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You're sort of wrong. Or rather your experience is in a different situation from mine and that of netbook purchasers. My current computer had several driver problems which were solved by a small amount (1 hour - sound card) of messing and six months of waiting (next Fedora release - web cam & full VT compatibility). The difference is that I bought absolute state of the art (1 year ago) since I wanted VT and low power consumption. With old hardware, Linux is always better than Windows. With new, the OEM Windows will normally be badly set up (OEMs always do that; spyware stupidity and overtuning) but at least compatible.

Netbook purchasers are always buying latest hardware. If they don't get Linux pre-installed they can expect some problems until the distros catch up with their new hardware. The solution is to use old hardware or, if you need the latest and greatest buy new hardware from a Linux specialist such as System 76

Check out the various companies who sell PCs with Linux onboard, such as:

http://www.justworksnh.com/
http://www.penguincomputing.com/

All sell systems with various Linuxes pre-loaded. JustWorks sells Mandriva, Penguin Computing sells RedHat.

Anywho. There are options out there for those who don't want to pay the M$ tax. :)

Returning windows does so many good things: increases the cost of selling Windows. Reduces the cost of buying a machine for Linux. Ensures MS don't get their MSTax, exercises the consumer laws, teaches companies to accept returns. (in the long run; the company probably makes a fixed cost deal with MS in any case and probably doesn't dare claim back, but they get a stronger negociating position next time round if many people do this).

Probably even better (I'm not sure though) is buying from a supplier like penguin computing which doesn't stock Windows in the first place. When you give extra money to Dell, you are giving to a company which does a great deal to support Windows development. When you give to Penguin, you can be pretty sure you aren't contributing.

If you want high-end power machines that run Linux, build them yourself or go buy them pre-configured here or here. In the mean time, the more non-geeks we can get to be using Linux, the more hardware manufacturers and applications developers will have to consider Linux compatibility. Once we get to the point where all hardware works in Linux (either because they make it use an existing interface, or fully and openly document the new one they design, or provide kernel license compatible open source drivers) and all useful applications have native Linux versions, then I really don't care how many people use Windows. But until then, I see expanding the Linux user base as a means to the desired ends.

Smaller companies have been doing this for a while. Why do we need to go to big companies like HP when we can get computers from places like Los Alamos Computers and Penguin Computing? Oh wait, geeks now want dirt cheap computers instead of top of the line machines?

(not least that our data center is at best 100 Mb/s and our software is actually more data than computation heavy)

Good Evening Mr. Gates, I'll be your server today!

http://www.penguincomputing.com/images/stories/Tux /gates1280x1024.jpg

What about a Penguin Computing Altus 1300?

For servers and workstations, you can go with companies like Penguin Computing (there are many more of them) that put together machines out of Linux-compatible components, integrate it, preinstall everything, and ship it.

For laptops, there are actually plenty of Linux compatible laptops, but there is no single recognizable brand that is consistently Linux compatible, making the problem one of selection, not availability. Fortunately, a number of companies like Emperor Linux do the legwork for you.

With hardware virtualization on the new Intel mobile chips, using Windows or OS X as a "bootstrap loader and device driver" for Linux is another reasonable choice. That way, you get all the goodness of a Linux desktop environment on your hardware, but installation is trivial and you can strip down the host OS to its bare minimum.

MacOS X runs on a closed hardware platform. There is no way an OS running on generic hardware will ever get as many "little thing" right as an OS where the developer controls the hardware.

If you want to compare desktop Linux with MacOS X in any meaningful way, you must compare MacOS X with Linux running on a PC specially build by professionals for a particular Linux distribution.

Or, you could check out Born to Frag from Penguin Computing.

I've setup a couple servers from Penguin Computing and have been ecstatic with the results. Pricing out server-specific components really doesn't save money and you get a nice warranty with a system. And the racks I bought from Penguin were top-notch. When I did have a hardware problem (which wasn't their fault), they replaced the hardware instantaneously and we never even had downtime.

Time is money and they saved me a bunch of both.
-N

Dell has a pretty healthy selection of Linux options these days and of course there's always Penguin Computing

Where do you buy your Linux servers?

Penguin Computing's still about.
Tatung seems to be making 1U Opteron rackmounts.
As does Aberdeen...
And Opteronics...
As is Aspen...

All of these vendors were found on the first page of a Google search of "1u opteron rackmount".

Of course, these aren't "major" players like HP, Dell, and IBM. Doesn't make the box any less reliable and you can buy support services from people like IBM, etc. for them anyhow.

Penguin Computing does this kind of stuff for a living. I think they are an all open source shop, too... There may be others, too.

