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[News] Genesi selects IBM PowerPC for Performance-intensive Pegasos ReleaseANN.lu
Posted on 04-Dec-2003 17:14 GMT by Nathaniel Downes98 comments
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Genesi today announced a new, PowerPC®-based, modular MicroATX mainboard release that brings flexibility and efficient processing power to performance-intensive applications, including desktops, workstations, servers, and communications products

This latest MicroATX board is the most powerful and cost-effective hardware foundation for Genesi’s popular Pegasos platform, with over 1,000 users in 34 countries around the world.

The new motherboard features an IBM PowerPC 750CXe microprocessor and supports industry standards software such as Open Firmware, and multiple operating systems including distributions of Linux and BSD.

"Genesi's new PowerPC-based computer brings effective and flexible processing power to the desktop, low-end server, firewall and pervasive space at an affordable price," said Bill Buck, CEO of Genesi.

Looking forward, Mr Buck also revealed that Genesi would be working closely with IBM to release a 64-bit Pegasos workstation in 2004, based on the new IBM PowerPC 970 microprocessor.

“Today’s Pegasos release is a starting point that will enable all the operating systems developed for the PowerPC environment to begin to move in this direction with confidence and purpose," he explained.

The new Pegasos Platform is also the core for Genesi’s first commercial product designed to support the increasingly-important security infrastructure requirements of Fortune 1000 companies and large institutions.

The Pegasos Guardian provides: border protection of networks; proactive protection of network assets; and logging and auditing of suspicious network traffic.

“IT Managers must know exactly what is happening on their networks, and why,” said Buck. “The Guardian gives you a very high level of control and the new MicroATX board provides the performance platform for them to achieve this.”

Choice of the PowerPC environment enhances the security that Guardian offers: “Much of the office and network IT infrastructure in use today is x86-based,” explained Buck. “The Guardian runs on a different processor platform and is not as susceptible to the common buffer overflows that are the main entry point for security breaches.” Any element of security begins with people, procedure and enforcement, but with tools such as the Guardian IT Managers can audit and build their own code. Customers need a total security posture, and this is one component of a total security system.

Genesi developed the Guardian with partners ShopIP (www.shopip.com) and Diginexus (www.diginexus.com). The interface design and border-level protection is based on the acclaimed ShopIP Crunchbox.

Proactive protection is based on the security scanning features of Nessus (www.nessus.org) and the internal invisible IDS scanning features were developed and contributed by Diginexus.

Buck added, “this collaborative effort is an example of the partnerships we expect to develop in the months ahead and indicative of the many and varied potential uses for an open, powerful and efficient hardware platform.”

“IBM has worked closely with Genesi and its partners to ensure that the Pegasos platform can be configured to cover the rich variety of applications over multiple operating systems that Genesi and its partners are developing,” said Ray Bryant, Director PowerPC Products at IBM Microelectronics. “The integration of the IBM PowerPC 750CXe offers developers further opportunities to extend Pegasos’ use into the evolutionary path we have chartered for the PowerPC.”

Based on industry standards, such as Open Firmware, the Pegasos supports multiple operating systems including varieties of Linux and BSD. The Pegasos platform also comes with Genesi’s own non-UNIX, Quark-based MorphOS. Recent releases supported on the Pegasos include OpenBSD 3.4 and Debian-Installer Beta 1.

Buck added, "in the meanwhile, the strategic value of moving to a Linux Desktop is becoming increasing clear and a migration to Linux has begun. Every major commercial or non-commercial version/distribution of Linux on the market today runs on the Pegasos, including SuSE and the Novell® Nterprise Linux Service package. Getting on the network with the Pegasos Guardian and on the desktop with the Pegasos, now and in the future with the PowerPC 970, places Genesi at the forefront of these major market developments."

Genesi has served the computer hobbyist since the first Beta release of the Pegasos in 2002. Trialed and tested by over 1000 users in 34 countries, enthusiasts have configured the Pegasos in variety of fashions with over a dozen different operating systems. The Pegasos was awarded the Amiga Award 2002 by Falke Media Verlag and recently, the Pegasos was acclaimed as the future home of the Linux desktop by German Linux site PPCNUX.

