IBM

True. But at the amount I paid for my quad G5, I sure would have wanted more than 1MB L2 per core (and no L3 at all). Even with that it does pretty good, considering.

Just as helpful info for people going to use similar machine.

I managed to install debian on it - there is some messing with boot-loader - as installer is trying to do it MAC way and expects formatted boot partition,
We need to have raw boot partition with boot-loader image dd'ed to it. everything works fine than.
I hope they will be able to fix it quick since its nothing serious.

Ofcourse it is nice to have some modern graphics card - the IBM issued matrox G-450 - does not work (bug in the matrox driver on PPC platform) neither the expensive adapters. Anyway they were so rare and designed with specific application in mind that there wont be much joy anyway.

Good news: old good Radeon 7000 - PCI PowerMac version is fully supported by this machine from boot-time - console support - basically 100% since it has OpenFirmware ROM. No hacking required, no boot-time mode-setting, nothing just plug-in the card and select it as the active console (do it manually form sms menu). Sourced on ebay for 15$.
So yes Radeon 7000 Mac edition is fully supported on on IBM Power

Sound card works, everything else works fine - this is very power-full workstation now. I find AIX to be more interesting but.... try to watch a video on it
or try to use the sound card that was sold with the machine, With aix I could only use it as file server or FTP really. Its like having Ferrari but being only able to look at it running idle

I will be happy to answer any questions

Another thing:

This machine is for sure the most complicated one I had so far.
I bought the raid enabler card for it (works fine)
And also wanted to add more HDs - so ordered a second scsi backplane type 32N1203
its exactly the same as the one for the first four harddrives but the machine wont boot:
it goes through some early init and back to standby.
there is a very similar machine (same motherboard and case) just horizontaly rack mounted
IBM 9111-520 and it can hold 8 HDs for sure with two backplanes.
Would anyone know if I need to change something in the settings
Or is it somehow disabled for marketing reasons on 9111-285
(which is the same machine just standing vertically) as it was meant to be a workstation.
This doc shows the machine equipped with 8 HDs so I hope its possible:
http://pic.dhe.ibm.com/infocenter/power ... olving.pdf

Any help appreciated thx.

jeremy123 wrote: the IBM issued matrox G-450 - does not work (bug in the matrox driver on PPC platform)

Huh?! I'm pretty sure that's not right, IBM says the GXT4500P or GXT6500P are the right cards for the 285, and you can get either one on Ebay right now for 50 bucks (for the GXT6500P) and 10 bucks (for the GXT4500P).

With regard to the drive bays, IBM says the front four are for disks and the back three for DVD ROM/DVD RAM/CD Player, which is a bit ambiguous...

Yes I have both cards - not supported in linux.
Radeon runs fine and is initialized by firmware (mac version equipped with OF rom)

lower scsi backplane connects to motherboard so it should work in theory.
media backplane is not connected anywhere at the moment (has a scsi plug in the back) but I only have ide dvd.
I couldn't find any definitive answer.

IBM doesn't actually say it in so many words but they imply that installing 4x300 in the front side bays maxs out the addressable disk space.

So you don't have AIX or you just want to run Linux on the thing? Because with AIX driving those graphics cards you'd have a pretty kick-ass 3D workstation on your hands...

Well ... to the extent AIX is a kick-ass workstation OS.

ClassicHasClass wrote: Well ... to the extent AIX is a kick-ass workstation OS.

Are you saying Linux is a better os for a workstation ?

vishnu: I ran AIX for some time on it - its really powerful - true and I got to know it somehow well now
but you know how it is in real live ? you run xterm or dtterm for 90% of the time - I'm not working on any Katia stuff
So this uber-powerfull card is producing heat mainly. Would you suggest any other app that can take advantage of this hardware under AIX - I would be happy to try.
This machine was only useful as IRC/file server. Earlier in this thread we were talking about sound cards - no way to control the volume from aix no mixer device - unless you know how to - or tell me how to watch a movie? well maybe ffmplay but no sound. Or try to compile some open software - its very hard to compile anything. I have tried aix 5 - 7 very interesting os, but now I'm trying with linux. I'm absolutely not a linux fanatic its just for nostalgic reason a bit: my first machine was Intellistation M Pro with gentoo Linux. I have around 7 classic Unix workstations every single one run its original OS > Irix,Solaris,NeXT Step, some OS9 on older mac - This 9111-285 is the most over engineered piece of hardware I know - its kind of love/hate relation for now - it gets me annoyed from time to time - but its impressive otherwise. My SGI octane for example is a very useful machine - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96OhJex0zrk . I would love to have the AIX done like this - I spent a lot of time trying but now I just started to think its not doable. If it comes for the additional four drives I think it might need additional scsi card. I read that: "9111-285 is a workstation based on 9111-520 server with one scsi-controler and powerful graphics adapter" Its sort of implies that 520 had more scsi controllers. Any thoughts ?

jeremy123 wrote: Earlier in this thread we were talking about sound cards - no way to control the volume from aix no mixer device - unless you know how to - or tell me how to watch a movie?

