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Re: New POWER9 machines for the Guix build farm?
From: |
Marco van Hulten |
Subject: |
Re: New POWER9 machines for the Guix build farm? |
Date: |
Fri, 29 Nov 2019 13:50:59 +0100 |
Hello—
On 29 Nov 09:25 dftxbs3e wrote:
> I'm really happy to hear this! I also do own a POWER9 machine.
>
> I have a Talos II with 2x 8 SMT4 cores POWER9 DD2.2 CPUs (64 threads),
> 64GB of RAM and an AMD WX7100 GPU (amdgpu libre driver).
>
> I run Fedora on it since more than a year now, it's been my main
> workstation without any major issue.
It's great to hear of such an experience! I have an amd64 server at
home that makes quite a bit of noise and, standing next to the server,
an amd64 workstation that makes even more noise, both of which are over
10 years old. I am considering replacing both systems for a single
Talos II.
According to the mainboard specifications [1], Ethernet is driven by a
proprietary chip (Broadcom BCM5719). Is there libre firmware that is
shown to work reliably?
I guess it should be because it is FSF-certified to Respect Your
Freedom, but could someone confirm this specifically for the network
interface?
[1]: https://wiki.raptorcs.com/wiki/Talos_II
> I'm happy to provide assistance, I encourage GNU Guix developers to join
> #talos-workstation on Freenode's IRC, we have a friendly active
> community that is always happy to help on POWER9 matters.
Fantastic to see this work out!
The other free modern architecture, RISC-V, is that like a sort of
competitor of POWER9? Or is it more like Talos II being the obvious
choice for a server (and workstation) because it is available now/more
established?
—Marco