The Pegasos-Guardian will make its public debut with ShopIP and Diginexus at Infosecurity 2003, at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York, December 8-11, Booth 126 and be distributed by Pegasos Resellers worldwide through the IBM Global Solutions Directory.

Genesi's "Ready for IBM Technology"-validated Pegasos systems signal the advancement of the IBM 750CXe PowerPC microprocessor family into the broader global marketplace for embedded industrial controls, military, multimedia, consumer electronic appliances, blade servers, thin client systems, storage, networking, firewalls, and communication applications. With leading edge CPU bus speed capabilities and enhanced AGP, PCI-X, SDRAM and DDR support, the combination of the Marvell Discovery II chipset and IBM PowerPC 750CXe processors offers a most desirable solution to the performance-intensive applications marketplace.

Genesi is an IBM Business Partner and carries the Ready for IBM Technology mark on five of its products, the Pegasos Guardian, Pegasos, PegXLin, MorphOS, and OpenBSD for Pegasos. The basic Pegasos featuring the IBM PowerPC processor can be purchased online for 299 Euros at http://www.pegasosppc.com while the Pegasos-Guardian is priced between 5000 and 15000 Euros depending on the configuration and the associated service contract. Genesi is based in Luxembourg and can be found on the web at http://www.genesi.lu. Details on the Pegasos Guardian are presented at http://www.pegasosppc.com/guardian.php
Genesi selects IBM PowerPC for Performance-intensive Pegasos Release : Comment 1 of 98ANN.lu
Posted by Seer on 04-Dec-2003 16:25 GMT
Hmm... Does that mean a 64Bit MorphOS ?
Genesi selects IBM PowerPC for Performance-intensive Pegasos Release : Comment 2 of 98ANN.lu
Posted by hooligan/dcs on 04-Dec-2003 16:29 GMT
"over 1,000 users in 34 countries around the world."

That figure was done using what kind of math? :)
Genesi selects IBM PowerPC for Performance-intensive Pegasos Release : Comment 3 of 98ANN.lu
Posted by Gregg on 04-Dec-2003 16:39 GMT
In reply to Comment 2 (hooligan/dcs):
> That figure was done using what kind of math? :)

The obfuscatory and arcane "Marketing Maths", a relatively new branch of Statistics, as in :

"There's lies, damn' lies, and statistics."

Gregg
Genesi selects IBM PowerPC for Performance-intensive Pegasos Release : Comment 4 of 98ANN.lu
Posted by itix on 04-Dec-2003 16:43 GMT
In reply to Comment 1 (Seer):
Probably not soon. /me looking forward for Morph Generation 3 technology
Genesi selects IBM PowerPC for Performance-intensive Pegasos Release : Comment 5 of 98ANN.lu
Posted by itix on 04-Dec-2003 16:48 GMT
In reply to Comment 2 (hooligan/dcs):
Hmm.. must include some Peg2 users counted or some very anonymous Peg1 users :) 1000 Pegasos users doesnt mean 1000 MorphOS users anyway.
Genesi selects IBM PowerPC for Performance-intensive Pegasos Release : Comment 6 of 98ANN.lu
Posted by Kronos on 04-Dec-2003 16:57 GMT
In reply to Comment 5 (itix):
Didn't BBRV say that they had produced 681 April2 Pegs ? Add all the
April1 and non-April boards to it ..... (just guessing).
Genesi selects IBM PowerPC for Performance-intensive Pegasos Release : Comment 7 of 98ANN.lu
Posted by miksuh on 04-Dec-2003 17:02 GMT
In reply to Comment 4 (itix):
I think 32bit is more than enough right now. 64bit might be cool, but there is no reason why we should rush that. Even mainstream systems are just starting to move to 64bit. Maybe someday we have 64bit OS, itäs not so important yet.
Genesi selects IBM PowerPC for Performance-intensive Pegasos Release : Comment 8 of 98ANN.lu
Posted by Seer on 04-Dec-2003 17:04 GMT
In reply to Comment 6 (Kronos):
>Didn't BBRV say that they had produced 681 April2 Pegs ? Add all the
>April1 and non-April boards to it ..... (just guessing)

