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IBM Wants Linux
jsse writes "In a news conference IBM's senior vice president Steve Mills said 'the company will gladly drop its version of Unix from servers and replace it with Linux if the software matures so that it can handle the most demanding tasks.' Now the Giant, along with many other companies, jump to Linux bandwagon. The question is wether this bandwagon is capable of carrying a Giant that huge. Or the question is: can Linux beats AIX?"
This sounds to me like a challenge to the Open Source Community. Are we up to the challenge?
Reality has a liberal bias
IBM has gone nuts. A 800-pound gorilla wants to ride a child's bike.
IBM has just jumped on the bandwagon?? They've been there for a while buddy. You can already buy most of IBM's software for Linux. They've been investing in Linux like crazy for the last 2 years
The (Hopefully) Great Slashdot Blackout Apr 21-27
well, will those quite familiar with aix please enlighten us with what linux could be missing? it's got xfs, lvm, ppc support. and that's about the end of what i know aix and linux now share.
Do you see the sig? Do you have it in your sights? Why yes, Miss Moneypenny...
"Or the question is: can Linux beats AIX?"
I don't know. Cans it?
Now the Giant, along with many other companies, jump to Linux bandwagon. The question is wether this bandwagon is capable of carrying a Giant that huge. Or the question is: can Linux beats AIX?"
Um... All your base?
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
Not in the grammar software ...
The Independent: Reverend Spooner Arrested in Friar Tuck Incident - ISIHAC, Historical Headlines
Of all the unixen I have played with AIX is one of the worst. Only Conrol data's unix and NCR was worse. Their smit admin tool is pretty cool, but everything else looks like nothing else, and porting stuff to AIX is no fun.
-- Another senseless waste of fine bytes.
Now if only all of the other vendors realized that they were selling hardware instead of UNIX, they'd be happy to switch to Linux.
Actually, they probably all have some kind of "ditch-our-crappy-UNIX-for-Linux" roadmap. Some are much further away than others. But it'd be nice if it actually happened.
If the software matures
Period.
There is no such thing as 'world peace'.
All I know about Unix-flavored systems comes through Linux. Could someone post a short list of the areas where Linux is most deficient compared to Unices like AIX?
:-)
I know that real-time applications are one issue, as well as multi-processor performance. But how much work has to be done, and what are the prospects?
Thanks in advance for not flaming the newbie.
A customer service representative will be with me shortly.
If IBM wants Linux instead of AIX then they should assist in the development of the features they feel are missing...... isn't that the point of Open Source? I don't think anyone else will see this as a "challenge".
(Disclaimer: I know IBM is already investing heavily in Linux, so they may already be doing this).
"jump to Linux bandwagon" - I hope the giant won't smash it.
Seriously, I hope IBM will throw developers on Linux without getting too much influence on the course of it's development.
--- censored
Sounds like a sarcasm.
i dont think i have ever really seen any linux -> *nix compairsons... everyone is so interested in the linux -> windows compairson that seeing how it would perform with other unix platforms has not really showed up. (at least i dont think)
i cant seem to come up with a sig.
I've never seen linux running on IBM hardware, but my guess would be NO WAY IN HELL could linux outperform AIX in terms of stability or speed.
I'm reminded of the scene in "Pirates of Silicon Valley" where Gates and company were sitting down to negotiate with IBM and it was said, "Everybody knows that the real money is made in hardware, not software".
Well IBM was wrong at the time in that statement but it might finally be the truth.
It also makes sense for IBM from a financial perspective. Instead of having a building full of programmers/managers and other overhead that eats up corporate profits just to support AIX, why not outsource that dependency to the open-source users of the world. Big blue then reduces their expenses, increases their income and the open-source community gets a juggernaut pulling for their team. A win-win situation if I've ever heard one.
p.s. - These are my opinions and not my employers who happens to be discussed in this thread.
-- "In a time of drastic change it is the learners who survive; the 'learned' find themselves fully equipped to live in
I have to deal with AIX every day at college, and I can already tell you that Linux beats it for most ordinary tasks. However, the AIX method for DFS is excellent. Is there any chance IBM will be releasing AIX under the GPL?
