What's Arctic Tern good for, anyway?

Arctic Tern (and its associated soft-BMC Kestrel) is a product that's hard to describe just looking at it. Is it a boot accelerator? Is it a BMC replacement? Is it a development board? Is it OpenPOWER's answer to the Pi Nano? (Answers to pop quiz: yes (in the sense you get the BMC up quicker), yes, yes, and sort of but not really, since the clock speed is too low and it lacks some accoutrements.)

Raptor's new manual should address some of these concerns, and particularly covers the worry I and others had about bricking our system trying to get it installed (disclosure: yours truly reviewed a pre-release copy and submitted comments). Yes, it does need a PCIe slot if you want it to act as a VGA controller or USB host device; yes, it comes with all the necessary cables, including a JTAG programmer; yes, it's compatible with the Blackbird; no, soldering isn't required. But the instructions that are there are step by step and copiously decorated with illustrative photographs such that anyone reasonably handy with their machine should be able to do it.

Instead, the biggest roadblock to the casual interest will likely be the programming: you have to build the FPGA bitstream and firmware image yourself, and then flash your unit manually. The modules don't come preconfigured. (What, did you think that JTAG box was included just for giggles?) Raptor provides Kestrel source and instructions for Debian Linux on an OpenPOWER host in the manual, but the instructions are lengthy, and there is no public build or any other binaries presently available. This is primarily due to the rapid background development but also consider it a minimum "hacker" threshold required to join the club. Other operating systems on Raptor or OpenPOWER hosts should work, but x86_64 users will have to bring up their own toolchains. Raptor did say that at some point there will be "known good" images, though when that will be is an open question since the Kestrel source isn't even close to stable right now. Compared to that, the requirement that you also patch the on-board BMC to disable it in software seems comparatively minor (and it's reversible).

So who's this good for? Raptor may have their own ideas about that, but from over here typing this on my (now switched over to KDE) Talos II, right now I see this product really for someone who wants all the pieces in one place to play with Microwatt to develop their own embedded applications for it. If you're one of those people, you may not even care about the state of Kestrel anyway; to you it would be merely an example. On the other hand, for those of us looking forward to a fully auditable BMC, Kestrel seems to be working but it may not be sufficient (or sufficiently solid) to replace your BMC today and you'd have to jump through a lot of hoops to do it. If that's all you're interested in, you may want to wait. But it comes with everything you need to get started and for those in its apparent target audience, the barriers to entry don't seem unreasonable.

Linux 5.19

Linux 5.19 is released, largely with more hardware support and new architectures (including an unusual super-modern virtual Motorola 68000 platform to emulate Google Goldfish devices — my real Q800, clockchipped running A/UX, is flabbergasted). Here's a full list of changes.

This release doesn't have a great deal of Power ISA-specific improvements, but one generally positive note can be implied from Linus Torvalds' announcement message: he's now on an Apple silicon laptop, running Asahi Linux. Recall that Asahi Linux uses 16K pages as opposed to 4K pages, and this is still the case; many Power ISA workstation users are on systems that use 64K pages, including this Raptor Talos II running Fedora 36. If software bustage is happening for Linus himself, then it's a good sign that more software will start becoming more flexible about allowing larger memory pages and that's good news for us niche configurations too.

Arctic Tern available for purchase

Raptor now has Arctic Terns available for purchase, along with the user's guide. The US$1600 bundle comes with the PCIe carrier card, one ECP5 FPGA module (using Microwatt, the FPGA OpenPOWER core), FSI and JTAG adaptors and all the necessary cabling to connect to a Talos II system (we presume this means the entire T2 family including the T2 Lite and Blackbird, but it doesn't say — more about that in a moment UPDATE: it does now). As it is designed to completely replace the onboard ASPEED BMC, there are fan, Ethernet and two (!) HDMI connectors on board. There is a second module slot as we surmised, but it appears most board functions will be available with just one FPGA module installed, as provided in this bundle (fortunate since an extra module is US$900).