-cmh

Maybe you should either tell us what kind of applications that you want to run. Video drivers aren't too important for a headless box that sits in a closet.

I'm guessing that you are planning on running very large memory applications (> 2 Gig per process), otherwise 64bit support is useless. Especially since _many_ of Linux's applications still have 32bit limitations, even when compiled for 64bit platforms. I've run 64bit linux for 6 or 7 years now, and I'm still pissed that I run into 2Gb file size limits. Remember an int on 64bit linux is still 4 bytes as it is on 32bit systems, so each application has to either use size_t or long to get 64bit integers (which will work on either a 32bit or 64bit machine). Just today I had a user mail me with an error with rcp because it could not transfer a file that was 2.1Gigs. I believe 'cat' has the same limitation, unless it is done as a pipe. For example, cat over_2Gig_file > /dev/null will fail, but cat /dev/null will not. You will find these limitations from time to time, and rarely does the platform matter.

Also, Linux has other limitations like it cannot access a block device over 1 or 2 Tb (depending on the kernel version).

I think that the 64bit hype is amusing. I'm not sure, but an amd64 system running int 64bit mode might be slower than a 32bit offering from either intel or amd. You will have to look at the numbers, but they are hard to find. All of the benchmarks for the opteron that I have seen were run on 32bit applications that were complied with the _Intel_ compiler, or sometimes gcc (and then I believe that they were in 32bit mode).

My recommendation is to 1) kill you cat (just kidding), and 2) just by a stock machine that is either 32bits or look for an integrated 64bit system for linux already, or get a really nice 64bit system (but I wouldn't put Linux on one of those).

PenguinComputing Workstations - very powerful workstations, linux preinstalled, guaranteed compatibility

A truly open market will provide options.

• HP
• Apple
• Sun
• Penguincomputing
• pogolinux

I was surprised to learn that Penguin Computing is still pre-installing Red Hat v9.0 during the same week it reaches it's end of life. It would be nice if they took responsiblity for the security issues and bundled a license to Progeny Transition Service with the workstation. After two weeks, Penguin Computing sales has failed to respond to if they will continue to pre-install RH9 after May 1st.

I was surprised to learn that Penguin Computing is still pre-installing Red Hat v9.0 during the same week it reaches it's end of life. It would be nice if they took responsiblity for the security issues and bundled a license to Progeny Transition Service with the workstation. After two weeks, Penguin Computing sales has failed to respond to if they will continue to pre-install RH9 after May 1st.

Perhaps this thread presents an opportunity to the Slashdot editors to interview someone from some of the companies that are successful? Emperor Linux (linux laptops, many models, choice of distro) and of course Penguin Computing both spring to mind.

Los Alamos Computers These guys seem pretty good, and offer a lot of choice, and have some clearance systems.
penguin computing
Linux Certified
Linux.org's listing of linux hardware vendors. Doesn't seem to be that up to date(last I looked) but a good starting point for finding computers running linux.

Well, the moral of the story, boys and girls, is that you shouldn't trust information you find on-line if you can't verify the source as someone you trust. Simple as that, really...

Online or offline. This isn't anything new here kids. If you put your trust in information whose source or quality can't be confirmed - you are an idiot.

Let me put this into terms that even a slashdot geek could understand:

Would you buy a dual Opteron workstation from some mysterious Romanian in a dark alley? Of course not, because its probably full of potatos. Would you buy a dual Opteron workstation from here or from here? Of course, because these are trusted sources.

Get it now??

Well said. A "cosmetically" similar product to the XServe is something like the Penguin Computing Altus. Its got fatty dual 64-bit processors, dual gig ethernet, lots of ECC ram, dual HD's on independant IDE channels, PCI-X, 1U enclosure, etc. etc. and guess what? Its cost is very similar to an XServe for similar configurations. Its a stigma they'll probably never live down (that they even offer a computer at $2999, when you can get "some sort" of PC for under $1000 ((ignoring the fact that Dell, Gateway, etc. also have systems that run that high)) ), but price/performance on apple stuff isn't that bad anymore.

that looks like a fun home project but I would start here when looking for a small office server Penguin Computing Relion Servers

If you look at these numbers you can't help but come to a completely different conclusion. I guess that -as always- you have to remember caveat emptor and YMMV!

You can order amd64 systems from places like appro and Penguin Computing right now, with decent sized collections of 64-bit applications provided by popular distributions such as SuSE. Let's not forget that the amd64 CPU's can run ia32 binaries at speeds faster than many ia32 CPU's and on a system with an amd64 kernel allow for more aggregate address space consumption across processes and the ability to install tremendous amounts of physical memory for buffers and cache even if individual processes can only take advantage of a few gigabytes.

