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[NEWS] Linux kernel 5.8 is out!

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tle:
And it supports POWER10!

Ref: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=7ae77150d94d3b535c7b85e6b3647113095e79bf

SiteAdmin:
We just wanted to re-post this from a comment we added to Talospace:


--- Quote ---There will probably be some exciting announcements for POWER hardware late this year / early next. Not POWER10 yet (IBM made some very poor choices regarding POWER10 that currently block our products and that we continue to work to resolve) but POWER overall is looking quite healthy for the future. For now, POWER9 is definitely the best way to go to get an open, owner-controlled, powerful system with long term support and tons of distro choices!
--- End quote ---

Basically, POWER10 is an academic curiosity at the moment due to some really bad management-level decisions at IBM.  It's not unrecoverable, but we do want to set expectations of POWER9 remaining the highest performing POWER product for the 2021 / early 2022 timeframe.  If, and this is a fairly large "if", anyone else besides IBM ships a POWER10 system in that timeframe, the reasoning behind our decision should become quite clear.

The best way to help owner controlled computing at the moment is to keep buying and using POWER9.  The other announcements we have (which are not IBM dependent) should be very exciting, but POWER9 will remain king in terms of raw performance for now.

TLDR: POWER10 is not off the table by any means; we have every intention of creating a POWER10 product line, but there are complex negotiations in play to reach the point where those POWER10 products will be up to our high open firmware / open systems standards.  Such negotiations always take time, hence the delays, though COVID19 has stretched them out several times longer than normal such that public product announcements are now being affected.  Buying from another vendor in the interim, even if one exists, will not help and you definitely won't like what you actually get in the end from another vendor in comparison to the normal Raptor standards.

shawnanastasio:

--- Quote from: SiteAdmin on August 03, 2020, 07:08:38 pm ---TLDR: POWER10 is not off the table by any means; we have every intention of creating a POWER10 product line, but there are complex negotiations in play to reach the point where those POWER10 products will be up to our high open firmware / open systems standards.

--- End quote ---

Can you elaborate on this? Has IBM introduced proprietary/vendor-signed components to POWER10 firmware?

ClassicHasClass:
Does that mean an Axone system in the works, potentially?

SiteAdmin:

--- Quote from: shawnanastasio on August 03, 2020, 08:04:24 pm ---Can you elaborate on this? Has IBM introduced proprietary/vendor-signed components to POWER10 firmware?

--- End quote ---

Nothing is signed, but IBM has failed to release required firmware components as open source software.  We can't go much further into details other than to say we're working the problem, but until it is resolved we will not be able to manufacture a POWER10 system, nor would we recommend usage of the POWER10 processor.

There's another area where IBM made a very poor choice, but that will become more obvious once IBM releases more data on their own systems using the POWER10 device.  That issue is also being worked by Raptor.

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