** adam@thebowery.co.uk adam@thebowery.co.uk [2003-12-30 23:10]:
It still doesn't change the fact that x86 architecture is a bit sucky and anyhow my sparc box accepts pci cards like anything else as do powermacs (?)etc etc.. It is a shame that hardware makers are sticking with such a poor overall architecture, it would be nice if the other choices had more money spent on them.
** end quote [adam@thebowery.co.uk]
Why build other architecture hardware when Windows no longer supports it? You'd have to charge more and therefore limit your sales and hence income. There's little market on the desktop here, only server and specialist systems. Witness the size of the Apple Mac market compared to the x86 system market.
How many people here are running non-x86 hardware? Probably a few Mac users, maybe the odd one or two with second hand Sparc or similar machines. I would suggest it is unlikely that many, if anyone has bought non-x86 hardware new specifically run Linux or another OS (excluding Mac as the lone exception). It is available if you want to pay the premium. There's the AmigaOne hardware that runs Linux quite happily - in fact that's about all it runs until Amiga OS 4 is released (if ever!). There's also the Pegasos systems, again Amiga related and again Linux compatible (as well as the native MorphOS). Not saying, of course, that these motherboards are necessarily easy to get hold of, but then that's because the market is so limited. If you shop around I think you can still get ARM based systems that will run Linux as well as RISCOS - probably easiest to source in the Anglian area too :-)
http://www.eyetech.co.uk/search.php?SearchStr=&SearchCat=AMA1 http://amigaone-linux.sourceforge.net/index.php http://www.pegasosppc.com/ http://www.pegasos-uk.com/english/menu_main.html
End of cynicism ;-)