On Sun, 02 Dec 2001 20:26:34 -0500, Anonymous wrote:
> I found that in the Oracle9i database download, there is "IA64
> Developer's Releases". What is "IA64"? Can I install this release on
> Win2000?
Yes, but only on a special version of Win2000 known as 64-bit Linux.
Available from SuSe, Mandrake or Red Hat. IA64 is a chip formerly known as
"Merced" and now bears an ugly name of "Itanium". Wait for McKinley which
is the next generation of 64-bit intel chips. You see, the problem is that
all other chips have gone 64 bit almost a decade ago and Wintel duopoly is
still on 32 bits restricting the overall size of the address space to
measly 4GB. ULTRA SPARC, MIPS, PPC, HPPA, Alpha, everything except Intel
and compatibles has 64 bit registers and 64bit bus interface since early
90's (MIPS R3000, Ultra I, PPC since it's inception, HP-PA since 7000,
Alpha since 1992 and 200MHZ 21064). Part of the problem is the fact that
windows doesn't know how to do 64 bits and Microsoft doesn't want to be
destroyed in benchmarks, benchmarking against the full 64 bit OSes like
Linux,
HP-UX or Solaris. That is why Intel doesn't make that chip available in
large quantities and that is why you are not seeing 64-bit PC's.
So, let me paraphrase the soup nazi: no IA64 for you! Next!
--
Mladen Gogala
Received on Sun Dec 02 2001 - 22:20:23 CST