Unfortunately it looks like it does need its own PCIe slot and people like me with a nearly full loadout will be a bit disappointed if that's truly the case. We don't yet know, because the user's guide doesn't look like it has installation instructions for any T2 family system either even though it does have Raptor's usual studious pinouts and schematics. Being primarily a peripheral, I look forward to seeing additional documentation posted since no one wants to buy a $1600 card, get it home and accidentally brick it and their expensive OpenPOWER computer. Once I get my hands on one, we'll talk more about it.

Tonight's game on OpenPOWER: Duke Nukem II

No, not that Duke Nukem game — I mean the platformer. Before the Build engine wrought PG-13 destruction upon the City of the Angels, which also builds and runs on OpenPOWER, Apogee introduced the world's most egotistical alien exterminator in two episodes of heavily armed hopping around. The first installment in 1991 was poor even among PC games of the time, especially considering the far superior (and also Apogee-published) Commander Keen that came out the year before. But the second episode in 1993 had better graphics, better animation, better music, even a rip-roaring VGA cinematic if you had the hardware:

(Always wear your eyes and ears during target practice, kids!) It generally plays fine in DOSBox, but where's the fun in that? RigelEngine is a re-creation of DN2 that plays like the original DOS game mostly faithfully — pedantic quibbles shortly — along with various enhancements such as widescreen support, shown here in the screenshot.

RigelEngine builds out of the box on Fedora 35 and 36, though it has a rather surprising amount of vendored 3rd-party libraries and additionally requires OpenGL, SDL and SDL_mixer. Make sure to clone it with submodules enabled (e.g., git clone --recursive), then mkdir build ; cd build ; cmake .. ; make.

You'll also need a copy of the game, either the shareware first episode (1MB ZIP) or the full game (which I have, as an early DN3D purchaser). Apogee-3D Realms titles have moved from GOG, our usual drug dealer, to ZOOM Platform. Put the NUKEM2.* files into a directory and point the RigelEngine binary at it, or it will present a basic file picker when you start and then remember those settings.

As a clean room re-creation of the game, the additional features are simply incorporated into the game's regular settings menu (i.e., no specific command line options are used to enable them). Widescreen works just dandy with the exception of the radar and inventory frames which can sometimes blend in with the display a little too well; otherwise, I highly recommend it. On the other hand, the smooth scrolling feature — while being as smooth as advertised — makes playing the game feel a little like I've been stoned, uh, not that I would know anything about that, offisher (too used to those rapid 8-pixel and 4-pixel parallax moves). Also, while I'm being an ungrateful whiner, the introductory VGA cinematic is also not quite right compared to DN2 on my real Am5x86/133 DOS tower: there's an extra pause in the transition between "NEO LA: THE FUTURE" and Duke in the shooting range, and his firing rate in the first scene is too quick (it's fine when you're looking at the target). I know, I know, right? Uncanny valley!

Note that RigelEngine doesn't play the original Duke Nukem (this does), nor Cosmo's Adventure, which uses code descended but different from DN2 (this does).

This is too easy!

Raptor says the Blackbird crunch ends in August (and maybe Arctic Terns too)

Good news for everyone with a Blackbird backorder: Raptor is announcing order fulfillment and restocking by August 31, 2022. This may not mean the order you submit now will get fulfilled by then, but if you have your order already in, the wait will be over soon and new orders should be processed much more quickly. (This date does not apply yet to the Talos II Lite, but I'm sure Raptor is working on it.) In the meantime, if you can't wait, may we suggest a regular T2? Those are in stock and ready for purchase.

Raptor is also stating Arctic Tern will launch in the "next few weeks" for purchase, with the Kestrel soft-BMC onboard and compatible with the entire Raptor family including the full T2 and the 'Bird. We're looking forward to it and expect a review as soon as I can get my hands on a couple. Faster BMC booting is always welcome around here!

Rocky Linux 9.0

With new version 9.0 Rocky Linux joins the list of ppc64le-compatible CentOS clones, along with the already extant AlmaLinux 9 and Circle Linux based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 (itself based on Fedora 34). Rocky Linux explicitly requires a POWER9 CPU. Other than that, the big difference is the branding and the governance, but more choice is always good. Download ISOs are available.