Re: Intel XEON Phi: Linux only?

On Tue, Jun 19, 2012 at 09:51:35PM -0600, Scott Long wrote:
> On Jun 19, 2012, at 4:31 PM, Adrian Chadd wrote:
> 
> > I bet the answer is something like "Get FreeBSD up on it or work with
> > someone who can help you do that."
> > 
> > It's a catch-22 just like GPU - unless ${COMPANY} has customers using
> > it, they're not likely to dedicate resources, and no users will use it
> > if it doesn't work, so .. who will break the cycle. :)
> > 
> > 
> 
> If I may be blunt here, there's no point in idle speculation when
> there are several FreeBSD committers who work for Intel and write Intel
> drivers for FreeBSD. Let's ask them!

Intel released a documentation set for MIC, which does not even contain
any references to the startup sequence and system management. The only
thing which is provided is patch for Linux kernel.

I will be very delighted and want to appear completely wrong, but my
suspect is that FreeBSD will be in the same position with MIC as it is
with Intel GPUs. I asked Intel representative about MIC programming
documentation some time ago, the answer was 'we do provide extensive
documentation for SDK'. After I noted that this is not what is needed
to support the hardware on !Linux, I only get a blank eye.

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