Power.org has announced a new Linux development kit and reference implementation for a dual-processor PowerPC chip. The announcement was made at the first-ever Power.org Developer's Conference in Austin, Texas, where planned updates to several PowerPC standards were announced, along with a new online directory of embedded-oriented PowerPC products and services.

The “Power Architecture Linux Developer Toolkit and Reference Platform, 970 MP Edition” includes the open source XEN hypervisor, along with a Linux kernel. It supports IBM's 970MP, the first dual-core PowerPC processor, and runs on IBM's dual-socket development board for the 970MP chip.

The new online directory, meanwhile, is presented as the “Power architecture solutions framework.” Divided into eleven vertical market categories, it lists hundreds of software stacks, tools, and service providers, including many Linux-related offerings. The directory will soon be improved to let companies register and maintain their own listings, Power.org said in a statement. The directory can be found here.

Additional announcements released this morning at the Power.org conference include:

• PowerPC ISA (instruction set architecture) 2.05 to ship next month, followed in the second half of 2008 by a 2.06 release
• The “ePAPR” (embedded Power architecture platform requirements) spec is due in “Q4” of this year. ePAPR appears to be a low-level bootloader/firmware interface spec in the tradition of PReP (PowerPC Reference Platform), CHRP (common hardware reference platform), and PAPR, but with an embedded orientation
• Two new Power.org technical sub-committees will be formed:

  • ABIs (application binary interfaces) — will create a set of “unified ABI documents that includes the merged Power Architecture specification [story] and existing coding standards. … A single point of reference will facilitate porting code to Power by third party tool and operating systems developers, the Linux community, and customers interfacing assembly code to programs,” Power.org said.
  • Hypervisors — will develop a “common set of software virtualization interfaces”

Additional news from the Power.org Developer's Conference can be found at Power.org.

 
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