With other groups like the Debian project well underway in their amd64 porting efforts, you can expect thousands of popular applications built for the amd64 platform. There's tons of software available for amd64 already, and you can bet by the time that AMD releases their "Athlon64" or whatever they're targeting the low-end market with, there will be even more.

I saw 3-4x performance gains on Redhat 8.0, Xeon 2.8GHz, 4GB ECC.

3-4x compared to what? That's a simple question... care to answer it?

My server was a nice Altus 130 with dual Athlon 2600MP and 4 Gb of ram, and a nice, EDA vendor supported Red Hat 7.2. Now, I happen to know that the Athlon CPUs tends to get starved since the CPU-Memory bus isn't quick enough to keep it up for some things, like verilog simulations, or on various benchmark reports that you can find at various sites. That's why even my old Sun Blade 1000s with only 600 Mhz CPUs was able to keep up. The Suns have a better memory bus. A P4 with the 800 Mhz bus would do better that the Athlons, and let the greater CPU power show. The 533 Mhz bus wasn't really different that the Athlon.

This was VerilogXL, NCVerilog and Design Compiler.

We run Modelsim and VCS. So? I might believe NCVerilog would be Modelsim, but VCS?

Your FUD doesn't hold water "anonymous coward".

There is FUD flying alright, but its mainly anti-Sun FUD coming from you. Well, that might be a little harsh. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and just assume that you are ignorant and unfamiliar with your vendors plans and supported tools. Since I'm in a charitable mood I'll help you out.

Why don't you try visiting DeepChip? You will find, if you read carefully, that Linux is far from a universal win, although there are many success stories. Unfortunately many of the success stories sound sort of like yours-- "I have a hot, brand new Linux box that beats some sort of old Sun!! Linux RULES!!" If you cast your net wider to check FPGA sites, and various other ones, the story is about the same.

Here is the Cadence SUPPORTED HARDWARE PLATFORMS MATRIX FOR 32 BIT platforms. You will notice that there are large gaps in the Linux support, and that it is for older releases.

There is also a Cadence SUPPORTED HARDWARE PLATFORMS MATRIX FOR 64-BIT APPLICATIONS, but I wouldn't bother looking for any Linux based tools there for at least a year or two, if ever. Even IBM's AIX doesn't fare so well there.

What about Synopsys? Well, their baseline for building EDA tools on X86 Linux is going to be Red Hat 7.2 (the one that is EOLed) for some time to come, and it will only support binary compatible versions. (I will also note that Synopsys has dropped support for various intermediate Red Hat releases on various tools due to problems, so you might find that 7.0 and 7.3 supported, but not 7.1 or 7.3). On the Itanium Synopsys is going to support Red Hat Enterprise (you know, the cheap one - not.) Although why you would buy an Itanium based system and run Red Hat instead of HP/UX is beyond me. HP/UX is far more mature and has a much larger software base than Linux, but I guess some people will run Linux just to run Linux.

What about Mentor Graphics? Their supported platform release history looks a lot like the other two. There are lots of tools that only run on old Linux releases, and gaps in the releases.

As You can read in the Red Hat Network 2.6.0 Release Notes that they have End Of Lifed Red Hat 6.2-7.0. 7.2 should be EOL about now too.

As you can see, almost all EDA tools from the major EDA vendors are only supported on obsolete, unsupported Linux releases. If you put in a little effort, you will find that many of them are moving to run only on the professional versions o

I watched an article on the CBS "Sunday Morning" show where they interviewed Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page while sitting at the breakfast table absorbing my first cup of coffee when noticed stackes of boxes in their office labeled "Penguin Computing". That put a smile on my face!

First, I think Cringely is great. I mean who else would let us buy video tape of them having a nervous breakdown?

However, I think he's *WAY* off base here as to why Linux is being adopted faster than Apple. If I need a 64-way Linux machine, I can get it. If I need a cluster I can get it (off the shelf). If I want some funky hardware bit, I can get that as well.

My reason for not choosing Apple is vendor lock-in. If I can keep something that allows me to pick and choose parts from a wide variety of sources, I can build solutions that fit the need.

The one place where he might have a point is on the desktop, but I don't see a lot of Linux migration on the desktop. It's still Windows. People want Office even though they hate it.

...or maybe he should summon the giant penguin of the apocalypse.

Starts at $2600

Or so they say.

They make some nice rack mount units that should do the job (about $13K for a RAID 5+1 500GB hot swappable Relion 240 configuration).