Another guess is that they upgraded some Peg1 to Peg1+april ? I remember something like that anyway, then again, my memorie isn't all that...
Genesi selects IBM PowerPC for Performance-intensive Pegasos Release : Comment 9 of 98ANN.lu
Posted by itix on 04-Dec-2003 17:05 GMT
In reply to Comment 6 (Kronos):
There are 147 non-April boards given for free (IIRC)... But I recall 681 Pegasos boards was April1+April2 boards in total. Maybe Genesi could clarify this?
Genesi selects IBM PowerPC for Performance-intensive Pegasos Release : Comment 10 of 98ANN.lu
Posted by Seer on 04-Dec-2003 17:08 GMT
In reply to Comment 7 (miksuh):
>Maybe someday we have 64bit OS, itäs not so important yet.

Not important in useage yet, good to use for marketing tho... (World's 1ste true 64Bit OS or something like that..)

Who knows, next years trolling/flamewars will be about 64Bit Aos vs 64Bit Mos
;-)
Genesi selects IBM PowerPC for Performance-intensive Pegasos Release : Comment 11 of 98ANN.lu
Posted by Don Cox on 04-Dec-2003 17:11 GMT
In reply to Comment 7 (miksuh):
"I think 32bit is more than enough right now. 64bit might be cool, but there is no reason why we should rush that. Even mainstream systems are just starting to move to 64bit. Maybe someday we have 64bit OS, it's not so important yet."

Amigas are supposed to be ahead of the crowd, not trailing along behind.
Genesi selects IBM PowerPC for Performance-intensive Pegasos Release : Comment 12 of 98ANN.lu
Posted by MIKE on 04-Dec-2003 17:20 GMT
In reply to Comment 9 (itix):
It is not that important, it's market speak. Just like when Bill M said they had sold 15,000 SDK's, and broke Amazon's cart because the demand was so high, and the bit about 3000 registerd AmigaDE developers.
Genesi selects IBM PowerPC for Performance-intensive Pegasos Release : Comment 13 of 98ANN.lu
Posted by Tigger on 04-Dec-2003 17:21 GMT
In reply to Comment 2 (hooligan/dcs):
The real math kind. They've shipped 1500 P2s to a customer already according to a post on this site days ago, so why the doubt that there are 1000 customers given the 600+ P1 units and the number of P2s?? Or are you doubting the number of countries they are running in??
-Tig
Genesi selects IBM PowerPC for Performance-intensive Pegasos Release : Comment 14 of 98ANN.lu
Posted by hooligan/dcs on 04-Dec-2003 17:37 GMT
In reply to Comment 13 (Tigger):
>The real math kind. They've shipped 1500 P2s to a customer already according to a post on this site days ago, so why the doubt that there are 1000 customers given the 600+ P1 units and the number of P2s?? Or are you doubting the number of countries they are running in??
-Tig

I'll tell you real math. 600 Peg1 + 1500 Peg2 = over 2000, not 1000.

Of course over 2000 is also over 1000, I don't arque about that :)
Genesi selects IBM PowerPC for Performance-intensive Pegasos Release : Comment 15 of 98ANN.lu
Posted by Alpha on 04-Dec-2003 18:20 GMT
In reply to Comment 7 (miksuh):
> I think 32bit is more than enough right now.

More than enough??

How many bits would simply be "enough" then? 31? (2GB addresable) 30? (1 GB addresable) 29? (512 MB)

Hell, I have an old old machine here that's 36-bit! 32 is a step back!
Genesi selects IBM PowerPC for Performance-intensive Pegasos Release : Comment 16 of 98ANN.lu
Posted by Neko on 04-Dec-2003 18:34 GMT
In reply to Comment 11 (Don Cox):
It's not an Amiga, Don, it's a Pegasos.

MorphOS, as it stands as something that at least tries to emulate an Amiga,
isn't going to be 64-bit. The entire OS architecture from exec upwards just
can't handle an 8-byte pointer.

