The long development saga of Intel Corp’s first IA-64 chip, Merced, could be drawing to a close. Intel is now saying that the first chips will be available in the next couple of weeks. In other words, the chip may be the belle of the ball at the Intel Developers Forum in Palm Springs at the end of this month.
However, despite the lack of any silicon, Intel has managed to demonstrate a Linux kernel up and running on an IA-64 simulator. Andy Grove and Steve Mallory, a senior VP at Intel, gave a short demonstration of the kernel, developed by a consortium called the Trillian Project, at LinuxWorld on Tuesday. The Trillian consortium consists of Linux developer, VA Linux Research, along with IBM Corp, Hewlett-Packard Co, open source mavens Cygnus Solutions Inc and Intel. Grove demonstrated a web transaction executed via an Apache web server. The testbed for the demonstration was a machine using an Intel Pentium III with a 0.5Gb of memory running an IA-64 simulator. Marion Koehler, IA-64 spokesperson at Intel, said that the plan is for the Merced Linux kernel to be turned over to the open source community early next year.
