Author Topic: Request for proposals: Who to donate my Blackbird and Power 9 CPU?  (Read 5430 times)

FlyingBlackbird

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Due to lack of time I am intending to donate my Blackbird motherboard incl. the CPU (8 core) + cooling tower to an open source project or committed open source developer.

If
  • you are interested and you think it will help you (without reselling it ;-) or
  • want to suggest/nominate an open source project or developer
please answer to this post.

Important restriction: I can ship it only within the EU (European Union) since I do not want to go through all the trouble of customs declaration again...

FlyingBlackbird

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Re: Request for proposals: Who to donate my Blackbird and Power 9 CPU?
« Reply #1 on: August 09, 2022, 03:32:23 pm »
And to start with first proposals myself:

- Void Linux (https://voidlinux.org/)
- Chimera Linux (https://chimera-linux.org/): A new distribution

The Power 9 parts of both distros were/are heavily backed by q66 (known from this forum)...
« Last Edit: August 09, 2022, 05:14:09 pm by FlyingBlackbird »

pocock

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Re: Request for proposals: Who to donate my Blackbird and Power 9 CPU?
« Reply #2 on: August 09, 2022, 03:33:42 pm »

You could send it to me.  Some of the things I do with GPU testing are not possible on my primary workstation because I don't want to crash my desktop.
Debian Developer
https://danielpocock.com

MPC7500

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Re: Request for proposals: Who to donate my Blackbird and Power 9 CPU?
« Reply #3 on: August 09, 2022, 04:18:20 pm »
I know someone in Hungary who would certainly be very happy about it. Unfortunately he doesn't have the money to ever buy a Blackbird. He is a developer and connected to Open Source of course.

If he would be suitable for you, send me a PN.

ClassicHasClass

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Re: Request for proposals: Who to donate my Blackbird and Power 9 CPU?
« Reply #4 on: August 11, 2022, 06:28:26 pm »
I just want to say I think this is a great cause and very generous.  :)

vikings.thum

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Re: Request for proposals: Who to donate my Blackbird and Power 9 CPU?
« Reply #5 on: August 12, 2022, 06:58:36 am »
I can host this machine in our data center in Germany if it is used for development of libre software on PPC.
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MPC7500

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Re: Request for proposals: Who to donate my Blackbird and Power 9 CPU?
« Reply #6 on: August 12, 2022, 07:25:41 am »
That's a very good idea, too.

MPC7500

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Re: Request for proposals: Who to donate my Blackbird and Power 9 CPU?
« Reply #7 on: August 13, 2022, 07:37:55 am »
Another possibility is kernel.cafe. Don't know if it still exists. I will see.
https://twitter.com/thomrstrom/status/1361454356533415937

Edit: Here is already a thread about it
https://forums.raptorcs.com/index.php/topic,263.msg1979.html
« Last Edit: August 13, 2022, 08:41:13 am by MPC7500 »

FlyingBlackbird

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Re: Request for proposals: Who to donate my Blackbird and Power 9 CPU?
« Reply #8 on: August 18, 2022, 01:22:11 pm »
I can host this machine in our data center in Germany if it is used for development of libre software on PPC.

I love the idea of hosting it in the EU since currently I have found only ppc64(le/el) machines outside of the EU (mainly USA and Brazil), eg.

https://db.debian.org/machines.cgi

How would the process for getting access to the hosted machine look like (and how much transparency could about the real machine usage could you provide)?

And who is paying the admin and power bills then?

MPC7500

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Re: Request for proposals: Who to donate my Blackbird and Power 9 CPU?
« Reply #9 on: August 19, 2022, 05:07:41 am »
The Debian folks are probably the least likely group of people to need any additional POWER hardware. Since they are already sufficiently supplied with POWER hardware.

MPC7500

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Re: Request for proposals: Who to donate my Blackbird and Power 9 CPU?
« Reply #10 on: August 19, 2022, 05:23:27 am »
Haiku would be a good candidate
https://www.haiku-os.org

Or NetBSD.

DKnoto

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Re: Request for proposals: Who to donate my Blackbird and Power 9 CPU?
« Reply #11 on: August 19, 2022, 05:33:11 am »

The Haiku community now has little interest in PPC architecture :(

Maybe ravynOS, it's an interesting project.

Desktop: Talos II T2P9S01 REV 1.01 | IBM Power 9/18c DD2.3, 02CY646 | AMD Radeon Pro WX7100 | 64GB RAM | SSD 1TB

MPC7500

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Re: Request for proposals: Who to donate my Blackbird and Power 9 CPU?
« Reply #12 on: August 19, 2022, 08:03:58 am »
Haiku only because of lack of hardware. They don't even have Macintosh PowerPCs.

But still there are some activities:
Quote
Kallisti5 fixed some minor problems with the PowerPC port to keep it building and simplify it a bit. Kallisti5 and waddlesplash also continued cleaning up the RISC-V sources and fixing various minor issues there.

I would ask Kallisti5 and waddlesplash if they're interested in hardware.
https://discuss.haiku-os.org/t/haiku-powerpc-compatibility/1869/59

Edit: At least these two developers located in the US ...
Edit 2: Discussion on Twitter.
« Last Edit: August 19, 2022, 08:58:26 am by MPC7500 »

MPC7500

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Re: Request for proposals: Who to donate my Blackbird and Power 9 CPU?
« Reply #13 on: August 19, 2022, 09:15:13 am »
Another possibility helloSystem. probonopd is located in Germany ;-)
https://github.com/helloSystem/hello

DKnoto

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Re: Request for proposals: Who to donate my Blackbird and Power 9 CPU?
« Reply #14 on: August 19, 2022, 09:58:22 am »
I spoke to Kallisti5 some time ago about PPC, but he was not interested and basically dissuaded me. I am a Haiku user and was very keen on the system. You'll even find me on the authors list, I've thrown in a few minor tweaks to the system. I even tried to compile Haiku on a PPC but the task overwhelmed me, I can't devote that much time to it.

I think helloSystem is dead compared to ravynOS.
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