Uniprocessor
Linux for the BeBox currently only uses one of the two processors in the BeBox. This is due to the poor support for SMP in Linux 2.0, and other porting issues. We plan to include full SMP support after we migrate to the Linux 2.1 kernel.
Slow
For several reasons, Linux for the BeBox is very much slower than it should be. Most of the issues are related to the memory management units (MMUs) built into the processors. These will all be fixed in time; Linux 2.1 has very much better support for the PowerPC chips.
Hardware Support
All of the hardware that Linux has drivers for should work on the BeBox, with one notable exception: video cards. The lack of support for video cards is the single biggest problem that Linux for BeBox suffers from. As far as I know, anything with an s3 Trio64 chipset should work, and several others do too. My #9 GXE64 (not the Pro), which uses the Vision864 chipset, works; my Matrox Millenium II does not. I've heard that the Export Color DSP3364 works too.
Why is there all this trouble with video cards? Well, the BeBox uses standard PCI video cards, which all come with a BIOS that contains code to initialise the video card. The problem is that this code is written for an x86 CPU, which the BeBox doesn't have. Thus the BIOS is useless and we have to write our own. Currently the video card is initialised in two places; the first is the bootstrap, and the second is when the kernel itself boots up. If the bootstrap works fine, but your monitor loses the picture when the kernel boots (as mine does!) enter an octothorpe ("#") before you hit return when prompted to enter the kernel disk. This will stop the kernel from fiddling with the video card. This trick doesn't appear to work with later kernels, but it does work with the kernel in the LinuxPPC 2.0.32 distribution.
As for the BeBox's own hardware, much of it is supported. The onboard SCSI, EIDE and floppy controllers work, so you can get at all of your disks. The PCI and ISA buses work, so you can access any peripherals on those. The one exception is PCI interrupts, which don't work due to braindead interrupt handling in the current Linux for BeBox code. This will be fixed in 2.1, or you can patch it by hand. Mail me for details. The onboard audio CODEC is currently unsupported, as are the Infra-red, MIDI and Geek ports. The keyboard and mouse work. Two of the serial ports are supported (it shouldn't be too hard to add support for the other two, I believe).
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© 2002 William R Sowerbutts <will@sowerbutts.com>
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