IBM Continues Advancing PowerPC For Linux

[phoronix]

Phoronix: IBM Continues Advancing PowerPC For Linux

Beyond the exciting x86 architecture changes that are always under the microscope for the Linux kernel, and lately the great ARM work, IBM has an interesting set of POWER architecture changes for Linux 3.11...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTQwMzA

[Dukenukemx]

I have a PowerBook G4 with Ubuntu 12.04 running on it, and I wonder if any of this will be able to benefit it. IBM should really think about other ways to bring PowerPC to the consumer. Besides hoping for Apple to crawl back to them.

[garegin]

why the hell should Apple do that? The contrarian stance that Apple took against Intel was stupid to begin with. Intel has been serving them fine and dandy. Unless magic happens and IBM suddenly makes CPUs that are overall (all factors considered) better than Intel, things are gonna stay the same for a long time.
I found this article which is quite amusing

[89c51]

why the hell should Apple do that? The contrarian stance that Apple took against Intel was stupid to begin with. Intel has been serving them fine and dandy. Unless magic happens and IBM suddenly makes CPUs that are overall (all factors considered) better than Intel, things are gonna stay the same for a long time.
I found this article which is quite amusing

I kind of have a hunch that apple will go full ARM and with processors designed in Cupertino at some point in the future. Total control.

[schmidtbag]

I kind of have a hunch that apple will go full ARM and with processors designed in Cupertino at some point in the future. Total control.

I wouldn't be surprised if that were true, but I don't think it'll happen. Not for a while anyway.

[garegin]

I kind of have a hunch that apple will go full ARM and with processors designed in Cupertino at some point in the future. Total control.

expect that Apple knows squat about making CPUs. The R&D for new CPU lines is herculean. You can't just put on a turtleneck and willy nily beat Intel at their game. If they do, they eventually fall behind, badly.

[iniudan]

I have a PowerBook G4 with Ubuntu 12.04 running on it, and I wonder if any of this will be able to benefit it. IBM should really think about other ways to bring PowerPC to the consumer. Besides hoping for Apple to crawl back to them.

Why would IBM care about that ? They are doing everything they can to themselves stay out of the consumer market these day, if their solution end up in consumer market it only because some enterprise consulted them for a consumer product.

[garegin]

I found this article amusing.

http://www.techbroil.com/2011/11/ser...d-problem.html

[Ibidem]

except that Apple knows squat about making CPUs. The R&D for new CPU lines is herculean. You can't just put on a turtleneck and willy nily beat Intel at their game. If they do, they eventually fall behind, badly.

Apple bought out Intrinsity and have been designing their own ARM SoCs for mobile devices for quite a while.

[liam]

expect that Apple knows squat about making CPUs. The R&D for new CPU lines is herculean. You can't just put on a turtleneck and willy nily beat Intel at their game. If they do, they eventually fall behind, badly.

They could buy the expertise they need.
They've got so much liquidity that there's not much they couldn't do, but they would need to show that the VAST expense to be worth it.
They could try buying IBMs Hudson Valley fab. That's a state of the art facility and I'd heard that IBM was considering unloading it.
Next they'd need to buy lcd panel maker and actual manufacturing facilities to assemble the components to fully verticalize (yeah, I made that a verb).
This would cost tons, but they could do it.