[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Does anyone care about OpenPOWER?
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Ask HN: Does anyone care about OpenPOWER?
I see a lot of energy around RISC-V but I never see anything
similar for OpenPOWER, on paper it seems like the dream machine
with actual performance like the Talos Workstations albeit a bit
expensive but this sounds incredible
https://www.raptorcs.com/content/TL2PA1/intro.html >Designed with a
fully owner-controlled CPU domain, you can audit and modify any
portion of the open source firmware on the Talos(tm) II mainboard,
all the way down to the CPU microcode. is there something I'm
missing? why does no one seem to care about OpenPOWER
Author : sandwichbop
Score : 32 points
Date : 2024-02-08 18:17 UTC (4 hours ago)
| h2odragon wrote:
| $6,804.74 for that system.
|
| This is for people who want IBM + total auditability? Who have
| severe commitments to the ecosystem already?
| sandwichbop wrote:
| it is expensive, as far as I understand it (I'm still just
| learning about it all), it is for those need total
| auditability, they mention EU a lot but also this seems catered
| to actual individuals who really want a truly open system that
| doesn't scarifice performance (RISC-V seems great for embedded
| but is still not there for high end workflows). To me, this
| sounds like a reasonable price for what they're providing but I
| understand it's definitely outside the price point of many but
| I must wonder if there's anything more besides price, is it
| really just that they're too expensive and this is why there's
| so little talk about it?
| h2odragon wrote:
| I have vague memories of PPC instructions _sucking_ compared
| to alpha, sparc, and x86, 20 years or more ago. I 've got no
| specific memories what my objection was; but I recall
| dropping my plans to support it as a platform after a very
| quick look at it.
|
| Perhaps it didn't have atomics at that point? That would've
| killed it for that project.
| twic wrote:
| PowerPC uses LL/SC for synchronisation, which is very
| different to the classic x86 approach. Maybe you didn't
| like that? But i think Alpha and ARM use that too.
| mdasen wrote:
| It seems unlikely that Power completely lacked atomics.
| This is a very vague recollection since it's been a long
| time, but I feel like there were some differences. I think
| PowerPC used a load-linked/store-conditional with a
| stronger guarantee than a CAS (compare and swap) on x86.
| For example, if x = 1 and you CAS it to a new value,
| another thread might have changed it to 8 and then back to
| 1 in the meantime and it'll still succeed (the ABA problem:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABA_problem).
|
| I think x86 also has a stronger memory model providing less
| flexibility, but greater consistency.
| inkyoto wrote:
| > Perhaps it didn't have atomics at that point? That
| would've killed it for that project.
|
| That would have been PPC 601 and perhaps [entry level] 603
| models. Motorola/IBM first released a single processor PPC,
| then they added support for multiprocessor systems which
| did have atomics - https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthi
| ng/20180814-00/?p=99...
|
| Other than that, I immensely enjoyed hand writing PPC
| assembly - it is a very straightforward RISC design, the
| <<rlwinm>> / <<rlwimi>> instructions are fun - once you
| figure out how to use them.
| wmf wrote:
| It's crazy expensive, Raptor torched their own roadmap, and no
| one actually needs what they're selling. (People say they do, but
| 99% of those people haven't actually bought it.)
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| > Raptor torched their own roadmap
|
| I don't think that's a fair summary; Raptor has a very specific
| product, more or less _the_ selling point of which is 100% open
| and auditable systems, so when IBM came out with POWER10 that
| bakes blobs into the system they 're stuck with completely
| switching course. That's not torching anything, it's them being
| forced to correct for external factors.
| ensignavenger wrote:
| There are some people who care, otherwise it wouldn't even be a
| thing... but as you say, it doesn't get a lot of attention. I
| think it would be interesting to hear why? Why do companies
| implementing RISC-V and actively working on developing it not
| choose OpenPOWER instead? For that matter, OpenSPARC? I am not
| well enough versed in instruction sets to really comment, but I
| would love to hear more from anyone in the know?
|
| Perhaps it is because IBM and Oracle exercise too much control
| over their architectures making it hard for a community to
| develop around them? Perhaps it is something in the licensing?
| Perhaps more fundamental problems with the design of the other
| instruction sets, making RISC-V easier a better base to improve
| on?
| ensignavenger wrote:
| I did some looking, and it appears that OpenSparc is copyleft
| (GPLv2) which, combined with Oracle Yuck, may be a huge reason
| it is held back from wider interest. However, OpenPower stuff
| seems to all be Apache licensed from their repos. I could not
| find the RISC-V license, but it appears to be extremely liberal
| as well.
| bobsmith432 wrote:
| OpenSPARC is apparently used as a base for the Elbrus CPU
| line in Russia
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elbrus-8S
|
| That specific chip I linked to the article about has the
| ability to run x86 code via translation and they claim it can
| run Windows. Guess that solves the chicken and egg issue, but
| the biggest problem is who would be willing to fab it for
| them, sad that politics and war interrupted this.