Quark, on the other hand, could be or could be made properly 64bit aware -
but since you're not going to see or use that because you're an Amiga fan
who wouldn't touch water unless it was red and white checked, that hardly
matters.

The 64bit-ness of the 970 isn't the problem. It can run in 32bit mode and
still run plenty times faster than most else. You can still run certain 64bit
instructions in 32bit mode, and it'll clear the upper 32bits of address
registers for you.

MacOS X Panther runs this way.

The 64bit 64bitness will be for Linux and whatever else, the ethic of the
Pegasos is you get HARDWARE you always wanted, and use whatever you damned
well like on it. A 64bit "desktop" is what you buy. MorphOS is a cool toy
for Amiga fans, maybe useful to many other people too, and something Genesi
can move into other markets in more clandestine and sneaky ways (it'd be
well suited to a PDA).. it doesn't need to be 64bit to run well on the
64bit desktop.

=Neko=
Genesi selects IBM PowerPC for Performance-intensive Pegasos Release : Comment 17 of 98ANN.lu
Posted by Seehund on 04-Dec-2003 19:18 GMT
In reply to Comment 11 (Don Cox):
Amigas are supposed to be ahead of the crowd, not trailing along behind.

As far as I'm concerned, Amigas are supposed to rest peacefully in their graves, and those that still run on our desks are supposed to provide Good Old Wholesome Family Retro Fun till the day their old capacitors explode. The Amiga is dead, long live AmigaOS (and Amiga-ish OS XYZ for that matter, considering the topic).


Aaanyway, is this PR to be found anywhere on ibm.com?
Genesi selects IBM PowerPC for Performance-intensive Pegasos Release : Comment 18 of 98ANN.lu
Posted by Neko on 04-Dec-2003 19:32 GMT
In reply to Comment 17 (Seehund):
.. notoriously slow at putting stuff about on their own sites. We had
Thanksgiving in the way too! They all went off for turkey!


=Neko=
Genesi selects IBM PowerPC for Performance-intensive Pegasos Release : Comment 19 of 98ANN.lu
Posted by info on 04-Dec-2003 19:45 GMT
In reply to Comment 3 (Gregg):
Why launch another motherboard? So far the Peg2 is nothing more than vapor!

Has anyone received their order for one?
Genesi selects IBM PowerPC for Performance-intensive Pegasos Release : Comment 20 of 98ANN.lu
Posted by MarkTime on 04-Dec-2003 20:14 GMT
ya'll are forgetting users and owners are two different things.

There could be 686 users each using one board, and then a family, with 314 siblings in total, sharing a single pegasos board.
Genesi selects IBM PowerPC for Performance-intensive Pegasos Release : Comment 21 of 98ANN.lu
Posted by MarkTime on 04-Dec-2003 20:16 GMT
In reply to Comment 20 (MarkTime):
ok lame attempt at humor over.

700 boards would equal 1000 or so users.

I mean, seriously, some people do share a board...my home pc, has four users, for example.

on the other hand, I doubt there were many pegasos boards sold, not in use at all....in coming years, that will have to be factored in, but these are still relatively new boards and probably still in use.

And a developer board is not nearly as often shared, as a home computer, but still I wouldn't quiblle with 1,000 users, sounds fair.
Genesi selects IBM PowerPC for Performance-intensive Pegasos Release : Comment 22 of 98ANN.lu
Posted by Nate Downes on 04-Dec-2003 20:20 GMT
In reply to Comment 19 (info):
Might I suggest new reading glasses.

This is a solution using the Pegasos 2.
Genesi selects IBM PowerPC for Performance-intensive Pegasos Release : Comment 23 of 98ANN.lu
Posted by priest on 04-Dec-2003 20:48 GMT
nice...

Is there a betatester activities for that Guardian system... did I found myself a more reliable firewalling system. ;)
Genesi selects IBM PowerPC for Performance-intensive Pegasos Release : Comment 24 of 98ANN.lu
Posted by Neko on 04-Dec-2003 21:05 GMT
In reply to Comment 23 (priest):
If you have €5000 to pay for one, you can test it as much as you like :)

=Neko=
Genesi selects IBM PowerPC for Performance-intensive Pegasos Release : Comment 25 of 98ANN.lu
Posted by Neko on 04-Dec-2003 21:07 GMT
In reply to Comment 21 (MarkTime):
1000 users is current Pegasos I boards, plus the ones sold to IBM (Japan, was
it?) and so on.

