[geeks] Opinions on the HP C3x00?

[nate at portents.com]

> They do pull a lot when they're full of cards and under a load, but I
> doubt they pull anywhere near 805W with just a framebuffer and disk
> under moderate loads.

I'd assume they wouldn't pull that much, but I was more concerned I guess
with how loud they are (i.e. would you keep one running in a bedroom
overnight?)

> Be aware that 64-bitness isn't well-exploited on hppa on Linux.  Also be
> aware that BSD doesn't run on hppa very well yet (none at all on the
> PA8700 systems, as far as I know), so your only options are Linux and
> PHUX.

Yeah, I have a C360 around which I'll be running 32-bit OpenBSD on at some
point.

> I would suspect (but am by no means certain) that any exotic video
> hardware will be thoroughly unsupported on any OS other then PHUX.

Yeah, I just discovered this:

http://www.parisc-linux.org/hardware/supported.html
"Most standard HP graphic cards work (Visualize-EG, Artist, HCRX, ...) in
8 and 24bpp modes. Support for the Vis-FX series is still missing. A few
issues remain with Frame Buffer (graphics support) on some machines (eg
C3000/J5000) with a 64bit Linux Kernel but are being worked on."

http://www.pateam.org/list.html
"He explained us later that only VIS-EG graphics are supported in
framebuffer. FX cards aren't, and you have just STI_CONSOLE working on
these boxes, including B2000 and B1000, so don't expect to see X running
there."

> If you're looking for a good Unix workstation, I feel your pain.  SPARCs
> have slow consoles, SGIs are loud and expensive and power-hungry and
> tend to be IRIX-only, IBMs are loud and expensive.  IBMs and HPs look to
> be among the best performers, but you can really only get decent
> workstation performance out of them if you run AIX[0] or PHUX,
> respectively.

I also have a 200Mhz R4400 SGI Indy, which now appears to be fully
supported (including framebuffer!) by NetBSD and Linux (though not the
GIO32 Fast Ethernet card, unfortunately).  And considering I have an
Indigo2 R10000 with Max Impact and a gig of RAM, I can't say I'd need two
machines running IRIX, especially when the only thing the Indy has over
the Indigo2 is the Indycam (I have a GIO64 Fast Ethernet card in the
Indigo2).

> I finally gave up and bought a Mac, which serves me very well.  It's
> quite a shame that the new ones are mere PCs w/ digital restrictions
> management built into the hardware.

Yeah, I'm going to continue using my heavily upgraded G4 desktop as my
main machine for quite a while, I think.

>> And what type of memory is "278-pin 120MHz ECC SDRAM DIMM"?
>
> I think that describes the memory in question very well.  What more
> would you want to know?

Ah, well I guess I haven't encountered that memory type before (or have
I?)  Does anyone other than HP use that memory type?

- Nate