Red Hat Abandons Sparc

Mike Dubreuil writes: "When I went to download Red Hat Linux 7.0 for Sparc I was disappointed to learn RH is dropping support for the sparc processor line. They are claiming that there is a low demand for sparc versions This may be a major blow to the Linux community because Red Hat is the top vendor for commercial copies of Linux. Not to mention that they have the support in place to handle what large companies demand." Update: 10/02 09:43 PM by CT : Bernhard Rosenkraenz wrote in to say "It is true that we will probably not release Red Hat Linux 7.0 for sparc. However, this does NOT mean there won't be a Red Hat Linux 7.1 or 7.2 for sparc. If, at some time, we decide to discontinue commercial sparc support, we will turn Red Hat Linux for sparc into a community effort."

Comments

got Sparc? get Debian

[Lycestra]

Debian still supports Sparc systems, so no big whoop.

"RedHat files anti-trust suit against fellow Linux distributor Debian"

We can't make money off of people when these freaks are giving it all away for free. Not only that, their logo looks better. He felt we had to do *something*.

.... mmm. no...

Re:It isn't true.

[Mr.Phil]

that's quite possible, but it doesn't say that there will be no support for SPARC in 7.1 or 7.2

think back, 6.0 didn't have support for ALPHA or SPARC that came in 6.1

Re:Well.. Solaris is better on Sparc..

[spankenstein]

From ultralinux.org...

Faster is a very relative term. UltraLinux takes a smaller amount of memory to start up, so for machines with a small amount of memory it will tend to seem faster. For most low level kernel functions UltraLinux is faster as you can see from these benchmark results...

Here is the link....

Really people... This took 5 seconds to find. Don't make up stuff as you go please.

Re:Debian Isn't Unified Enough

[afc]

Good rant. Now step away from the keyboard and think for a moment: who is going skip the SunOS thingie that came with the box and install Linux on it? If you think that happens vey often at a Big Company [TM], well think again. People who are going venture installing Linux on a SPARC machine are generally the sort of people who can do away with tech support or find the ropes on their own. Their bosses are probably from the same ilk, so it's highly unlikely that they would shy away from Debian, IMHO.
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Debian supports sparc, of course

[DavidNWelton]

as well as Alpha, ARM, m68k, PPC, and sparc64, with work also being done on MIPS and PA-RISC. See http://www.debian.org/ports/

Red Hat is NOT the only distro...

[B00yah]

As long as there is still the other members of LPI6 and the other major distros, ie Mandrake, Linux will still be able to support all that it needs to. Just because Red Hat changes something, does not mean that it will affect the rest of the distros..


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Of Course They Dropped It

[zpengo]

The biggest problem with Red Hat is also their best quality: They're the spiffiest, most commercial Linux distro available. They're all about the money, and while that benefits us in terms of support, etc., it can also result in them dropping projects like sparc support because they aren't profitable enough.

It's the nature of the beast.

Re:Of Course They Dropped It

[c_chimelis]

After all, anything you can do on an expensive Sparc, you can do faster/better on an x86 at a lower cost.

I disagree with this type of statement when it comes to comparing just about any other architecture to x86 (and I've heard this kind of thing from countless x86-centric people). First off, contrary to popular belief, there are still uses for "big iron" in today's world. Understand this, not everything is a desktop-class system, and I haven't seen a good large-scale server come from Intel since they were first experimenting with their Hypercubes. Uses of big iron include data warehouses (which are big within larger corporations, mostly), scientific research, meteorological research/prediction, etc. For some of these uses, using Beowulf technology can work well using what Intel likes to refer to as "servers" as nodes (usually, these are just desktop or workstation motherboards with increased RAM capacity and a bit more cache), but in many cases, big iron is still the way to go. Ever try to bring up a 10TB data warehouse server under Linux using x86-class components? Good luck.

Compaq and Sun have MUCH more experience with large servers than almost any PC manufacturer. Unfortunately, in the case of Sun equipment, Solaris is the only choice if you need to get a large-scale system running in a very short time. Compaq (and partners) are improving Linux for their Alpha servers to make sure that it can handle such tasks. It may not seem too profitable to do this, especially since they produce a "competing" product in Tru64, but the marketing issues skew a bit when the hardware manufacturer is the same company as the primary OS manufacturer. To Compaq, selling hardware and support contracts on that hardware is #1, Tru64 is a close second, but offsetting R&D and fab costs on hardware is often much more difficult than it is to recover OS development costs. Unfortunately, Sun drops the ball in this regard. They have not given enough to the Linux community for them to entertain the same favour amongst the Sparc-Linux users as Compaq has with the Alpha-Linux users (granted, quite a few Alpha-Linux users still have tenuous relationships with Compaq, but it's not as bad as those with/against Sun). This is sad, but true. Had Sun been more forthcoming, both on an informational level as well as a pricing level, they could've enjoyed more success with Sparc-Linux. So, IMO, it has nothing to do, though, with the quality or speed of their hardware, though, that RedHat hasn't seen great numbers out of the Sparc releases. I mean, NOBODY can tell me that there aren't a ton of sparcs out there...