Amiga people will get theirs shipped sometime in the next week or so. It isn't
vapor, because we've got them running, booting and perfectly operating using
MorphOS. Vapor is when we announce a product a year in advance, it is not when
it is no more than 2 weeks away from your doorstep or post office counter.

=Neko=
Genesi selects IBM PowerPC for Performance-intensive Pegasos Release : Comment 26 of 98ANN.lu
Posted by Neko on 04-Dec-2003 21:09 GMT
In reply to Comment 25 (Neko):
BTW there are still 1500 "sold" Pegasos II boards on the records, you should
expect at least a few of those to have gone out, and only 100 are officially
earmarked for i->ii upgrades and stuff.

=Neko=
Genesi selects IBM PowerPC for Performance-intensive Pegasos Release : Comment 27 of 98ANN.lu
Posted by Mr. Anonymour on 04-Dec-2003 21:15 GMT
In reply to Comment 2 (hooligan/dcs):
They used New Math. I think there were fingers involved....
Genesi selects IBM PowerPC for Performance-intensive Pegasos Release : Comment 28 of 98ANN.lu
Posted by Mr. Anonymour on 04-Dec-2003 21:16 GMT
In reply to Comment 2 (hooligan/dcs):
They used New Math. I think there were fingers involved....
Genesi selects IBM PowerPC for Performance-intensive Pegasos Release : Comment 29 of 98ANN.lu
Posted by hammer on 04-Dec-2003 21:29 GMT
>“The Guardian runs on a different processor platform and is not as susceptible to the common
>buffer overflows that are the main entry point for security breaches.”

In most cases, buffer overflows has nothing to do with HW i.e. refer to
http://www.itworld.com/nl/lnx_sec/12182001/
http://www.secunia.com/advisories/8533/

Note the inclusion of MacOS X i.e. a PowerPC box.
It’s an issue with sloppy programming...
Genesi selects IBM PowerPC for Performance-intensive Pegasos Release : Comment 30 of 98ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 04-Dec-2003 21:43 GMT
That's pretty impressive compared to GAUPHIL, which has been around for a decade.
Genesi selects IBM PowerPC for Performance-intensive Pegasos Release : Comment 31 of 98ANN.lu
Posted by hammer on 04-Dec-2003 21:50 GMT
In reply to Comment 29 (hammer):
Addendum
Refer to
http://www.ciac.org/ciac/bulletins/l-104.shtml

[quote]
-104: SuSE Linux, xinetd Buffer Overflow
July 3, 2001 23:00 GMT
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PROBLEM: SuSE Linux, xinetd has a buffer overflow vulnerability
PLATFORM: i386 Intel Platform: SuSE-6.3,6.4,7.0, 7.1, 7.2 Sparc Platform: SuSE-7.1 AXP Alpha Platform: SuSE-6.3,6.4,7.0, 7.1 PPC Power PC Platform: SuSE-6.4,7.0, 7.1
DAMAGE: The buffer overflow vulnerability allows a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code at all privleges.
SOLUTION: Apply patches supplied by SuSE

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

VULNERABILITY
ASSESSMENT: The risk is HIGH. The vulnerability results in a root compromise, it is remotely exploitable, and is widely publicized
[/quote]
Genesi selects IBM PowerPC for Performance-intensive Pegasos Release : Comment 32 of 98ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 04-Dec-2003 21:59 GMT
In reply to Comment 24 (Neko):
5000??

you must seriously be joking!!