| ensignavenger wrote:
| Interesting! The article says windows XP and 7, which are
| pretty old and unsupported now. But it is a very
| interesting approach.
| dilippkumar wrote:
| IBM is currently shipping Power10 while Raptor ships Power9 in
| the Talos II. If I understand correctly, they had issues getting
| to a fully open source firmware solution for a Talos III with a
| Power10 in it.
|
| This actually made me hold off on spending $10k on a computer
| that's last-generation technology. I suspect I'm not alone - a
| lot of interest in OpenPOWER is probably waiting for Power11 and
| Talos III or whatever permutation that can ship a real product
| that isn't 5+ years old.
| bobsmith432 wrote:
| They ended up going with a different platform that's still
| newer than Power9. It's even bi-endian.
|
| https://www.talospace.com/2023/10/the-next-raptor-openpower-...
| sillywalk wrote:
| I believe it was the memory controller that needed a binary
| blob.[0]
|
| [ The next Raptor OpenPOWER systems are coming, but they won't
| be Power10 ] ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37963941 )
|
| [0] [ In the future even your RAM will have firmware; and the
| subject of POWER10 blobs ] (
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26029798 )
| chasil wrote:
| I think that POWER in gaming was drowned by AMD, and ARM
| suffocated it everywhere else.
|
| Apple dumped it because the G5 was not going to work in a laptop,
| and if it couldn't beat x86 in that space, then the M1 has closed
| that door forever.
|
| The Cell was an innovative design, but an AMD core and an ATI GPU
| on the same die was an onslaught that IBM wasn't going to
| survive.
|
| ARM has been the top supercomputer, and it runs in tiny things.
| The pervasiveness that it has came at the expense of
| architectures that were not as flexible.
| kanzure wrote:
| Here is a group that cares about OpenPOWER:
| https://diyhpl.us/wiki/transcripts/silicon-salon/libre-soc/
| kkfx wrote:
| I do care about big iron, about open hardware, but... I do not
| have the financial firepower to help developing a computer
| architecture, and buying expensive iron with limited software
| support is not much interesting. At least if some major distro do
| support OpenPower as a tier-1 arch, meaning almost all packages
| are there, updated at the same speed (almost, at least) of amd64
| well... I can buy a classic workstation and making that a main
| personal desktop. I can't do much more otherwise...
|
| PS while I prize and want open hardware I really doubt it can
| _really_ be auditable at hw level, at least for most owners, even
| if technically well skilled. Projects of a certain size can be
| known only if they are FLOSS from the first SLoC in a way a
| spread community born around them, knowing them from the start
| and passing knowledge.
| nyrikki wrote:
| Hardware Decimal floating point is very useful, both for legacy
| and new financial systems and some numerical problems you need
| improved stability on.
| snovymgodym wrote:
| The Talos stuff is cool but it's priced way too high for anyone
| who isn't taking a business expense tax deduction for it.
| Especially post 2020, the pricing for their products has gone way
| up.
|
| It's what, $6000 for the 4-core, 8GB memory entry level model?
|
| I know it isn't that insane considering what new and used POWER
| servers cost, but also is anyone using these who isn't locked
| into AIX or IBM i? Is there any real reason to use POWER when
| priced against commodity AMD64 machines?
| sillywalk wrote:
| I don't think you can run (legally) Aix on Talos. And I doubt
| you could run 'i' as it needs special firmware support.
| snovymgodym wrote:
| I'm aware, I was more asking if anyone is invested in the
| ecosystem for reasons other than being locked into
| proprietary IBM operating systems.
| bobsmith432 wrote:
| If a company is serious about making POWER based SBCs or
| motherboards that are affordable yet fast enough for enthusiasts
| (no ECC, commonly used components), there would be a lot more
| interest. The price is what would make me turn away from POWER,
| as much as I love it and the ability for it to be based on
| completely open hardware. Someone with a lot of new ideas and a
| lot of energy doing something crazy like x86 binary translation
| or a Cell-styled CPU would also bring more attention to the
| platform.
|
| RISC-V built a lot of traction very fast and was affordable and
| is now starting to be competitive with ARM, so it has different
| circumstances around it.
|
| There's a group developing a POWER based laptop with a quad-core
| NXP processor, I've been watching them since 2020 and they've
| made some pretty good progress. It even has an MXM3 slot for
| adding a dedicated video card.
|
| https://www.powerpc-notebook.org/en/
| weare138 wrote:
| This was definitely the problem. I was interested in OpenPOWER
| when it came out but there were almost no vendors in the space.
| Expensive Talos and IBM workstations and a handful of dev
| boards were pretty much it.
