Linux 6.7 Set To Drop Support For Itanium IA-64

[Democrab]

AMD based the opteron bus off of some of that alpha IP

Close, AMD straight up licensed the Alpha 21264 (Or EV6) bus for use on Slot A and Socket A/462, which had Athlons, Durons and Semprons but predated the Opteron.

Pretty sure there were some Alpha servers that came with an AMD 750 or AMD 760 chipset because of that shared bus as well, makes me wonder if it'd be possible to make a Alpha 21264 motherboard with an nForce2 or VIA KT600/KT880 chipset.

[bofkentucky]

Kinda makes me wonder how much HP benefitted from the IA-64 contract. I'm guessing Intel put very little investment in improving the architecture; I wouldn't be surprised if they basically just upgraded the node, gave it some higher clock speeds, maybe thrown in a little more cache, and sold it for a massive profit. Since there was effectively only one customer, Intel had no reason to market this or have retail models, which would have only further increased their profit margin. Intel would only have to produce as many as HP requested, which meant Intel would have no leftover inventory.
So, it all came down to being just HP dealing with the expenses of keeping this architecture alive. Makes me wonder if it would have been cheaper for them to have just cut out the middleman by buying the architecture and a couple engineers from Intel. Or... if they both mutually agreed to cancel the contract. I figure the few remaining HP customers who use it aren't worth maintaining the architecture, even if HP were to get sued.

If HP had any brains they would have ported HP-UX to Alpha which they had acquired instead of selling off the IP. AMD based the opteron bus off of some of that alpha IP

[jabl]

https://www.kernel.org/category/releases.html 6.7 dropping IA-64 means you still have the Linux 6.1 LTS to Dec, 2026 before start having issue kernel without security updates . Of course that could be longer if some Extended LTS group decides to pick it up.

6.6 will likely become a longterm release, pushing the EOL date to end of 2027.

[oiaohm]

https://www.kernel.org/category/releases.html 6.7 dropping IA-64 means you still have the Linux 6.1 LTS to Dec, 2026 before start having issue kernel without security updates . Of course that could be longer if some Extended LTS group decides to pick it up.

[rene]

I guess there is at least one Linux distribution we can count on continuing IA-64 support: https://t2sde.org ;-)

[oiaohm]

IANAL but I don't think you can really have "uncancelable" contract. At worst, it's cancelable but the cancellation fee is just set so high that cancellation is not practical so no one will cancel. (But then, there are things like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_two-step_bankruptcy ...)

There is such a thing as what classed as "uncancelable" contract. In the Intel-HP case is HP put up the money for the fab that was being used to build the chips. Intel attempts to cancel contract the terms is Intel has to give up the IP to make the chip and the Fab to make it and the income the Fab has generated on other products in other words ouch.

Another name for these "uncancelable" contract is "secured creditor contract". These secured creditor contracts process automatically as soon as you apply for bankruptcy with the secured creditors getting everything their contracts says they will one way or the other before any other creditor gets anything. There is no way out of a secured creditor contract that is valid legally other than completed. Secured creditor contract cannot be canceled they can only be completed. Of course all parties in a secure creditor contract could agree to declare the contract completed without everything in the secured creditor contract being done.

[uxmkt]

Makes me wonder if it would have been cheaper for (HP) have just [..] mutually agree to cancel the contract. I figure the few remaining HP customers who use it aren't worth maintaining the architecture [for], even if HP were to get sued.

IANAL but I don't think you can really have "uncancelable" contract. At worst, it's cancelable but the cancellation fee is just set so high that cancellation is not practical so no one will cancel. (And then one can also thinking about splitting the company and and possibly letting the spinoff go bankrupt in short order. There's even https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_two-step_bankruptcy I found...)

[mercster]

“LINUX ON YOUR TOASTER”. Now even the Revolution Smart Toaster doesn’t have a working Linux build…

We have now moved from “Linux on everything” to some grumpy goose being all like “FiNaLLy RiD of CrUfTy CruFt”.

ROFL... exactly. "Get rid of this useless crap!" 😂 And I'm in no position to complain. I only lament.

[Eirikr1848]

Yeah. And look, I'm not some GNU fanatic Stallman-type. It's an overall plus that big companies got behind Linux and it has corporate support and all that. It kinda has to, there's no way pure volunteers could keep it where it needs to be to be as powerful as it is in today's ecosystems. But it's different... before it was some idealistic "Let's support everything and give everyone freedom!" vibe, and now.... there are costs involved. It is just the way of things, I suppose.

That's why I said, I'm not expecting the kernel devs (to whom I freely admit I have nothing to offer) to carry this on their back but, there must be some kind of... I dunno. Just kinda let it limp along. I have a feeling they look at lots of automatic unit tests and get aggravated when something in that tree gives them a headache. I dunno. I'm guessing.

Oh also. As someone who spent way too much on Itanium hardware in 2021 for personal use trying to get something that was non-x86 to use with Radeon VII cards for compute I like… super regret my choices. Shoulda gone Epyc or even POWER. Shoulda gone Nvidia. Alas.

So. I would be the first (probz only) to enjoy that limp-along support

[Eirikr1848]

Yeah, I understand that. Again, this is more an emotional response than anything... the world's in a different place. I remember back then, interested hackers would KILL to get some piece of rare/expensive hardware so they could port Linux. It didn't matter that it was economically justifiable. People would donate to a skilled hacker, so he could buy... oh I dunno, some weird expensive enterprise-level architecture, so that they could get to work porting Linux to it. Now, I guess hardware is much less heterogenous and all the diversity is in software.

Like I said, no judgement here. Just... sad to me. Crying over spilled milk that noone's missing, probably.

“LINUX ON YOUR TOASTER”. Now even the Revolution Smart Toaster doesn’t have a working Linux build…

We have now moved from “Linux on everything” to some grumpy goose being all like “FiNaLLy RiD of CrUfTy CruFt”.