I admin boxes which do all of this boxes tasks, using the full suite of OpenSource tools. Some on Linux, others on *BSD . all of them very capable
and not one of them was more than 1000

at th 5k mark, you're putting yourself into the hardware ASIC arena of equipment...and they'll thrash commodity PC architecture

..but good luck!
Genesi selects IBM PowerPC for Performance-intensive Pegasos Release : Comment 33 of 98ANN.lu
Posted by hammer on 04-Dec-2003 22:04 GMT
In reply to Comment 31 (hammer):
Addendum 2
http://www.secunia.com/advisories/10246/

OpenBSD compat_ibcs2 Buffer Overflow Vulnerability

OpenBSD 3.4:
ftp://ftp.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/patches/3.4/i386/006_ibcs2.patch

OpenBSD 3.3:
ftp://ftp.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/patches/3.3/i386/011_ibcs2.patch
Genesi selects IBM PowerPC for Performance-intensive Pegasos Release : Comment 34 of 98ANN.lu
Posted by takemehomegrandma on 04-Dec-2003 22:18 GMT
Very cool!

Add some functions for routing, file bulk storage, perhaps VPN and such, and remove some of the more advanced configuration abilities (ease it up a little), lower the price (when it becomes possible thanks to the volumes and margins on the "big" one) and you will have a "Home Guardian"!

:-)
Genesi selects IBM PowerPC for Performance-intensive Pegasos Release : Comment 35 of 98ANN.lu
Posted by takemehomegrandma on 04-Dec-2003 22:26 GMT
In reply to Comment 26 (Neko):
> and only 100 are officially earmarked for i->ii upgrades and stuff.

Wait a minute, that seems low, and it worries me!! On what is that number calculated??

I have personally not communicated directly to Genesi for my upgrade, but to GGS Data. And I have not placed a specific order yet (I want to upgrade one of my Peg1 to a G4 Peg2, and also buy a G3 Peg2), nor a pre-payment, because I have not been able to get a final price in SEK.

Am I *in* or *out*?? I want a G4 Peg2 trade-in!!
Genesi selects IBM PowerPC for Performance-intensive Pegasos Release : Comment 36 of 98ANN.lu
Posted by Seehund on 04-Dec-2003 22:36 GMT
In reply to Comment 34 (takemehomegrandma):
If the price won't fall significantly (like an order of magnitude) below $5k, I expect my Home Guardian to be equipped with an "Aliens"-like robotic MG sentry. :)
Genesi selects IBM PowerPC for Performance-intensive Pegasos Release : Comment 37 of 98ANN.lu
Posted by BrianK on 04-Dec-2003 22:50 GMT
In reply to Comment 7 (miksuh):
We should rush to 64bits and now!
Why? At some point the 32bit PPC processor will stop being produced and only the 64bit will exist. If we make that move now when the market is small ( a few hundred users) the impact is minimal. If we get on the forefront of technology people see it reasonable to spend $1K for a machine with the latest 2Ghz+ processor rather then $1K for a machine with a couple year old 1Ghz processor.

Even if the OS isn't fully 64bit enabled the 970 can do 32bit w/o an issue and we should be making strides to keep current. The interface for the 970 (G5) will probably be the same for a few releases for the chip and is unlikely to change. We already know the G4 is dead as it's interface.

Thus move to 64bit hardware! I'd much rather put my money towards something that I can replace with faster processors, runs faster memory, and has better overall performance even at 32bit and the rest is dormant for now.
Genesi selects IBM PowerPC for Performance-intensive Pegasos Release : Comment 38 of 98ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 05-Dec-2003 00:47 GMT
In reply to Comment 37 (BrianK):
Small problem with that idea: unless you're referring to AMD64, all 64 bit CPUs are *way* more expensive than their 32 bit counterparts. If people have problems buying an $800 AmigaOne, what about a $1400 AmigaOne64?

Where do I get the $600 price difference? Go to the Apple store, look at the price for a G4, 1.25GHz imac: $1700. Subtract $500 for the 17" LCD monitor, you got $1200 left. Look at a single-proc G5, which comes without a monitor: $1800. Difference between a fast G4 computer and a slow G5 computer, built by the same company, is therefore $600.
Genesi selects IBM PowerPC for Performance-intensive Pegasos Release : Comment 39 of 98ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 05-Dec-2003 01:27 GMT
In reply to Comment 25 (Neko):
>no more than 2 weeks away Yeah yeah, 2 more weeks, here we go again...
Genesi selects IBM PowerPC for Performance-intensive Pegasos Release : Comment 40 of 98ANN.lu
Posted by coldfire on 05-Dec-2003 01:29 GMT
In reply to Comment 10 (Seer):
Not important in useage yet, good to use for marketing tho... (World's 1ste true 64Bit OS or something like that..)