MT support just plain sucks. No effective debugger, fork() (in 2.4.0, at least) is more MT-death than MT-safe
I think IBM's doing this for one very good reason. The more linux hackers there are at home running linux on their personal boxes, the more workers there will be in the industry that say "IBM makes this big box that will do all we need for our web and/or accounting needs, and it runs an OS I already know."
Managers like to hear that so they don't buy something their IT people don't know how to run.
LOAD "SIG",8,1
LOADING...
READY.
RUN
The problem I see with this is that if a company as big as IBM wants to use something like Linux, they're going to want some kind of control of the direction it goes. Companies have been trying to get Linus to loosen his 'control' of the kernel for a while now. No company with smart leadership will drop support for a product that they have complete power over, in favor of an OS where they have little-to-no control over the direction that it takes.
However, we've seen that IBM has put a fairly good amount of time, money, and effort into making Linux compatable with their products, and their products compatable with linux itself. But so far, I just don't seem them dropping AIX for Linux anytime soon. Not until the control over the linux kernel becomes more decentralized.
Something tells me that Linux can be customized in such a way as to handle whatever AIX handles and possible more. But the question I have to ask in this is: Why? Is IBM really looking to cut ties with AIX? How could this be an advantage to IBM? Or their customers who have depended on AIX for a long, long time?
I suppose IBM may make some money upfront convincing their AIX clients to pay for a Linux conversion by convincing said clients that Linux has better support, the client won't be locked in to depending on IBM, stable, fast, blah blah blah. And I suppose IBM might save money in the long-term by having a larger talent pool from which to hire Linux gurus. But, unless someone else can give shed some light on something I just don't understand, this initiative to move AIX customers to Linux, while sounding like a great technical manuever, doesn't sound like a great business manuever.
My sigs always suck.
I'm sure IBM does a great deal of validation testing. Why not tell the kernel developers where things come up short? One of the most valuable development prerequisites are good bug reports. IBM could unleash their testing team. Or does politics get in the way -- the testing team manager doesn't approve of the Linux takeover?
1. As has already been stated IBM has been on the Linux bandwagon for several years now.
2. This makes perfect sense for IBM. They are mainly a service company and secondly a hardware company. Anyone who has done business with IBM knows that they, like most other large computer companies, make their money on installation and support. If they can cut the expense of developing their own OS they can focus on their core business.
Sorry to all the Linux kids out there, but real Unix Operating Systems, such as Solaris and BSD-based systems, are stronger, more stable, and faster, when set up correctly, then linux will ever be. Why? simple: SLC's are there for a reason. The linux kernel may be controlled and coordinated by one person, but imagine a person with the supposed talent of Linus, times 50, working on making the Solaris Kernel better.
Note: I am not a Solaris advocate.
teknopurge
Website Hosting
"yes"
"no"
"You're an idiot and there are really good reasons Linux can do it. But I'm only going to mention them, and with no sources."
"Well I too can mention things with no sources. YOU're an idiot"
(degrades to flamewar)
Can you imagine a Beowulf, what does AIX stand for anyway, All your Base, etc posts by our friend Anonymous Coward.
"Wasn't this posted last month?"
"CmdrTaco can't spell"
"BSD is better than Linux or AIX"
"Steve Jobs said that OSX is better than Linux and AIX"
various posts bitching about moderators.
There. I've saved you all that time. Now get back to work.
m00.
IBM threw the PC market down the drain by licensing its OS to third parties. Who is to say that they won't do exactly the same thing with Linux ? Suppose they spend all that cash improving Linux, and then some other corporation comes along and takes that work and packages it up in an ISO image and sells it for next to nothing like cheapbytes did to Redhat ?
IBM has also got a somewhat questionable reputation for Naziism, and apparently some of the computers used to facilitate the Holocaust were supplied by IBM. Open Source software has enough trouble with Stallman the Communist without people associating it with Naziism as well! Imagine the scene: You try and install Linux on your mom's PC. She looks at you in horror "I don't want any Nazi/Commie operating system on my PC. Re-Install W2k this instant!!!
Yeah. I can see it now. Linux == Nazism == Communism.
i is not even suprised. a installed aix on my 286 yesterday and it couldnt even work. the internet explorer was all funny and it make my telly smashed.
i think linux should stop using aix and IMB will be happy again. i hope IBM will not steal linux from mr torvads. he is nice man.