This one we can fix, since I had the same problem with Irix using the optical output. Just get a set of active speakers. I use Edirols but there are several others. The toslink output from RAD audio is also always at full volume, but once you defeat that small problem by putting the volume control in the speakers themselves, it's excellent.

Does the 9111-285 have a headphone jack? Can't really be a "workstation" without a headphone jack can it?

With regard to more drives, I don't know how the backside bays connect to the bus, ribbon cable or jacks or whatever, I assume the DVD ROM/DVD RAM/CD players that are supposed to plug in back there are SCSI, couldn't you just shoehorn a SCSI hard disk back there and see if the system can see it? Also, I'm not sure what the bug is that prevents X from talking to the GXT4500P or GXT6500P but it's got to be fixable, same with the sound card, there are a ton of open source audio mixers there's got to be at least one that can be hacked to interface with the audio.

Also, do you have the AIX version of Catia? I've got the IRIX version on CD but haven't tried installing it yet because I'm pretty sure the installation CD doesn't come fully equipped with a functional license key generator....

I have Catia on one of my HP C8000s, but it came with it from its previous owner. Haven't figured out how to start it up yet.

I'm pretty sure it starts from a shell script that does a bunch of snooping around on the system and sets 87 billion environment variables that read like Polish jawbreakers and then launches the Catia binary...

I got the GXT6500P initialized under X but its not usable - colors mixed and absolutely unstable. headphone jack - sure its there
I tried many audio mixers - that would be a smallest problem - but the software has nothing to interact with - there is no /dev/mixer - just /dev/paud0 (or similar) and thats about all - I was wondering why do they (IBM) sold it with this audio cards while there is absolutely no way to use them in AIX it gets me thinking there may be some additional AIX CD that I don't have or so. If it comes to "variables that read like Polish jawbreakers" no problem either I speak fluent polish .
What I need this machine to do is: Play video(with sound ) run some browser (don't need flash shit) then it can stay on my desk
otherwise it goes under the desk and will be used as a file server - then I would love to have 8 HD
So far with linux and powermac-radeon card it runs fine - did some video reencoding with ffmpeg - CPU power is impressive.
previous time with aix I went as far as having ffmpeg compiled with help of Michael Perzl - I have sent him few mails and he helped me understand linking in AIX etc - really friendly man and has build himself a huge repo of rpms. But it is more usefull for me now with linux. Struggle continues.

jeremy123 wrote: I tried many audio mixers - that would be a smallest problem - but the software has nothing to interact with - there is no /dev/mixer - just /dev/paud0 (or similar) and thats about all - I was wondering why do they (IBM) sold it with this audio cards while there is absolutely no way to use them in AIX

Okay, so I am kinda lost here ...

Are you saying that the sound does not work at all ? In which case I'd be looking at drivers, etc ? Or do you mean you can't control the volume ?

If it is Problem #2 then somewhere between

http://en.akihabaranews.com/19603/audio ... rom-elecom

and

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Tannoy-5-1-Prof ... 20d762c496

you should be able to find a solution.

Michael Perzl is a gem, especially after AIXPDSLIB went away (RIP), though some of those packages will work fine even on current AIX versions.

hamei wrote: The Audio PCI Adapter for Workstations is a high performance workstation class audio PCI adapter that is optimized for support in the AIX professional workstation environment and their associated applications. It is 3.3 volt, 32 bit PCI adapter that runs at 33MHz speed and complies with the Intel AC 1997 Version 2.1 Specifications.

Well there you have it! Just compile the Linux Kernel AC97 driver as a module and you should be golden, I've been using AC97 sound hardware since Kernel 2.0.34 and it works great...

What was the deal with AIX 5L ? I had the impression that was supposed to run a bunch / most / all Linux binaries directly in AIX ?

jeremy123 wrote: I have tried aix 5 - 7 very interesting os...

It sounds like you tried AIX 5 to 7 on the same machine. How did they compare in terms of performance and resource requirements?