Who knows, next years trolling/flamewars will be about 64Bit Aos vs 64Bit Mos


First true 64 bit OS was years back. Ran on the DEC Alpha processor which was a 64bit RISC processor. It was a UNIX OS that DEC made. There was talk of porting Amiga OS to it back then....just as there is talk of porting it to PPC now. :)

coldfire
Genesi selects IBM PowerPC for Performance-intensive Pegasos Release : Comment 41 of 98ANN.lu
Posted by hammer on 05-Dec-2003 01:31 GMT
In reply to Comment 7 (miksuh):
>I think 32bit is more than enough right now. 64bit might be cool, but there >is no reason why we should rush that. Even mainstream systems are just >starting to move to 64bit. Maybe someday we have 64bit OS, itäs not so
>important yet.

Note that MS Windows 2000/2003 Servers and Linux kernels already supporting 36Bit Physical Address Extensions. 36Bit Physical Address Extensions was included ever since Pentium Pro (the first of P6 family).

Currently, MS Windows XP/2003 AMD64 is undergoing public beta testing (via MSDN subscriptions). Linux AMD64 distributions are already being shipped.
Genesi selects IBM PowerPC for Performance-intensive Pegasos Release : Comment 42 of 98ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 05-Dec-2003 01:32 GMT
In reply to Comment 38 (Anonymous):
>unless you're referring to AMD64, all 64 bit CPUs are *way* more expensive than>their 32 bit counterparts. Blah...G5 us said to be cheaper than G4 and e.g. MIPS has dirt cheap 64Bit CPUs, too.
Genesi selects IBM PowerPC for Performance-intensive Pegasos Release : Comment 43 of 98ANN.lu
Posted by hammer on 05-Dec-2003 01:42 GMT
In reply to Comment 42 (Anonymous):
Note that there are two versions of MIPS i.e. 32bit and 64bit. AMD also sells MIPS based processors for their embedded markets.
Genesi selects IBM PowerPC for Performance-intensive Pegasos Release : Comment 44 of 98ANN.lu
Posted by hammer on 05-Dec-2003 01:52 GMT
In reply to Comment 43 (hammer):
Addendum 2,

AMD to develop 64bit MIPS-based processors (1 May 2002)
http://www.electronicstalk.com/news/mip/mip157.html

Unlike some certain companies, AMD is not afraid to develop two different 64bit ISAs processor lines.
Genesi selects IBM PowerPC for Performance-intensive Pegasos Release : Comment 45 of 98ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 05-Dec-2003 04:08 GMT
In reply to Comment 44 (hammer):
That would be because AMD does not see itself as "an x86 CPU company", but as "a high-performance CPU company". This means their current management has their priorities straight, and therefore the company will be able react more quickly to market pressures. We may yet see the day when Intel is making AMD-compatible CPUs...
Genesi selects IBM PowerPC for Performance-intensive Pegasos Release : Comment 46 of 98ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 05-Dec-2003 04:36 GMT
In reply to Comment 29 (hammer):
> In most cases, buffer overflows has nothing to do with HW

He was not talking about buffer overflows per se but about common buffer overflow attacks (security breaches) and there is a difference. Buffer overflow attacks require that malicious code is placed in the system, not just writing beyond the end of a buffer and crashing something: Malicious code must be placed on on the stack via a buffer overflow and that code must be run. Obviously this HAS something to do with the hardware because it (a) must have a stack (b) must allow code on the stack and (c) must allow jumping into that code by having return addresses on the stack that can be overwritten. AFAIK the PPC (a) does not have a hardware stack and (b) a PPC OS (at least OS4) does not allow code on the stack and (c) PPC does not place return addresses on the stack (has none) but has a dedicated register for the return address. It appears as if these three factors together make a PPC OS almost invulnerable to common overflow attacks, even if the ABI implements a software stack and puts return addresses on it, QED.
Genesi selects IBM PowerPC for Performance-intensive Pegasos Release : Comment 47 of 98ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 05-Dec-2003 08:24 GMT
In reply to Comment 46 (Anonymous):
Erm, you might want to do some research first before you start writing about such things. There are several flaws in your post...
Genesi selects IBM PowerPC for Performance-intensive Pegasos Release : Comment 48 of 98ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 05-Dec-2003 10:07 GMT
In reply to Comment 47 (Anonymous):
> There are several flaws in your post...