So now that we've established that Sun is partially to blame here, let's talk about RedHat's shortcomings in this situation and how it will affect the future of both their distribution and Linux in general. First off, I think that RedHat dropped the ball on this as well and could have enjoyed much more success with the sparc release than they did. Anyone that knows anything about the average Sparc customer knows one thing: they will not buy a server without a support contract on the hardware and the OS component...end of story, no discussion. After all, corporations are Sun's biggest customers and corporations not only cover their ass, but also the rest of their body with armour when they purchase something computer-related. Now, we all know how much crap RedHat has its hands in now (seems like every week, they're releasing PR about acquiring, agreeing with, or partnering with SOMEONE). I honestly think they've diversified too much for their own good, but that's neither here nor there. The point is, if they're going to work on/with all of these other companies, why not try to get in bed with Sun? A small contract and perhaps a small personnel exchange could've easily made a deal between the two that allowed Sun to only focus on Solaris, while deferring the Linux question to RedHat (which would allow it to be nurtured by someone other than Joe User). RedHat could also allow Sun to sell Linux support contracts on Sun equipment and just kick back some money to Sun for the administration involved in doing the sales (this kind of deal is made every single day in the IT industry...it's just contracting out for a support service). RedHat and Sun could've practically owned the Sparc OS market (sorry, BSD folks, you do count, but the research shows you're still in the vast minority).

This all should seem easy to come up with for any marketing person or corporate executive, and it really should be that easy (hell, I came up with it and I didn't even finish college), but let's face facts: non-x86 archs are practically shunned by the core Linux community, especially the corporate side of Linux. This is a shame because there are valid contributions that could be made to the kernel and the distributions by listening to the other-port folks. Sure, you don't find tons of large-scale servers in the hands of most kernel programmers, but there are people out there that have access to these systems and have valuable scalability issues that should be addressed by the Linux community as a whole. Also, I feel that Linux should present on a unified front and say collectively that "Linux doesn't equal x86-only". If you want to drive people and corporate software products away from other archs, treating ports the way that they are now is a good start.

Marketing and logistics are too often cited as being reasons for dropping ports like sparc, but I think that those issues are not to blame for the situation. The problem is that RedHat (in this case) is using traditional business models and isn't trying to forge new (additional) revenue streams. They seem to love jumping onto the hot issues of today (like embedded systems, etc), which are guaranteed money-makers, but won't attempt an alliance with a company like Sun for some reason. IMO, they should've done this before even releasing a sparc port. I mean, why release a product for a few cycles, then drop it? corporate image can be more important than income reports somtimes (ask IBM) and they're only serving to alienate the users of that port (many of whom are probably also x86 RedHat users). RedHat: do your research BEFORE releasing the port.

But, at any rate, don't be so quick to write off Sparc or any other non-x86 arch just because your applications run faster/cheaper on them. Obviously, there are customers for these other architectures and they buy them for a reason. Not everyone's problems can be solved on an x86. For many of the consumers in the non-x86 market, though, prices of software can be huge because it's over-and-above the higher cost of the hardware, which makes Linux a nice alternative for some of those folks. So, don't assume that practically nobody uses the sparc port (or any other) because the native OS is just too indiginous to be ousted. Besides, Linux is beginning to replace MS, who was the odds-on favourite for awhile simply because of their huge install base. But, until someone like RedHat seriously tries to make it profitable to support a port like Sparc, it won't happen. This is not Field of Dreams...if you build it, but don't advertise it, they won't come.

Personally, I'm kinda glad RedHat is slimming down their product offerings. I've watched the quality control drop drastically on non-x86 platform releases. Maybe now they can turn some attention towards improving the ones that they still support.

Re:Companies are using other platforms

[Mike Quin]

*If* you really need Sparcs and *if* you can afford them, I don't see why you'd run Linux on them. Solaris seems to do just fine in that case!

Becasue there's a lot of sparc32 hardware out there going cheap (take a look a Ebay sometime), that Sun have dropped support for as of Solaris 8. If you want up to date software (IPv6 support, for example) on your IPX, you have to run something other than Solaris.

