Raptor's Blackbird micro-ATX POWER9 System Is Ready To Take Flight This Week

[angrypie]

I've read that Fedora may have dropped their work on Power9, but not sure.

ppc64 (big endian) is on maintenance mode (no new features, but will remain available). ppc64le is still fully supported.

https://lists.fedoraproject.org/arch...LJC5ABXY2XIEM/

[beep]

Please test the noise levels (idle, max load) too.
Would like to know if I can put it under my desk to replace my homeserver.

[Buntolo]

Why dual gigabit Ethernet and only 2x DIMM slots?

[starshipeleven]

Please test the noise levels (idle, max load) too.
Would like to know if I can put it under my desk to replace my homeserver.

That's a cooler thing.

[beep]

Yes I mean the stock cooler which is part of the bundle and the only one available on their website.
I could not find any information so I hope to maybe get some news from the upcoming review.
Of course you are right that this is not 100% related but maybe in combinations with other metrics like thermal.

[starshipeleven]

Yes I mean the stock cooler which is part of the bundle and the only one available on their website.
I could not find any information

I would not really think the stock fan (AVC DASA0820R2U) is silent, especially because it's a 80mm server fan trying to cool a desktop processor that can reach 160w of tdp.

Still, this isn't particularly hard job for midrange x86 air coolers.

madscientist159
do you know if there are conversion kits to adapt normal heatsinks or other heatsinks for the IBM Power9 socket?

[c117152]

Could you also test:
AlpineLinux: https://alpinelinux.org
ArchLinux: https://archlinuxpower.org
CentOS: https://www.centos.org

Now that IBM bought Red Hat there's no reason for them to spend resources on it and its derivatives directly.

Alpine is pointless for a high-end workstation.

Unfortunately, Arch would take considerable resources for very little returns over Fedora.

Anyhow, the wiki mentions WIP NixOS and GuixSD. The latter especially is VERY appealing.

[jtoaspern]

Could you also test:
AlpineLinux: https://alpinelinux.org
ArchLinux: https://archlinuxpower.org
CentOS: https://www.centos.org

Parabola would make more sense than Arch though

[fuzz]

Gentoo?

[Tomin]

Why dual gigabit Ethernet and only 2x DIMM slots?

Cost. I'm pretty sure that it is much more expensive to design a board with more DIMM slots than with more ethernet ports. The number of traces needed alone is much higher and not to mention the signaling requirements for the higher frequency of DDR4.

At first I also thought that it's odd that there are only two DIMM slots but then I read the specs. Those slots can already fit 256 GB of memory which is not that bad. A more expensive board can fit more memory but that much memory is not cheap anyway so it's probably not the largest extra cost then. This is the more affordable POWER9 board with low volume so they had to do compromises to keep the price down. Higher volume manufactures (which sell x86 boards) can do better because design and other such expenses are shared.