Power Architecture Related Tracks Proposed for UDS-r

On my ramp-up toward UDS-r, I've created some blueprints and pinged some related folks to get them into the proper tracks.

I'm hoping to get a lot of interest and discussion around there, so here they are:

• Virtualization support for Power architecture
• Power Architecture Kernel Development
• PowerPC Bootloader Options

So this covers a wide range of topics. The most in-depth one is the Virtualization blueprint. As of yet, I've not seen a lot of broad support for non-x86 in OpenStack and related software. While it works (I've set it up), it just doesn't do a lot to make me happy happy.

The boot loaders blueprint is basically an RFC. The idea of Power architecture on a non-embedded system not having OpenFirmware is about on par with Dell selling an Intel system without a BIOS. The Power systems do have u-Boot (Das Boot), but that's not as robust as it needs to be. I'm thinking something like grub2 being compiled agains the u-Boot API that u-Boot can load modularly or perhaps something like the kexec based loader that the ps3 used.

Finally, the kernel development is a host discussion that needs to be hammered out with the Canonical Kernel Team so we can all be happy and not step on the primary architectures, but still being able to spread some support for newer Power equipment.

Cheers and see you in Denmark!

EDIT: Updated link for boot loaders blueprint

The Rack Revolution

As I sit here in my cozy home on my comfy couch, I am bewildered and amazed at just how far things have come in the last decade.

Let's take a quick inventory of my immediate surroundings:

• ✔ Laptop
• ✔ WiFi
• ✔ Smart Phone
• ✔ HD TV
• ✔ High Speed Internet
• ✖ Server Farm

Hmm...that last one's a bit different from the old days. I used to have a nice collection of loudly humming, room-warming servers in my garage. As a telecommuter, I needed it. My blog was running on it, my email was running on it and my firewall was running on it.

What happened? Well, we all know the answer to that question: things consolidated into the "Cloud." Instead of under-the-table boxes running our local services, we now have providers doing the heavy (literally) lifting for us.

So what do they run on? Practically the same loudly humming room-warmers that we used to keep under our desks. However, in recent years, the move is being made to lower the operating costs of these rack farms into quiet, low-powered, self-cooling, maintainable animals.

As most places have tried to just tone down, or spread thin, some have been making the move to efficiency. Enter the reverse revolution of the CPU to something more applicable to today's computing needs. Instead of powering with high-wattage x86 chips, many are dipping their toes into the shallow end of the alternative-processor kiddy-pool.

And with that I introduce an amazing NEW and WILD CPU: PowerPC!

Oh, you've heard of it? It's legacy and old-hat, you say? I must be thinking of a different PowerPC CPU then. The company I've been gainfully employed with for the past 1.5 years seems to be using something quite different than your grandmother's Power chip. Not quite the behemoth of the IBM Power7 iron (in size nor noise), but not the wussy of your old PowerMac neither.

We're talking multiway SoCs with full floating-point running at a fraction of the wattage of just about anything else on the market. Add with it full hardware virtualization (via KVM), and you begin to see where in the market this is headed.

We've already been engaging multiple Linux and software vendors to give a complete and first rate experience on this new class of hardware. You'll have multiple choices when it comes to supporting and administrating, whether it's one system or a room full of racks filled.

So here's my not-so-humble way of introducing you to Servergy, Inc.. They've been around for 3 years, but expect to be hearing a lot more about us in the coming months. If you're going to be at a Linux or Cloud/Server related event in the near future, chances are you will run into one of us. I'll actually be at Ubuntu's UDS-r in Copenhagen at the end of October. I'm hoping to have a live demonstration while I'm there.

Cheers

NOTE: In this article I am speaking solely on my behalf. None of what I've said can be taken as a statement by the company I work for: Servergy, Inc.

The Community Conundrum: PowerPC

In my recent work, I've been dealing a lot with PowerPC. As an old Mac user, I've had a soft spot for PowerPC for ages. Like most people, until recently, I've considered PowerPC an aging and dying architecture. Even with IBM selling PowerLinux systems, the lack of cheap hardware for developers has left a hole not easily filled, no matter how man old PowerMacs you buy in eBay.

However, there are a lot of PowerPC platforms that do fill this gap left by PowerMac. Some are even 32-bit platforms that can compete in today's markets.

So why have you never heard of them? Why can't you download Fedora or Ubuntu to install on your PowerPC of today? Several reason:

• Distributions don't really support it.
  
• The "community" behind it is driven at the kernel and low-level, not at the distribution level (see last bullet item).
  

This circle of support appears to be the hold up. Convincing even community supported architectures like Ubuntu and Fedora to support these different kernel flavors is met with archaic skepticism, and is usually concluded with "there is no community" to which I usually respond "because there is no support."

Something has to give here. Linux and Open Source isn't where we want the chicken-and-egg scenario to happen. You can't walk up to a Linux distro with a community and say "Here we are, let's do this" in much the same way as you can't go to a community and say "Come over here with us. We don't support you yet, but we'd like you to prove that you're worth it."

So where to begin...

Reviving the Ubuntu PowerPC community effort

Just is just a heads up to some people who may be interested. I am trying to breath some life back into the Ubuntu PowerPC community. My interest extends from my current job and focus on the server market. That's not to say that I don't think PowerPC should have a desktop life (though most people would only like it for the legacy ppc Mac systems out there), just that my personal focus won't cover much of that beyond perhaps some CD creation and fixing fails-to-build-from-source problems.

So, come one, come all. I've sent a quick note out to the Ubuntu PowerPC LaunchPad Team. There's also a mailing list now.

I'll be posting more of a road-map soonish.

Setting up minicom and ckermit for u-boot serial file transfers

Took awhile to get this simple bit of legacy working. I'm working over a USB serial console to a dev board and needed to update some parts of flash but I don't have working ethernet yet. U-Boot allows for kermit binary file transfers, but default ckermit settings don't appear to work well. So to speed others along, here's what I did. Quite simply, add this to (or create) ~/.kermrc:

set carrier-watch off
set handshake none
set flow-control none
robust
set file type bin
set rec pack 1000
set send pack 1000
set window 5

Otherwise, ckermit expects some modem line signals and CONNECT before it starts the transfer. Now you can use minicom's send command.