that any of these partners is willing to run a crappy server OS like Mac OS X Server. No CLI? Come on Apple, this is a SERVER !!!
Troll -1. Try actually running the OS before you bash it (also, try logging in as >console when you do run it).
     
sandsl
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Apr 19, 2003, 01:19 PM
 
Originally posted by JLL:
No CLI? I demand your stars removed!!!!
agreed stars should be removed for such a stupid comment.
Luke
     
Sarc
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Apr 19, 2003, 01:34 PM
 
Originally posted by D'Espice:
No CLI? Come on Apple, this is a SERVER !!!
does UNIX BASED mean anything to you ?
living in a cave in the hymalayas for the last 5 years ?
really ... have you ever used Mac OS X ?
:: frankenstein / lcd-less TiBook / 1GHz / radeon 9000 64MB / 1GB RAM / w/ext. 250GB fw drive / noname usb bluetooth dongle / d-link usb 2.0 pcmcia card / X.5.8
:: unibody macbook pro / 2.4 Ghz C2D / 6GB RAM / dell 2407wfp - X.6.3
     
rmendis  (op)
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Apr 19, 2003, 01:42 PM
 
Originally posted by Cipher13:
Did you see the "IBM" option there?
Well as he points out high end video and imaging shops still use SGI quite a lot even though SGI's dominance of the market has declined.

I think Apple should purchase SGI for itself and sell (SGI branded) Mac OS X high end workstations and visualization systems.
Who knows even high end servers running Mac OS X Server someday?

The Xserve goes to show that Mac OS X is a capable low to mid range server OS.

Even if Apple purchased SGI, there is no reason why it couldn't produce and sell (SGI branded) workstations and visualization systems based on Power instead of Itanium. Though SGI has standardized on Itanium and is transitioning its entire range of servers to the Itanium over time...starting with the Altix range:
http://www.sgi.com/altix
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SubGeniux
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Apr 19, 2003, 02:00 PM
 
i know, but with SGI it's not really the cpu that matters too much, that's why they lost the race to Windows for rendering and such like, cause of the Pentiums. The IBM's are good machines but they still don't hack it when it comes to scalability and shher bus transfer speeds, SGI had the cross-bar switch non-bus computer years ago, we still use the Octane for compositing, no mac comes near it, but, everything else about it is slow, liuke the cpu. I love OSX, it is for me the bestr OS experience ever, just wish apple could get the high end machines out the door and realise that it's not always the cpu that matters. I think a lot of us focus on that cause of the Intel/PowerPC battles and stuff, but honestly, if Apple could produce a machine that had the bus speeds ands performace of an SGI built 6 years ago, I'd be a happy man.
     
SubGeniux
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Apr 19, 2003, 02:06 PM
 
Yeah, most of us still use SGI's for high end film/video work, because of the system architectureand scalability of the machines themselves. When it comes to 3d animation, rendering and really anything that doesn't involve compositing, colour-correction, etc, we tend to go for Mac first, then PC, when it's aboutrender speeds, then it's PC's all the time.

But.. X really is the best OS out there, it can handle so much data and video, it really feels like a next-gen OS, our windows machines, all of them dual Pentium's, are such slouches when dealing with gigabytes of data, windows is the problem, it is nowhere near as stable or capable as X.
     
rmendis  (op)
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Apr 20, 2003, 12:32 AM
 
Originally posted by SubGeniux:
The IBM's are good machines but they still don't hack it when it comes to scalability and shher bus transfer speeds, SGI had the cross-bar switch non-bus computer years ago, we still use the Octane for compositing, no mac comes near it, but, everything else about it is slow, liuke the cpu.
It appears that Apple will introduce HyperTransport motherboards along with the new PowerPC 970/G5. (This is beacuse the 6.4Gb/s sysmte bus interconnect is based on HyperTransport).

HyperTransport is a very flexible, scalable and potentially economical way of achieveing workstation and server class system bandwidth for consumer PCs. Not to mention the fact that HyperTransport bus doubles up as a multiprocessing bus as it regards a processor as just another 'device'. HyperTransport buses can be arranged in many different configurations depending on the needs of the particular machine. That is it can be arranged in either serial, star/switch or tree topologies. (Or even a mix and match approach).

So to start off with, Apple could for desktops, employ a serial topology. i.e one HyperTransport chain. This would mean that the system bus maxes out at 6.4Gb/s.

However on a workstation or server class machine (say future Xserves), Apple could use a mixed topology for additional bandwidth.
i.e dedicated chain(s) for each CPU memory, one for I/O (firewire, USB, video), and a switch topology for the CPUs.

The scalability and flexibility of the technology implies to me that Apple will release (at least) two versions of its PowerMac G5.
One smaller one (1-2 CPUs) and another larger one (2-4 CPUs).