Re:Debian Isn't Unified Enough

[DavidNWelton]

This is the same silly argument people used with Linux for a while. There are a lot of people, however, who sell tech support for Debian, including my employer, Linuxcare.

Sueing software companies?

[Jerky McNaughty]

There's no culpability, and above all, no one to sue when it all goes south

Have you read the typical license agreements that most commerical software companies put out? They pretty much say that even if the program erases your hard drive, you're just out of luck. The whole "we need someone to sue" argument really is a load of crap.

Not a big issue since there is Mandrake for Sparc

[joestar]

Linux-Mandrake 7.1 is available for several weeks under the name "Corporate Server 1.0" for Sparc and UltraSparc. This is the most amazing version of Linux running on UltraSparc that I have ever seen... You feel like having a playstation on your Sun and I've ran it for weeks without any glitch: very very stable indeed. There were only a few things were a bit buggy in the configuration.

[By the way, the mirrors are here: http://www.linux-mandrake.com/e n/f tp.php3#usparc]

There's more to Linux than Redhat

[Anonymous Coward]

Both SuSE and Mandrake offer Sparc distros, and both, though especially SuSE, offer excellent support for businesses. Linux isn't about RedHat and a motley crew of hacker distro's. There are several large commerical and professional organisations willing to help.

There may be others, but....

[Esqueleto]

While those people posting with the "but there are other distros..." have a point, they're missing the primary concern. Redhat, actually provides support, which seems to be a sticking point with big business. They want someone to yell at when everything goes to shit....Redhat is that someone.

It isn't true.

[bero-rh]

The article's subject should be "Red Hat Linux 7.0 possibly won't be released for sparc".

The sparc machines are still part of our build system, and we won't just drop it off.

If we ever decide to discontinue sparc support commercially, the sparc port will be turned into a community effort.

how can something with

[Bad_CRC]

no demand be "a major blow to the linux community"?

Do you ever notice how everyone thinks their own needs are the most important?

Redhat is obviously not making any money from their sparc version, and is making the smart decision to drop it. If people were buying it, they would certainly keep producing it, it's a business decision, and a good one.

My question to the person submitting this article is, did you buy the sparc version, or did you download it?

________

Re:how can something with

[Patrik Nordebo]

You can't blame Red Hat for not giving back to the community, because they do. They pay Alan Cox, Stephen C. Tweedie and Ingo Molnar to hack the kernel (probably more people too), they funded a lot of early work on Gnome, they bought Cygnus and freed Source Navigator, not to mention that they release all the software they as part of their distribution as free software. These are just a few of the things Red Hat has done for the community.
Claiming they don't give free stuff back to the community is ridiculous. Though personally I prefer Debian to the Red Hat distribution, I am grateful for all the things that Red Hat has done for all of us.

Who uses it?

[OlympicSponsor]

"Not to mention that they have the support in place to handle what large companies demand."

And ONLY what large companies demand. Of those large companies using Linux, how many are using it on Sparc? Few to none, is my guess.

Furthermore, it's easy to see why. Linux on Intel is easy to install and find support on the Internet for. But I've done a few Linux on Alpha installs, and let me tell you that once you leave the warmth and light of the x86 world you are on your own. This isn't to say that AlphaLinux is no good--far from it. I like the hardware and the software. But the support is hard to come buy--if the mailing list doesn't respond or doesn't know you are pretty much toast. Sparc Linux, being even more rare is probably 10 times worse.

I'm sure to be marked as "flamebait" unless I include some examples, so here we are:

Installing on a Jensen.
Using MILO (I've read and re-read the howto and damned if I can figure it out)
The many many (many) patches and updates you need to install after getting a distro (say, RedHat) installed (system clock date to 2020, net-tools, etc).

Again, I'm not saying the above problems make Alpha Linux bad--I'm saying that the poor documentation of the above problems makes Alpha Linux scary.
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Wonder What IBM Had to Do With That?

[quakeaddict]

Wonder What IBM Had to Do With That?.....Seeing as how *they* compete with Sun alot more than Redhat does, and IBM is a major partner with Redhat.

Re:Sun would love this

[wbb4]

(1) RedHat isnt the only Linux based OS on the market that has/does support Sparc.
(2) Linux isnt the only kernel on the market that supports Sparc.

What about Debian? What about all the other Linux distros that run on sparc?

Both the NetBSD and OpenBSD ports to the Sparc architecture are quite good.

If you have a sparc, I would think you would be running something other than RedHat anyway.

Just my 2 cents.