( ESNUG 292 Item 2 ) ----------------------------------------------- [6/4/98]
Subject: "My Universe Speaks To Me" -- The Windows NT Debate Goes Linux
> "Huh? Are you the last remaining semi-technical person in the world to not
> hear about FreeBSD and Linux? Pretty much Unix to the same extent as SunOS
> or HPUX are, but it runs on PCs." wrote Mike Albaugh of Agames.
>
> Martin Moeller at BBN wrote: "Why is it that an obvious answer is sometimes
> missed? Linux runs on those cheap PC's, is as stable as Sun's OS, comes
> with source code & probably has more developers than Sun and Microsoft
> combined. Porting from Sun or HP Unix to Linux is much easier than
> porting to NT. The most important advantage though is that it is the one
> Operating System that Bill Gates will never be able to buy and 'improve'
> since its free and can't be bought."
> - John Cooley
> Industry Gadfly
From: Todd M Kroeger <toddk@micro.ti.com>
John,
Don't you have a bigger font you could use or something? I still doubt the
"right" people are going to hear the Linix EDA tool message. The funny
thing is (my theory only) the software developers are using Linux at home
so all the major porting has already been done. Do you think there is a
way to get the EDA vendors to admit to this? (P.S. I loved your "Industry
Gadfly" column.)
- Todd Kroeger
Texas Instruments
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From: [ The Artful Dodger ]
John,
No name, no nothin' please, I suffer from Synopnazicosis, fear of Synopsys
corporate reprisals.
Just read your EDA tools to Linux piece in EE Times, & I have one question:
Where am I going to find a PC that will support 1-2Gb of RAM?
In my corner of the ASIC universe, I still have tons of work to do at the
GATE level. (Eeek, I said the G-word!) I have simulations and layouts that
take the biggest, baddest Sun workstation that I can get my hands on. My
current simulations won't run with under 512 Mb of RAM for batch simulations
and interactive debug takes over that. My current Ultra 2 has 896 Mb and I
expect to break that level by next year. I haven't seen a PC that can
handle more than 256-512 Mb, and I don't know how efficiently NT or Linux
can manage that amount of RAM either.
I've run gate level sims (60K gates) on small designs on the NT box, but
once you start back annotating, you're toast from the performance side. The
delay calculation is a bummer, too.
I can't imagine any kind of efficient environment on the PC. For small
designs and FPGA's, OK. But not for the mainstream of 1 million gate plus
designs, RTL or gates.
- [ The Artful Dodger ]
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From: Richard_J_McWaters@res.raytheon.com
An interesting thing about the NT port. I just got the Mentor MUG
newsletter, and Mentor wants to charge 20% more to "upgrade" your license
to NT. I don't know if Synopsys is contemplating the same scenario, but I
have to admit, it is a real "in your face" move by Mentor.
- Richard McWaters
Raytheon
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> For some reason, I keep remembering a bit of wisdom I learned while
> participating in one of those trendy 90s personal growth seminars. We were
> blindfolded and spun around to a random orientation in a room. Our goal
> was to get to one specific location in the room. And our only guide was
> an ominous Voice (which came from no discernable direction) saying either
> "yes" or "no" to our random steps. Very quickly we all made it to our
> goals after some misguided steps. The moral the ominous Voice then told
> us was: "Pay attention to the feedback from your universe. Don't get
> caught up in what you think is the right way to get somewhere because many
> times you're wrong. The universe will give you the direction you need to
> get to your goal if you open yourself up to listen to it."
>
> - John Cooley
> Industry Gadfly
From: "Barry A. Williams" <bawillia@collins.rockwell.com>
John,
Here is real wisdom: Listen to the Creator, not the creation. Only from
God can good, reliable direction come. Yes, He speaks to us in many
different ways. Rejoice in your work for that is why God created you
(see Genesis 2:15). In the name of our one and only Savior Jesus
Christ, Amen.
- Barry Williams
Rockwell Avionics
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From: Peter Collins <peter@exemplar.com>
John,
So you'll be looking for the EDA on Linux BOF at DAC then? (See dskoll
@chipworks.com for details.) There will also be a panel on Linux vs NT put
together by ISD magazine.
I can confirm that porting UNIX EDA tools to Linux is a breeze. Two of us
ported Exemplar's leonardo and galileo to linux in our spare time over two
weeks. I did the original NT ports in 6 Months!
I've heard through the grapevine that Synopsys has a Linux port in house
and I know that Mentor has Renoir and related tools on Linux, including
integration with Exemplar Linux Leonardo.
So we have all the engineers inside EDA companies dying to bring out Linux
ports of tools. On the other side we have a fair number of engineers who
would love to have their entire EDA flows on Linux. Yet EDA sales/marketing
and engineering managers just aren't getting the message. Maybe we could
borrow your "ominous Voice" and make a few phone calls!
- Peter Collins
Exemplar Logic
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
From: "Clifford E. Cummings" <cliffc@sunburst-design.com>
John -
As my teenage daughters would put it: "way-cool article" about "My Universe
Speaks To Me". I like UNIX workstations and I like Linux on PCs. I
completely agree that Linux is a great operating system for PCs; much better
than any OS from Microsoft.
