Linux 2.6.36-rc5 Kernel Released; Fixes 14 Year Old Bug

[V!NCENT]

Alpha is about the nicest instruction set ever designed. Check it out if that sentence means anything to you.

RISC. Yes RISC. It's the future of computing, and you know it!

[mattst88]

RISC. Yes RISC. It's the future of computing, and you know it!

Where did I say it was the future of computing? I said it was a nice instruction set, which it is.

[V!NCENT]

Where did I say it was the future of computing? I said it was a nice instruction set, which it is.

I was making a joke, if that wasn't fscking obvious...

Dunno if that Alpha of yours can only run Lynx but there was a big grin- and sarcasm emoticon there...

[bridgman]

RISC *is* the future of computing. It's just a lot more convenient if the RISC processors are hidden behind an x86 instruction decoder

[devius]

RISC *is* the future of computing. It's just a lot more convenient if the RISC processors are hidden behind an x86 instruction decoder

AFAIK, all x86 cpus since the pentium pro have internal RISC units or something like that. The PS1 and Sega Saturn both had RISC cpus, so you know RISC has to be a good thing

Maybe in another 14 years (in kernel 2.6.397) they will fix some of today's bugs on x86. Of course by then no one will use x86 cpus anyway.

[smitty3268]

A lot of the Alpha designers ended up going to AMD and helped design the original K8 (Athlon 64), if my memory serves correctly. Some very smart guys.

[mattst88]

Dirk Meyer, the current CEO of AMD, was actually the co-architect of the EV4 and EV6 Alpha processors.

Before DEC/Compaq started its downward spiral, there were plans for a single motherboard/chipset to be able to support both Alpha and AMD CPUs. Remember Slot-A Athlons? Well, there were Slot-B Alphas, and Alpha motherboards using AMD chipsets.

Too bad they never got to the stage of producing motherboards that could actually swap CPU architectures.

Check out links listed here for more info: http://alphalinux.org/wiki/index.php/Press_Coverage

There are lots of other cool AMD-Alpha related things that I'll let you discover on your own.

[bridgman]

Dirk Meyer, the current CEO of AMD, was actually the co-architect of the EV4 and EV6 Alpha processors.

Bingo. Dirk is running AMD now.

It's pretty neat having a company this big run by a CPU architect... the executive meetings are actually interesting for a change

[V!NCENT]

RISC *is* the future of computing. It's just a lot more convenient if the RISC processors are hidden behind an x86 instruction decoder

Care to explain why it can't run RISC directly? Since I am using Linux with FLOSS drivers anyway, I would like it if I could just flip a switch in the BIOS saying; RISC.

[devius]

Care to explain why it can't run RISC directly? Since I am using Linux with FLOSS drivers anyway, I would like it if I could just flip a switch in the BIOS saying; RISC.

Probably there's just one way in for the instructions to the processor, so they have to go through the x86 decoder and as such must be in CISC form. I'm no expert, but I think RISC and CISC refer to the design of the chip and how it does things, so you can't really convert a CISC cpu into a RISC one just by toggling an option in the bios. If you want Linux on a RISC cpu get yourself an Alpha, or something more pratical like anything with an ARM cpu in it or a pre-intel Macintosh (PowerPC only, motorola 68K is CISC). The Wii, XBOX360 and PS2/3 all use RISC cpus as well and I think you can run Linux on those.