Yeah, I know about all this. Actually, I've mentioned some of the "secret" CPU instructions in my previous posts and specifically said what I think about this.
So, if by "i-specific hardware" you mean only this ISA extension, then it makes me think that it could be well possible running IBM i on mambo.
Now, regarding the firmware. This is more interesting. I dig the package a bit and as far as I could see, the firmware is not actually a part of mambo. It is loading the external OPAL tcl.
Technically, if you could get the loader firmware for i somehow, then you can try starting it on mambo instead of OPAL.
But, yes, this is a blocker.
Cheers,
Vlad.
-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Yvan Janssens
Sent: Friday, May 29, 2020 9:25 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: RE: OS/400 on mambo emulator
OS/400 (and IBM i) rely on the Tags Active/Tags Inactive functionality of certain types of POWER CPUs.
Have a read at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_RS64#Cobra_and_Muskie
Also at
http://mrfunk.info/?page_id=5
And read through
https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/research/security/ctsrd/pdfs/201406-isca2014-cheri.pdf
Some of this also is described in related patents, use the Google patent search engine to locate them.
Summarised; IBM i relies on processor features that are not shipped in all POWER CPUs, and these features drastically alter e.g. the behaviour of the MMU and add additional instructions. You also want to grab a copy of Leif's book on OS/400 internals.
-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L <midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Vlad Korge
Sent: 29 May 2020 09:06
To: 'Midrange Systems Technical Discussion' <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: RE: OS/400 on mambo emulator
Sorry, but cannot see how the below contradicts with what I've said.
Cheers,
Vlad.
-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Diego E. KESSELMAN
Sent: Friday, May 29, 2020 1:05 PM
To: midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: OS/400 on mambo emulator
Sorry , but that's not accurate.
On Power9 you have different flavours of the processor:
The regular one you use with S/E/H systems (S914, S922, S924, E980, etc) . All with SMT8 (up to 8 threads) CPU versions and PowerVM The ones starting with LC use SMT4 (up to 4 threads) and can't run IBM i nor AIX. I know, it's a marketing-technical mechanism on each OS, but there are CPU difference and I'm not sure you can run IBM i on SMT4
Power9 CPUs.
I've read about special hardware registers @ hardware level you need to make IBMi work, not sure, maybe just a Power ISA check mark...
El 28/05/20 a las 18:01, Vlad Korge escribió:
Hmm, not sure about this.
You can run Linux on PowerVM LPAR on exactly the same hardware as AIX and i.
Linux is an officially supported OS on these servers provided by IBM.
I think you may be confusing it with some "unofficial" ppc linux
versions that could run on PS3 etc.
But there is no such thing as "i specific hardware" from IBM anymore.
That's why I'm questioning what do you mean by that? CPU? RAM? BUS?
Everything is unified nowadays.
The only thing that I'm aware about is the i-specific extensions in
the Power ISA that are still not officially published by IBM.
But I have a good reason to believe that the mambo emulator
encompasses them.
Cheers,
Vlad.
-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Jim Oberholtzer
Sent: Friday, May 29, 2020 4:50 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
<midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: OS/400 on mambo emulator
Vlad:
We've answered that question already.
IBM i, AIX run on POWER from IBM.
There are various Linux distributions that have also been compiled for
the POWER 64bit system as well.
Jim Oberholtzer
Chief Technical Architect
Agile Technology Architects
On Thu, May 28, 2020 at 10:51 AM Vlad Korge <vladkorge@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Can you pls clarify what you mean by the "IBM i-specific hardware"?
As per my understanding, a nowadays IBM i is running on exactly the
same hardware as AIX or Linux called IBM Power Systems.
Cheers,
Vlad.
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