Linux For Cell Processor Workstation

News for nerds writes "The Cell processor from Sony, Toshiba and IBM, has been known as the chip that powers the upcoming PlayStation 3 computer entertainment system, but except for that very little is known about how it's applied to a real use. This time, at LinuxTag 2005 from 22nd to 25rd June 2005, at Messe- und Kongresszentrum Karlsruhe, Germany, Arnd Bergmann of IBM will speak about the Cell Processor programming model under Linux, and the Linux kernel in the first Cell Processor-based workstation computer, which premieres at Linuxtag 2005."

Re:I thought that the PS3 was going to be real

[cofaboy]

You could always try clicking this then

Cell info [blachford.info]

From TFA ...

[AHumbleOpinion]

"Unlike existing SMP systems or multi-core chips, only the general purpose PowerPC core, is able to run a generic operating system, while the SPUs are specialized on running computational tasks. Porting Linux to run on Cells PowerPC core is a relatively easy task because of the similarities to existing platforms like IBM pSeries or Apple Power Macintosh, but does not give access to the enormous computing power of the SPUs.

Only the kernel is able to directly communicate with an SPU and therefore needs to abstract the hardware interface into system calls or device drivers. The most important functions of the user interface including loading a program binary into an SPU, transferring memory between an SPU program and a Linux user space application and synchronizing the execution. Other challenges are the integration of SPU program execution into existing tools like gdb or oprofile."

Re:Should be interesting

[tempmpi]

Look at the kernel mailing lists, IBM already submited the first set of patches. Basically Linux runs on the PPE, the full PPC core inside the cell, and there are system calls to execute special SPE binaries running on the SPEs (the subprocessors).

Re:*sigh*

[Anonymous Coward]

did you ever read the title of this article?