TRILLIAN PRESS CONFERENCE FEBRUARY 2, 2000

Question and Answers

Q1: What is being announced at the Trillian press conference?
A1: The Trillian developer's release of the Linux port to IA-64 is now publicly available.

Q2: How can the code be accessed?
A2: The source code will be available at this link

Q3: Why is the source code release significant?
A3: This is the first time that source code is available to the Open Source community for a pre-production architecture

Q4: When will IA-64 development tools be available?
A4: The development tools will be available later this month.

Q5: When will IA-64 development hardware be available?
A5: A rollout plan regarding access to IA-64 development hardware is currently being developed.

Q6: What is the Trillian project?
A6: The Trillian project, founded in April 1999, is a co-operative development effort among several computer industry leaders to port Linux operating system to Intel's forthcoming IA-64 architecture, beginning with the Itanium processor. Participating in the Trillian project are Caldera, CERN, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, Red Hat (Cygnus), SGI, SuSE, TurboLinux, and VA Linux Systems.

Q7: Why was Trillian formed? What are its goals?
A7: The Trillian project was formed with three specific goals:
1) To provide a single unified port of Linux to Intel's IA-64 architecture
2) To optimize the Linux port for IA-64 architecture
3) To make it Open Source in time for Intel's Itanium processor launch

Q8: Why does it take a group to develop this port vs. it being done by a single company?
A8: Just as Linux is the result of a collaborative effort of many individuals and companies worldwide, so is the IA-64 Linux port. By forming a group around the development of the Linux port we benefit from the combined talent of Linux developers at each of the member companies.

Q9: Will other companies be able to join the Trillian project?
A9: Yes. Each Trillian member is responsible for development tasks related to their specific expertise. Additional members are added to the team when it is determined that they bring additional capabilities to the project.

Q10: What is the contribution of each of the members of the Trillian project?
A10: Caldera will provide a distribution. CERN is providing glibc. HP provided the initial kernel and glibc port, and continues to work on the kernel. IBM is providing performance tools, measurement, and analysis. Intel is providing IA-32 support, IA-64 platform port, Apache port, EFI, FPSWA, SCSI, SMP and libm support. Red Hat (Cygnus) will provide the GNUPro Toolkit (GCC, G++, GDB), GNOME, and a distribution. SGI is providing an optimized C compiler, kdb, and kernel support. SuSE will provide KDE support and a distribution. TurboLinux will provide performance counters and a distribution. VA Linux Systems is leading the project and providing kernel support, SMP, platform, boot loader, commands and libraries, Xfree86, E, E-Term and IA-32 support.

Q11: Who is leading the effort of the Trillian project?
A11: The Trillian project is being lead by VA Linux Systems, a prominent member of the Linux community that is in the business of developing and marketing Linux-based computer systems. VA is not in the Linux software distribution business, which makes it distribution-neutral.

Q12: How will Linux for IA-64 be distributed?
A12: The port will be added to the standard Linux tree and will be available as part of many standard distributions.

Q13: Will distributors develop their own Linux for Intel's IA-64 architecture?
A13: No. The goal of the Trillian team is to develop a standard port for incorporation into the standard Linux tree. As is true of any other standard Linux software, we expect this Linux port to be available through a variety of distributors once the port becomes Open Source.

Q14: Will there be a Trillian distribution?
A14: No. Trillian is a Linux development project for building open source software, not a distribution. The porting work will become part of the standard Linux tree.

Q15: What features will be in the Linux port for IA-64?
A15: In addition to standard Linux features, the Linux port for IA-64 will support a variety of enterprise features such as SMP, clustering, large memory, large file systems and performance monitoring.

Q16: Will the port be backward compatible to run unmodified IA-32 applications?
A16: Yes. The Trillian port will be backward compatible with IA-32 and it will let you run IA-32 applications unmodified.

Q17: What tools will be available for the Linux port to IA-64?
A17: In addition to compilers and tool chains from Cygnus and SGI, several Open Source tools such as JAVA, Perl, Python, PHP and Tcl/TK will be available for Trillian. Additionally, various OEMs are expected to provide other tools for their own platforms.

Q18: Where can I find more technical details about the port?
A18: More technical details about the port and other Trillian project information will be available on the World Wide Web at www.linuxia64.org.

Q19: When can I see a demo of the Linux port on Intel's Itanium processor?
A19: The first public demo was in August 1999 at the Intel Developer's Forum.

Q20: When will the port be ready/released?
A20: The Trillian IA-64 Linux production release is planned for concurrent release with Itanium processor based system availability later this year.

Q21: When will ISVs have products to run on Trillian?
A21: Please ask each of the ISVs for their individual timelines - we can't speak on behalf of these companies.

Q22: How can I keep track of progress on the Trillian project?
A22: Regular updates on the progress of the project will be available on the World Wide Web at www.linuxia64.org.

Q23: How long will the Trillian project continue in existence?
A23: The Trillian project will continue until the port is completed and becomes part of the standard Linux tree.

 
This article was originally published on LinuxDevices.com and has been donated to the open source community by QuinStreet Inc. Please visit LinuxToday.com for up-to-date news and articles about Linux and open source.