There must be because writing an OS, implementing an ABI and understanding PPC internals is not my area of expertise ;) So in case there are any errors, here is the original article by one of the Friedens from Hyperion that I have used as reference. I hope he doesn't mind posting it here.

---
[...]

The PPC does not have any designated stack pointer. Any stack is a pure software construct. Normally, most ABIs use r1 as the stack pointer, but that's arbitrary. You could use any general purpose register (except r0, which is handled differently when used as an address).

Regarding the buffer overflow:

On a 68k Amiga, a subroutine call just pushes the return address to the stack, and a retrun will take the top address from the stack and jump there. Parameters, local variables and the like will be on the same stack.

Theoretically, a program that uses a stack-based buffer can be abused with an overflow to jump to code on the stack itself by filling the buffer with code, and overflowing it on purpose to replace the return address with a pointer to the malicious code.

That's the thing the first worm used, by exploting the fact that the program "finger" had a 512 byte buffer on the stack, directly follwed by the return address. The worm originator would have a .plan file that contained 512 bytes of code, and a return address into the stack.

On the PPC, this is a *bit* different, although not a lot. The PPC does not have a special "return" instruction. Subroutine calls and returns from subroutines are always through a special registers (the "Link Register", LR).

When you call a function (via the 'bl' instruction), the LR is loaded with the next address after the call (i.e. return address). The subroutine ends with a 'blr' instruction ("branch to link register"). The preservation of LR is the responsibility of the called function.

On OS4, we're using the System V ABI, which defines how the preservation can be done. If the called function does not call functions iteslf (i.e. it does not modify the link register), then the LR is not safed to the stack. If the LR is changed, it's saved in a dedicated space in the callers stack frame.

So theroretically, this ABI can also be abused for malicious code via a buffer overflow.

On OS4, however, this is not possible. OS4 requires a strict separation between PPC code and 68k code. Therefore, not all memory can hold executable code. In fact, only specially designated memory does have execute permission. Needless to say, the stack is not one of those areas. So an attack through a buffer overflow will result in a protection fault, but no code is actually executed.

What is true for both CPUs, though, is that a buffer overflow can always destroy the stack, which potentially disrupts functionality. This works in both ways, up towards older stack frames, and down towards the stack bottom. When the stack is underrun, you will probably end up either in unmapped or unused memory, or in memory that's actually used by applications.

OS4 will have the possibility for automatically enlarging stacks by providing a "guard" page below the stack (hitting it will map more memory towards the bottom of the stack). OS3 and below always needed software to check the stack, and enlarge it (if possible). This is of course time consuming. The OS4 method of using a guard page isn't.

I hope that answers the question
Genesi selects IBM PowerPC for Performance-intensive Pegasos Release : Comment 49 of 98ANN.lu
Posted by Don Cox on 05-Dec-2003 10:42 GMT
In reply to Comment 16 (Neko):
"It's not an Amiga, Don, it's a Pegasos."

If it boots straight into an OS that looks like an Amiga and runs a lot of Amiga programs, then in my book it is a variety of Amiga.

If you set it up to boot into Linux and stay there, then it is not an Amiga.
Genesi selects IBM PowerPC for Performance-intensive Pegasos Release : Comment 50 of 98ANN.lu
Posted by Álmos Rajnai on 05-Dec-2003 10:51 GMT
In reply to Comment 49 (Don Cox):
This point of view turns a simple PC into an Amiga: you can boot into an emulated AmigaOS by UAE, Amithlon or whatever emulators exist. But it is not an Amiga. It is a computer which is EMULATING an Amiga.
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