I believe, however, we are missing the point? I don't think Cadence, Mentor
or Synopsys have ported or have even announced plans to port their tools to
Linux. Or perhaps better said, I believe Cadence, Mentor and Synopsys have
I missed the point, that engineers would gladly use PC hardware if they
could run the tools on Linux instead of NT!
- Cliff Cummings
Sunburst Design Beaverton, OR
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From: Ross Harvey <ross@teraflop.com>
John,
I'm sending you this letter from a PC happily running NetBSD. Total cost
for sophisticated Unix-based system software: $0.
The press tends to talk up Windows XX a lot because, well, that's what
THEY run... it's what THEY have on their desktops. They don't understand
Unix/Linux/BSD, don't even know exactly what it is. So naturally they
hype-up any kind of an NT trend. Management, also frequently knowing
nothing other than Windows XX tends to lap it up and "go with the fad".
But Windows XXX isn't what us wizards run. :-)
- Ross Harvey
Teraflop
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From: [ Jean-Luc Picard of the EDA Enterprise ]
Hi John, you said my magic word - Linux! As a former EDA developer, I used
to work with a 133MHz PC, running Win for the office automation and Linux to
compile with gcc. Linux is not only stable, it's *fast*. With gcc, my PC
was twice as fast than a basic, unloaded Ultra1.
I agree there's no technical problem with portings to Linux. The fact is
that EDA vendors don't want to bother with yet another Unix flavor. Why
should they support Linux while some of them are even considering to quiting
with HPUX?
Linux is a true operating system (can you show me how run a remote shell
from a WinNT Workstation?) but industry doesn't take it seriously
(univerisities do). Maybe just because you don't have to pay for it...
or because big companies prefer to pay huge fees not to bother with
maintainance.
The real advantage of Win is the amount of pretty good sw already there (EDA
firms should learn from native-Windows programs how to do GUIs) and Linux is
not competitive in the OA market. So, sadly, I don't see a future for EDA
on Linux, even if it's more robust and performing than WinNT.
(Please keep me anonymous)
- [ Jean-Luc Picard of the EDA Enterprise ]
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From: "Dr. Ralf Reetz" <ralf@verysys.com>
My quarter of a cent: check out http://www.freehdl.seul.org/ just if you
don't know it already.
- Dr. Ralf Reetz
Verysys GmbH Berlin, Germany
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From: warren@poci.amis.com ( Cliff Warren )
John,
I've always been someone who has voluntarily opted for a PC over a more
expensive machine. Perhaps I have a problem with using a box that costs
nearly as much as I do, but anyway, I have always been able to have the best
of both worlds. The PC can be used for office automation software, and
then I can just "X" into a Sun to run EDA tools that only run on Unix.
The last week or so has been slow, so I decided to install Linux on half of
my 9 gig disk. Wow, I may be hooked! I was expecting some half-baked deal,
but the creators of Linux have created something technically superior to NT.
Particularly in multitasking, Linux exceeds.
Unless you have one foot in the system administrator camp, one would
probably need help getting it installed and running. After that, the sky is
the limit. I particularly like the KDE window manager, which is something
of a cross between a "Windows" window manager and the CDE window manager
used on many Sparc machines.
- Cliff Warren
American Microsystems, Inc.
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From: Bill Schaffer <snowman@josey.accsyst.com>
John,
I'd like to add my voice to many pro-Linux letters you've received.
I've been using Linux for almost six years now, and have watched it grow from
a hackers toy into a very solid platform. I personally have been Micro$oft-
free for three years. Almost anything I need to do with a computer, I can do
with Linux, from software development to web surfing to word processing and
office suites.
Anyway, EDA tools under Linux, the one thing that I need to do that I can't.
I feel that Linux has proven itself to be a robust and viable platform. I
have setup some Linux systems that have been running continuously for over
year without rebooting. I talk to many engineers who openly or secretly use
Linux at home, and have been trying to get it into the workplace. If they
could just get the tools to do their jobs with Linux!!!
When there is a Linux version available of a commercial package, I always
recommend going to the Linux solution. The list is small, but growing,
recently WordPerfect 7 was released for Linux, and version 8 is on the way.
I checked out the demo, and it ran nicely on my 486-66.
Getting information about Linux is as easy as falling off a log. Easier
than paying for support from Microsoft, which seems to be making a profit
center out of their technical support department. I have included here a
brief list of Linux resources that are on the web. These are the ones that
I frequent for news and help:
Linux Weekly News, news and info
http://lwn.net/
Linux News, more news and info
http://www.ssc.com/linews
Freshmeat, software release news
http://www.freshmeat.net/
Linux Howto's, howto information and tutorials
http://sunsite.unc.edu/mdw/HOWTO/HOWTO-INDEX-3.html
Linux Docs, a good source for documentation
http://sunsite.unc.edu/mdw
Web Wanderer's Linux application list
http://www.xnet.com/~blatura/linapps.shtml
Linux for Business, Linux's inroads to corporate life
http://www.netnomics.com/linux/en/
Real-Time Linux, yes, an embedded real time extension
http://luz.cs.nmt.edu/~rtlinux/
And for a Unix to NT comparison, check this out:
http://www.kirch.net/unix-nt.html
Put me down as a vote for porting EDA tools to Linux. By profession, I work
as a Computer Engineer, I do software and hardware. I prefer to work under
Linux. The company that sells a Linux version of their software, certainly
gets my attention.
- Bill Schaffer
Accsyst
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