LLNL Linux Network/Quadrix supercluster if build out of Penguin Computing 1U Relion 140's:

$4,747,392 offering 11.2 Teraflops...

$423.87/Gigaflop...

http://www.penguincomputing.com sells rackmount servers, and can probably do workstation server sales without any problems.

Cheers-
JB

I have bought prebuilt Linux systems from Penguin Computing and ASL with success.

If the people don't know how to run a server, I'd go with Red Hat and subscribe to Red Hat's automatic security update program. Make sure they use one of the user-friendly tools to turn off all the stuff they don't need, though.

If that's not enough, they should probably just hire somebody to help them. A custom off-the-shelf system is a contradiction in terms; if you want something a little different than everybody else, then you can't just open the box and plug it in: cash or elbow grease is required.

Lewis - you lost me. What was the original point of your post? To suggest that Linux distributor sue Microsoft or the hardware distributors?

Either way, I fail to see how that would actually help, since Linux distributors are not kept out of the market. There are a multitude of other channels by which a consumer can obtain a Linux-based computer, some of whom even use reverse-discrimination by not selling Microsoft-powered machines. If the Linux distributors have a valid lawsuit against Microsoft, then in turn Microsoft has a valid lawsuit against Penguin, since they are being kept out Penguin's market. Guess who could afford to win that one?

I think all those years of lawyering have gone to your head and made you lawsuit-happy, but that is my opinion, and I could be wrong. Worse things have happened.

Here's a similarly configured Penguin Computing Linux server.

In case that quote link dies:

Standard Features

• 1U (1.75") Rackmount Chassis
• Dual AMD Athlon MP Processors
• 266MHz Front Side Bus
• Up to 3.5GB of PC2100 ECC Reg. DDR Ram
• Integrated Dual Channel ATA-100 Controller
• Two Fixed 3.5" Hard Drive Bays
• Dual Integrated 10/100 Ethernet NICs
• One Available PCI Slot
• Integrated Video
• 24x Slim CD-Rom Drive
• Red Hat Linux
• Altus 130 Documentation
• Penguin Computing two-year warranty

Selected Features

• Altus 130 Base System
• Dual Athlon MP 1800+ Processors
• 512 MB PC2100 (1x512)
• 40 GB, EIDE, 7200 RPM
• Slimline 24x CD-Rom Drive
• Intel Copper Gigabit Adapter
• Ball-Bearing Rails
• Red Hat 7.3 Installation with Documentation
• 1U Packaging

Price: $2,124

Compared to the "Fastest" Xserve configuration ($3999 with default options), it's only got a 40GB drive, a single Gigabit Ethernet interface (with two integrated 10/100 nics), and no FireWire. Neither system has a support plan other than the free warranty coverage.

Not "sub-$1000", but not too bad.

Of course, the Penguin system runs Red Hat Linux 7.3, which isn't so hard to use, but it's certainly not "point at the picture and click" like the Xserve appears to be.

There's obviously not as much room for expansion with the Penguin system. (Drive bays, Gigabit card uses the only PCI slot, etc.)

I don't really have an opinion about this; just wanted to provide an example of a "Dual AMD 1U Server with identical[ish] specs."

How is the 'Joe Sixpack' in question going to connect to the 'net?
Configure a PPP script?
How are they going to get their DNS names? Configure their email? Get their access numbers?
This isn't meant as flamebait, but these are hurdles anyone setting up a dial-up Linux box has had to get by.
How is this going to fly in the mass market? Will Mandrake walk them through? Is Earthlink getting their CD presses ready with Linux versions?
Trust me, this will be the Next Big Linux Problem. (now that fancy guis and cheap machines and distribution are out of the way.)
Otherwise, they're just going to pull the bottom feeders from penguincomputing.com.

-J

Also (and more to your point) few if any companies will build with just "any" component the customer specifies because of the time it would take to micro-test each configuration for hardware/software/driver conflicts. There's no way to anticipate every possible problem (not all of which are known, or if known then well-documented) for every component combination. People who home-build often spend weeks querying forums and scrutinizing manufacturer FAQ's -- ask anyone who's tried to enable all the cool features on their Abit KT7-A RAID motherboard. It's just more than a real business would have time for. Better to stick with known parts and supply a CD with drivers known to work.

For the same reason, I wouldn't recommend having your machine built by a friendly enthusiast, unless you're confident they'll be available for substantial support on the chance trouble arises. Any twit can plug the parts together, but that's where the hard part typically begins.

If the alternative OS can really "swim," a retailer can open which does business only with the alternative, and doesn't deal with M$.

