From: Joe Keane (jgk@jgk.org)
Subject: Re: Widening the x86/PII architecture to 64bits: Good idea?
Date: 1998/12/11
Message-ID: <74qo0e$19r$1@rocky.jgk.org>
Newsgroups: comp.arch                                            

MkLinux is dead now.  LinuxPPC is a more interesting question.

In my opinion, PowerPC will be useful as a `general computing' platform
as soon as you can get CHRP machines from several major vendors.    

Motorola seems to be going more for the embedded market rather than
`general computing'.  And there's nothing wrong with that; there will
always be lots of people buying things like iMacs and Nintendos.
    
Of course most people are running on some sort of x86 machine.  I think
this will be true for a while.  They work pretty well and they're cheap.
It sounds simple enough, but it's hard to beat that combination.
   
The 64-bit issue is on the horizon, and it's definitely important to
some people, but it's still a while before that becomes something really 
critical to the average guy.
   
Alpha is hanging in there, due to technical superiority and despite    
DEC's competence in marketing.  Compaq seems to be doing OK with it.

I think the Alphas are more like nuclear weapons.  You don't use them    
every day, but it's good to know they're there if you really need them.
   
Binary compatibility is something, but overall it's not that critical.

If you look at what really people want, it's a bunch of simple things.
The machine doesn't crash.  It runs Apache, it runs Perl, it runs their
SQL database.  The file system looks the same, config files work the
same, admin tools look the same.  The options to `ps' are the same.
People get root with sendmail the same way.                        

I guess the point is, computer architecture is dumb.

Who cares about it.                                                    

--                                                              
Joe Keane, amateur mathematician