Dave Miller, the lead programmer for Linux on Sun's Sparc processors, wrote on his blog on Friday that he has fired up the open source operating system on Sun's new UltraSparc T1 Niagara-based server. The move is an early milestone in Sun's effort, not just to make Linux functioning on its Sparc-based computers, but also to foster a useful software environment for Linux on Sparc.
In his blog, Miller published a log showing Linux recognised the system as a 32-processor machine with the words, "total of 32 processors activated". The appearance of 32 separate processors for a single chip derives from the fact that the UltraSparc T1 has eight cores, each able to handle four threads.
The boot didn't go entirely swimmingly, however: Later in the process, the file system caused a kernel panic.
The Linux-on-Sparc project is just one facet of Sun's bid to restore relevance and financial success by trying to make its technology the foundation of an open source computing world.
Other parts of the effort include making Solaris, into an open source project called OpenSolaris. And it's making the UltraSparc T1 an open source chip, releasing the chip design under the General Public Licence and many details this week.
Last week, Sun's President, Jonathan Schwartz, also touted the company's release of chip details that will be useful for the Linux work, as well as for a parallel effort involving BSD.
Sun's Linux-on-Sparc effort provides new rivals to bring Linux to IBM's Power processors and Intel's Itanium, two server-chip lines that compete against Sun's Sparc family. But many are sceptical that the Linux-on-Sparc project will ever be significant. The top two Linux sellers, Red Hat and Novell, have no plans to resurrect their Sparc versions, for example.
Miller, however, hopes Sun's UltraSparc T1 systems will help reverse that opinion.
One of Miller's goals with the Niagara work is to "reinject some life into sparc64 port", according to a presentation he gave in January at an Australian Linux conference.
Miller also said he hopes to have Linux working at a basic interaction level by mid-February and have a "reasonably stable" version of Linux by midsummer.
"Most of the sparc64 port is up to snuff," he said in the presentation, but added, "As with any significant new platform, some non-trivial changes are needed."
This is great news for Sun.
Our customers purchase Sun equipment for mission critical business and online systems.
Other systems, mostly in-house, run on Intel hardware.
The value add from Sun is that the new AMD based hardware (not the SPARC kit) can run Solaris, Linux and Windows Server.
Sun has reduced the risk of buying dedicated kit that can only sun Solaris, which means our customers will keep buying Sun gear.