M$ is no scapegoat. Ask BeOS, Mac, Sun, IBM, DR. They don't compete on an open market, they compete through litigation and intimidation (that is what those OEM licenses really are). If you get that $10 penalty on every system you sell, along with lower priority whenever you have a request for your main OS vendor, well - that amounts to a serious business disadvantage that does not compensate for those additional 5% you can do business with.

Your point, that a company that sold mainstream Linux PCs would have a wide-open market to themselves, is absolutely valid. Why is there no such company? Because it's been tried and it doesn't work. There's no market for such a company. To assume that Dell and Gateway don't sell them because of pressure by Microsoft ignores a far more obvious answer.

When peolpe start buying Itanium systems in volume, then the prices will drop on the Itanium systems. The reasons, they're expensive is not because the chips are hard to come by but because no one wants to buy them right now.

Uhmmm. Have you seen the die size specs for the Itanium? It's a freaking monster size chip (McKinley's >400mm2 I believe). Unless Intel is able to pull off an order of magnitude decrease in defects, the prices in Itaniums ain't ever going to drop compared to other CPU's (Sparc, MIPS, PowerPC etc.)

He obviously hasn't worked in any real production environment. You people should realize that you simply can't build the kind of systems that Dell, HP, etc sell -today- out of commodity components... All components have been carefully designed to work together to produce a reliable, and scalable server system. You will never ever build the same kind of system on your own and if you do it's not going to be cheaper than buying one. Plus you don't get the vendor support.

Really? Have you worked in a real production environment? The motherboard may be proprietary, but the chipset (90% of the development cost if not more) certainly isn't. AFAIK you can build your own with almost all of the features you need from off the shelf components. With vendor support also if you want. Checkout Penguin Computing if you want to see some solid server boxes made out of quality commodity parts and with vendor support.

The comment about SPARC being death is completely astonishing at the time when Sun is -THE- unix market leader. SPARC CPUs were never faster than the competition but that didn't worry Sun users as long as they were up to par with the competitors.

I don't know what you mean by "-THE- unix market leader"; but without objective criteria it's hard to say where you're coming from (unless it's Sun marketing literature). BTW, SPARC CPU's are not up to par with the competitors, especially with regards to floating point processing. In FP, PowerPC, Athlon, Pentium, all wipe the floor with the SPARC. And the Alpha still wipes the floor with all of *them*.

First and foremost, I would like to say that it was good when Dell offered Linux on their machines, I got my Inspiron 8000 and GX1 for about $200-500 less than a windows version.

-BUT-

The installations REALLY sucked. I had to go back and re-install Linux on both. On top of that, I also needed to dload the newest Linux (at the time, Dells shipped w/ RH7.0, when Red Hat had been shipping 7.1 for a long time). The problems ranged from not being able to have the CD drive toast CD's, or even read stuff to having the computer randomly lock up. All problems were fixed upon the re-installation, but it was a (minor) inconvience. I think that all Dell did was make one install image and then use them for all the machines, from laptop to desktop. I seemed to have fewer problems on the OptiPlex...Oh well

Just letting the public know about how *much* Dell cares about Linux. Next time I want a computer, I'll just buy the parts. (I would have done that, but these damned grants don't let you do that, now do they?) If people are really interested in getting a quality linux box, they should go to Penguin Computing at . My buddy just got a machine from them, and he tells me that they are the Alienware of the linux world.

Duh?

Penguin Computers did us right. I've also seen small mom 'n' pop stores that will sell a full system w/ no software. Essentially they do the build work for you.

I simply don't trust anyone else to build a computer right, so I still have to build my own. Depressing and time-consuming, but then I don't have to deal with returning it 30 times when it's been done wrong (30 times).

Scyld is a software company so they don't sell directly. To get a turnkey system they have partnered with hardware vendors who will sell a pre-integrated cluster along with hardware support and Scyld support for the integrated Beowulf Professional Edition software. Visit their site at:

Scyld Computing Corporation

Or go directly to their partners:

Compaq

PSSC Labs

Penguin Computing

eLinux

Aspen Systems

Custom Fit, Inc.

Atipa

Dan

• Compaq
• PSSC Labs
• Penguin Computing
• eLinux
• Aspen Systems
• Custom Fit, Inc.
• Atipa

Penguin Computing ships beowulf clusters

IBMdoes a lot of linux stuff, they even have beowulf traning classes - I imagine that they have some turnkey solution.

Compaq sells 'em. too.

In other words, almost any company that sells Linux servers sells beowulf clusters o' servers as well. And if you want training, quite a few of them out there have classes for it too :)