| duskwuff wrote:
| > There's a group developing a POWER based laptop with a quad-
| core NXP processor
|
| What I've seen from that project in the past does not fill me
| with confidence, and nothing I've seen since has changed that
| impression. Even if the project results in working hardware
| (which is uncertain), its performance is unlikely to be on par
| with expectations.
|
| Previous discussions:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23988511
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28578021
| bobsmith432 wrote:
| I have felt the same way about it a bit, and I do think they
| need to change a few things if they plan to get anywhere with
| it. I do hope though that they're able to succeed, they
| aren't stuck with that design forever and what they learned
| could be applied to a successor model. They should really
| consider partnering or merging with Raptor Computing, the
| last thing the scarce POWER market needs is more
| fragmentation.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| > RISC-V built a lot of traction very fast and was affordable
| and is now starting to be competitive with ARM, so it has
| different circumstances around it.
|
| And, N=1, for all that I'm default-interested in new / less
| common CPU options, RISC-V only recently became really
| interesting with the availability decent-enough Linux-capable
| hardware <$100. This especially matters when it's competing
| against a plethora of sub-$100 ARM SBCs.
| E39M5S62 wrote:
| It's simply too expensive. People that want to play around with a
| non-x86_64 system can buy one of a thousand different ARM devices
| and get all sorts of software running on it. If you want POWER,
| you're buying old datacenter gear with all the downsides of that
| class of hardware - or you're buying a Raptor system where the
| price has skyrocketed in recent years for aging hardware.
|
| I pre-ordered a Blackbird motherboard and 32 thread CPU and got
| it in 2019. I used it as my main workstation until 2022 and then
| decided I'd had enough fighting the software ecosystem. I still
| have the machine because I've regretted selling other odd
| hardware in the past ... especially my dual 133mhz BeBox.
| johnklos wrote:
| This. There are no inexpensive Power SBCs like we have for ARM
| and RISC-V. Heck, even MIPS has ways to buy and run
| inexpensively (I run NetBSD on Ubiquiti Edgerouter hardware,
| for instance).
|
| If we could have a low end, quad core 2 GHz Power SBC with 4
| gigs for $80 and a microATX motherboard with 16 cores at, say,
| around 4.5 GHz for under $500, the ecosystem would be VASTLY
| different.
|
| Right now, all of my PowerPC work is on an old 1.5 GHz PowerPC
| G4 Mac mini and on an even older first generation iMac upgraded
| with a 600 MHz PowerPC G3. It'd be nice to have new hardware
| that didn't cost more than a decked out Ryzen 7950X3D system.
| alfalfasprout wrote:
| This. And that extends to the datacenter too.
|
| So, why spend all the time improving compiler outputs for a
| platform that doesn't have that much traction or perceived
| potential?
| SpecialistK wrote:
| I suspect IBM opened up the ISA (and some hardware designs)
| because they were quickly losing market relevance. Apple and
| gaming have moved on, new projects will use Arm or RISC-V, so the
| only markets I can think of are:
|
| * automotive and other legacy embedded applications
|
| * data centers with existing POWER applications
|
| * niche workstations like the Talos
|
| I do enjoy alternative ISAs, so I'd love to be wrong on this.
| bobsmith432 wrote:
| Gaming still may be interested if there's compelling enough
| options to get a leg up over the competition. The PS4/XBONE and
| PS5/XSX were both identical hardware, but that's starting to
| drift away with the PS5 Pro and the recently leaked portable
| Xbox. Who knows, x86 performance may hit another dead end for a
| while like it did the early 2010s and ARM may not fit their
| performance profile. I would mention Nintendo but sadly I don't
| see them making another non-portable console.
| SpecialistK wrote:
| I won't deny that it's possible, but I think it's unlikely.
| The introduction of AMD SoCs like the Steam Deck and Z1
| suggest that a portable Xbox is possible with much less
| overhead than switching ISA (again)
|
| I'm not even sure if the performance race is going to endure
| - Sony continues to hold the home console crown, Nintendo
| prints money with their hugely outdated Switch, and Microsoft
| appear to be pivoting to publishing more than a console
| exclusivity race they will probably never win ("going Sega")
|
| As you said, the future of x86 isn't guaranteed, but if I
| were calling shots I'd look at Arm designs with embedded
| graphics like Exynos and Snapdragon before trying to build a
| fully custom design based on POWER and graphics from
| elsewhere (probably still AMD, and that single-source has
| been compelling enough to adopt even while the CPU
| performance was lackluster)
| bobsmith432 wrote:
| I think a relatively substantial issue with swapping ISA is
| the software library, which is what's kept Intel in
| business all these years. Older/retro games is a large part
| of gaming, and being able to play 15+ year old PC games
| easily with a single download and no kajoogling is a major
| 1-up for the Steam Deck, especially when some games have
| better compatibility under Wine than Windows 11.
