[cfarm-users] more on OpenPOWER9? (was: Re: more on POWER9?)

[Luke Yasuda]

Hi all,

On 2026-02-15 01:11, Luke Yasuda wrote:
> 
> cfarm currently has:
> cfarm111,119 (RIP): POWER7,8, AIX
> cfarm110 (RIP): PWOER7, Centos 7.9, big endian
> cfarm29: POWER9 (Blackbird), Debian 13 ppc64el
> cfarm112: POWER8, Centos 7.9, little endian
> cfarm120: POWER10, AlmaLinux 9.7, little endian
> cfarm121: POWER10, Debian port ppc64, big endian
> cfarm135: POWER9, AlmaLinux 8.10, little endian
> 
> 
> Newly proposed: for the number of VMs and the variety OSes:
> 
> Large: 64 cores, 64GB RAM, 2TB /home.
> Medium: 32 cores, 32GB RAM, 1.5TB /home.
> Small: 16 cores, 16GB RAM, 1TB /home.
> 
> Large: 2
> 1: Debian "testing forever" (essentially rolling release), ppc64el, 
> PAGESIZE=64k (non-default, but previously default)
> 2: Debian forky, ppc64el, PAGESIZE=4k (default)
> 
> Medium: 1~3
> 1~2: Almalinux 10 and/or Rocky 10, little endian
> 3: Debian port unstable, ppc64, big endian
> 
> Small: 4
> 1: Alpine newest stable release, little endian
> 2: FreeBSD current, little endian
> 3: FreeBSD current, big endian (although I heard unconfirmed rumors on 
> IRC #talos-workstation that they are ending big endian support??)
> 4: NetBSD newest stable release, don't know endianness

So far, on the choice of OSes, except for the suggestion of AIX (which 
is basically not possible), there was no other suggestion or opinion. Is 
the above arrangement OK? Do we need more VMs? Are they useful at all? 
Or is it that (OPEN)POWER is dead and not worth hosting or developing 
software for them? I can't really tell what people think because no one 
said anything (except for "AIX pretty please").

Experts and power (pun unintended) users who use POWER, and people from 
the cfarm-admins list: let me hear your voice! Sing louder! (pretend 
it's a concert)

PS: I'm asking these questions because I'm taking a sick (unpaid) leave 
off work for a month, and suddenly I'll have a lot of spare time at home 
waiting for my body to recover. Of course, I would like to install them 
(and my part of the setup) during this short and precious "petite 
vacance".

Cheers,

-- 
Luke Yasuda
About me: https://jing.rocks/about/
GPG Fingerprint: 4E09 8D19 00AA 3F72 1899 2614 09B3 316E 13A1 1EFC
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