POWER8 Talos Workstation Drops Price Slightly, Long Way From Being Funded

[wizard69]

I invested about 1500 Euro into Librem 13 and Neo900. And it's end for me as an investor in free hardware/software in a disaster. So I'm not willing to pay just one cent into crowdfunding campains who praise the hell but deliver nothing

The market just isn't big enough and further most of the hardware initiatives I've seen over the years are simply ill conceived and wouldn't meet my needs. I won't invest in something that won't meet my needs and frankly don't understand why anybody else would.

I'd love to see somebody come out with a open ARM based laptop running Linux (not the google crap) but nobody has the resources to do so apparently. Sad really.

[wizard69]

Raspi is great, they have the fastest I/O with the mSATA SSD shield and being non-profit makes their work ethical.

That is the most asinine statement I've ever seen, being non profit does not make you ethical. In fact considering the number of non profits out there with really shoddy characters running them I'd have to say being a non profit seems to attract the unethical.

They can donate money to cure AIDS in Africa like most non-profits. The board is also fully 64-bit and utilizes the 64 bit capabilities fully, they have a 100% free bootloader and free, greatest GPU drivers. The RPi zero is the cheapest SBC ever with its $5 price. Imagine if there was a $7 computer with $2 shipping costs. It would be more expensive than $5 RPi zero with its $5 shipping costs. $10 < $9. So, there are so many great reasons to use and buy RPi. I probably forgot a lot of things. Like the great support. No other SBC supports I2C, I2S, SPDIF, USB, Ethernet, Wifi, Bluetooth, 5V power. No other board has noob friendly forums and the greatest gurus working on their platforms. It's the bestest support.

Are you even aware of all the other hardware out there? I'm not knocking the "PI" boards just that you seem to have drank the cool aid and are ready to lie down.

[Geopirate]

I think the other problem is AMD has new chips coming out in a few months and they seem to be increasingly open source friendly the last few years. What are the odds of a mostly free modern AMD system being viable off the shelf by the time they ship these POWER systems for a price competitive with a Xeon?

[starshipeleven]

What are the odds of a mostly free modern AMD system being viable off the shelf by the time they ship these POWER systems for a price competitive with a Xeon?

Rather low. x86 is going to use UEFI and blobs because either Intel or copyright lobbies mandate it for DRM, AMD cannot just say "no". Also probably their ARM.

[Brane215]

This thing is "Titanic". Or worse. It could very well die even before maiden voyage. Power8 is pointless now that Power9 is about to come out, not to mention its competition ( Zen, Xeons etcetc).

Had IBM thought that Power8 has some chance in the general public, it would release a board long ago. They might have such plans for Power9, which would simply obliterate this project and in very short order- Power9 is practically around the corner.

[mparnaudeau]

I really doubt IBM will ever give a damn, sadly.

They are active in the high and very high end server market for specific applications (that are optimized for POWER), making entry-level boards for a few hippies that can't pay a few measly thousand dollars for a board makes no sense from their POV.

I also think that's sad. And more that few hippies, having a development workstation would be great if they want developers or companies help to grow the ecosystem. Such a machine would also be better for demos, with a full Linux distro, to show capabilities.

[starshipeleven]

This thing is "Titanic". Or worse. It could very well die even before maiden voyage. Power8 is pointless now that Power9 is about to come out, not to mention its competition ( Zen, Xeons etcetc).

Had IBM thought that Power8 has some chance in the general public, it would release a board long ago. They might have such plans for Power9, which would simply obliterate this project and in very short order- Power9 is practically around the corner.

Why all the times I see "power9 is around the corner" I feel the pressing need to shout at people?

They are doing the campaign NOW with what there is NOW and prices of POWER8 (and info and stuff to make boards with it) are likely going to be more available/ affordable than POWER9, which is the whole point of this project.

[starshipeleven]

I also think that's sad. And more that few hippies, having a development workstation would be great if they want developers or companies help to grow the ecosystem. Such a machine would also be better for demos, with a full Linux distro, to show capabilities.

The need for libre is mostly confined to a few hippies in our modern world. Everyone else is OK with x86 and its limitations.

[darkbasic]

I invested about 1500 Euro into Librem 13[...]

Your fault, Librem 13 was known for not being libre since the beginning.

[kgardas]

Honestly speaking I admire the work performed by the company. After providing libre x86 boards they started to lurk into POWER domain, but I'm afraid this is going to fail miserably. There are few tides running against them: (1) POWER9 notes in news, although misleading since POWER9 may also be provided only to selected customers (google) and general public may not get this for years, (2) AMD Zen is around the corner, (3) they don't like it, but ARMv8 is getting more and more powerful, (4) generic IBM's driven OpenPOWER movement is not that powerful as they would need.
So please Raptor Engineering, provide us with libre version of AMD Zen or Intel Xeon E3 or even Xeon E5 board and I'll be your customer. Do the same for X-Gene future chip or Cavium Thunder and I'll be probably too. POWER8 is unfortunately too little and too late to the party...
BTW: I'm curious why it's not possible to do libre board from Intel/AMD offerings when google do that for their Chromebooks? Thanks!