|
| The Xbox Series consoles are capable of playing a select
| portion OG Xbox and Xbox 360 games almost natively, while
| presumably playing Xbox 360 games via an emulator, but they
| stopped adding new games to their backwards compatibility
| program for some god unknown reason despite the fact they
| were some of the best selling on the platform, but to me it
| seems like Microsoft wants to shift literally everything to
| the cloud, starting from Xbox and eventually getting to
| Windows somewhere down the line, which scares me honestly.
| Sun said the network is the computer, but I'm sure they
| meant a network you controlled, not goddamn Microsoft.
| SpecialistK wrote:
| I believe the issue with backwards compatibility was
| licensing, especially for games like JSRF that Phil
| Spencer explicitly wanted to add.
|
| The 360 games I've played BC on a Bone have downloaded
| the whole game onto disk, even with the original DVD in
| the drive so I'm not sure how much they're changing
| behind the scenes.
|
| Regardless, I share the sentiment that running everything
| on Microsoft's infrastructure is a troubling trend. I
| like xCloud for managing JRPG inventory on the bus, or
| demoing a game before I commit to the full download, but
| it's no replacement for local gaming and it shouldn't be
| pushed as such.
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| OpenPOWER has no advantages over RISC-V. The performance is going
| to be the same given the same level of investment into the
| silicon design. These are just ISAs, and a lot more goes into CPU
| design to make them fast.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| It's possible that OpenPOWER has no advantages _today_ , but I
| remain curious how we got here; my understanding is that POWER
| and SPARC both had open source versions before RISC-V was
| created, so why didn't those get picked up but RISC-V did?
| ilc wrote:
| SPARC is a neat ISA, but the concept at the core: register
| windows, did not take off.
|
| OpenPOWER: It may have to do with the size of the ISA when it
| started to be open.
|
| RISC-V, when announced was a small ISA. That means making
| chips is easier.
|
| It could just be the new hawtness effect. Look at how many
| people use NoSQL when SQL would work just fine ;).
| MassPikeMike wrote:
| One very interesting project built on OpenPOWER, but with unique
| vector extensions, is LibreSOC, https://libre-soc.org/. It
| promises to be fully open hardware as well.
| brucehoult wrote:
| I have very low confidence that it will ever be anything but
| vapour, given the project leader's previous record e.g. this
| project fully funded in August 2016 and not yet delivered 7 1/2
| years later.
|
| https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68/micro-desktop
|
| The project updates (last one in 2020) are painful to read.
|
| A competent outfit such as Pine64 or Sipeed can knock a project
| like this out in 6 months. They could have been subcontracted
| given the $234k raised.
| MisterTea wrote:
| > is there something I'm missing?
|
| Affordable, mature hardware. The Talos systems are starting at 3k
| for a quad core CPU on a micro ATX board. Same thing happened to
| MIPS and Sparc. Performance and technical merit mean nothing vs
| cheap and ubiquitous hardware. It's a lot of cash for a what
| amounts to an experimental toy. They are also a bit finicky as a
| friend bought one from another dev that refuses to post for
| unknown reasons. So there is risk involved too, no one else is
| making these boards.
|
| The performance gaps and architectural features that made these
| chips matter 20 years ago have been closed by commodity off the
| shelf x86 hardware and various Arm CPU's are eating everything.
|
| The only reason Risc-V matters is that no one has to pay for
| licenses.
| russell_h wrote:
| I always assumed that Google was putting just enough money into
| OpenPOWER to keep the vendors interested, as a means of gaining
| leverage when negotiating with Intel.
|
| I haven't kept up, but competition from AMD, ARM and RISC-V all
| probably fit that need now.
| treffer wrote:
| OpenPOWER happened a few years after Apple finished the
| transition to Intel.
|
| The whole architecture is niche since then.
|
| Linus Torvalds has a very interesting POV why x86 won. "Develop
| at home" issues. You are going to deploy to a system that is
| similar to what you built on. If you run x86 then you'll deploy
| to x86. And he points to that as the reason for x86 servers.
|
| Home is today a x86 or arm computer (arm if you like Apple),
| perhaps some SBCs (usually arm, perhaps some mips), and some IOT
| (often esps, so xtensa / risc-v) plus some router/wifi device
| (arm).
|
| RISC-V is scaling up on that axis. It is killing other ecosystems
| for embedded/iot. It's becoming useful for SBCs and low end
| desktop boards are on the horizon.
|
| That's the scaling path that works. You are $20 away from trying
| it out. And it can scale all the way to an affordable desktop
| soon (Milk-V).
|
| It's IMHO not "a lot of energy on RISC-V", it's a quickly growing
| user base. OpenPOWER lost that.
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