However, this doesn't mean that it will have SGI's expertise nor mind/marketshare of the high end imaging and video markets. For that i think Apple should purchase SGI outright and port Mac OS X to SGI's workstation and visualization systems.

Perhaps to begin with Apple/SGI could produce a 4-8 CPU PowerPC G5 based workstation and then migrate it to an Itanium machine when the time is right (for Itanium that is). Though long term Mac Os X on SGI strategy ought to be Itanium, keeping in compliance with SGI's strategic platform of choice as MIPS is simpy legacy.
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Richard Edgar
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Apr 20, 2003, 11:51 AM
 
Problem with Itanium is that not even SGI seem to have got it scaling to sensible numbers of CPUs yet. They also run hot, which increases air conditioning requirements.

I would love to know how Sun/SGI etc. slipped up and let Intel get ahead of them in raw processor power.
     
rmendis  (op)
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Apr 20, 2003, 04:49 PM
 
Originally posted by Richard Edgar:
Problem with Itanium is that not even SGI seem to have got it scaling to sensible numbers of CPUs yet. They also run hot, which increases air conditioning requirements.

I would love to know how Sun/SGI etc. slipped up and let Intel get ahead of them in raw processor power.
I reckon that with the next iteration or two of Itanium, we should see some remarkable improvements. May take 2 years or so.

Itanium and the Transmeta Crusoe are very similar architectures based on VLIW. This is to RISC what RISC was to CISC - another level/degree of simplification. Though again, it adds complexity to softare compilers.

Transmeta Crusoe employs a very sohpisticaed technology called 'software code morphing' which translates x86 instructions into VLIW code. This is really 'on-chip' software emulation of sorts: similar in to intruction to microcode translation.

I expect that Intel will at some point in time will introduce (either by purchsing Transmeta outright or by producing its own) software morphing for the Itanium to achieve x86 compatibility and perhaps PA-RISC compatibility as well. Currently it has an x86 translation unit which could be eliminated in favour of software morphing. Transmeta's chips are cooler, smaller and probably much cheaper than Intel's EPIC IA64 chips. Somthing the Itanium can sure do with

In 3-4 years I expect Intel's IA64 architecture to hit the desktop.
It may not be called an Itanium (which may be reserved for the enterprise/server space) but may even be called a Pentium or a Xeon or something. By this time, i think Apple should support Itanium if only as a second platform. And what better way to do this than purchasing an Itanium workstation and server shop, that is SGI, and vending SGI branded Mac OS X Itanium machines.

SGI could be to Apple what Porche is to VW or what Jaguar is to Ford or MG to BMW.
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theory
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Apr 20, 2003, 09:07 PM
 
Originally posted by D'Espice:
I don't think that any of these partners is willing to run a crappy server OS like Mac OS X Server. No CLI? Come on Apple, this is a SERVER !!!
No CLI. Crappy Server. Do you even know what you are
talking about ?

Any way I would love to see OSX on a sun machine not
that it would ever but just because there machines are
so fast (well used to be).
     
power142
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Apr 20, 2003, 11:05 PM
 
Perhaps to begin with Apple/SGI could produce a 4-8 CPU PowerPC G5 based workstation and then migrate it to an Itanium machine when the time is right (for Itanium that is). Though long term Mac Os X on SGI strategy ought to be Itanium, keeping in compliance with SGI's strategic platform of choice as MIPS is simpy legacy. [/B]
The last time I spoke with SGI was about a week ago and they were very clear on *not* dumping MIPS in the high-end stuff.... Itanium simply doesn't have the scalability that MIPS has when it comes down to some of SGI's customers. Let us remember that even SGI will only peddle a 64-processor system image Itanium box that they call a "super-cluster" as opposed to a super-computer. As they pointed out to me, it's not all about SPECint/fp per processor, it's about how much processing power you can squeeze on a floor tile and how little heat it generates.

Personally, I think the PPC970 would make a much better strategy than Itanium, but I guess SGI just couldn't wait to try to prop up its revenue stream
     
Richard Edgar
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Apr 21, 2003, 02:40 AM
 
Mmmmm.... scalability
     
rmendis  (op)
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Apr 22, 2003, 12:53 AM
 
Originally posted by power142:
The last time I spoke with SGI was about a week ago and they were very clear on *not* dumping MIPS in the high-end stuff...

Personally, I think the PPC970 would make a much better strategy than Itanium, but I guess SGI just couldn't wait to try to prop up its revenue stream
MIPS (and Alpha) is still around to fill in the gap until Itanium becomes more scalable and develops fully.

As i said, it's a very ambitious project to implement a EPIC/VLIW processor.

As for a long term strategy, i think Itanium is the way forward, however PPC970 would make a decent short term stop gap choice for SGI if they were to produce high end Mac OS X workstations and visualization systems.
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