Hop on the bandwagon, only to hop off a sshort time later.
Only tim will tell if this is a "marriage made in heaven".
IBM should make a list of items that i thinks Linux would need to improve in order to be as good as AIX, in there opinion. They could then open up some of the managment tools or port the tools over (not so easy, but I am sure it could be done). Any kernel work could be identified and would be completed in short order (those kernel hackers seem to LOVE a challenge). That way clear objectives could be established and work could begin.
"If ignorance is bliss, why aren't there more happy people in the world?"
"We are happy and comfortable with the idea that Linux can become the successor not just for AIX but for all Unix operating systems,"
The key words in there is "can become." IBM's Linux strategy is not to be left out of Linux if Linux takes over the world. IBM understands that Linux could be the defacto standard for all hardware, from their own pSeries to Suns, and SGIs.
Linux can be adapted to just about anything out there Isn't this quote just stating a fact about Linux? Given enough time and personpower, AIX can do just about anything out there as well.
"All types of servers can run on a common Unix operating system. What is not clear is if (the OS) will be Linux. It needs to continue to mature and become a more sophisticated system." The first sentence is a statement of fact, that not only includes IBM but nearly every hardware vendor on the planet. The second, is IBM isn't betting the farm on Linux.
You see more and more poorly written articles, which twist the truth. When Linux grows up, won't every commercial Unix gladly boot their commercial OS for Linux? Possibly. Isn't there better things to do right now than worry what a commercial entity may do in 5 years?
pronoblem
I am somewhat perturbed that slashdot sees fit to sing the praises of IBM, especially considering that many of the nerds and geeks who post here are not white, and would therefore quite likely have been victims of the Holocaust had it happened in America.
I suppose I should be used to it by now. Where Linux and Free Software are concerned Slashdot disengages its brain.
Did I miss something? Why are all the posts numbering into the millions?
Face facts, people: Linux is a very good OS for small servers, clustering, and embedded systems. On the mainstream (non-enthusiast) desktop and large server it's a non-starter. Whether that changes has yet to be seen, but I wouldn't bet on it.
You contantly hear about IBM throwing money/man hours into Linux, well, why dont they assign a couple of their AIX gurus to rewrite (for example) the multitreading features for Linux.
:O)
I mean, they have AIX coders. They have the AIX code, just HOW hard would it be for them to raise certain features of Linux to AIX standard. Im guessing not THAT hard
SIG: TAKE OFF EVERY 'CAPTAIN'!!
It also makes sense for IBM from a financial perspective. Instead of having a building full of programmers/managers and other overhead that eats up corporate profits just to support AIX, why not outsource that dependency to the open-source users of the world. Big blue then reduces their expenses, increases their income and the open-source community gets a juggernaut pulling for their team. A win-win situation if I've ever heard one.
Do you honestly think that if IBM were to ditch AIX for linux that this would happen? The value of running IBM hardware and software is that IBM is there to fix it right away. Find a bug in AIX? IBM gets on it in a timely fashion. If anything, I would wager that IBM will fork their own version of Linux if they decide to forgo AIX. Large corporations like the track history and reputation of IBM and are frightened by the lack of the same for Linux. IMHO that seems to be what stops large-scale deployment of Linux in the corporate world - who is going to take ownership of this problem and provide us with patches?
BTW - from what I have seen, (as an IBM'er) the revenue and profits come from annual support and maintenance contracts, not from hardware and software sales per se.
*** Where are we going? And what's with this handbasket?
IBM wants to spend one tenth as much for development of an OS that isn't tied to Microsoft that it can give away (which got them in trouble before) with its hardware (which is its real business). Why would this surprise anyone?
Two more points.
1 - Linux isn't AIX and has a ways to go. Same with OS/400, etc.
2 - IBM doesn't want to control Linux as long as it can do what they need. They got in trouble for giving their OS away before. Giving away somebody else's OS I assume is OK though.
I work in a shop that has a lot of IBM stuff going on. We don't have any customers talking about replacing AIX with Linux on existing hardware. We do have one signed customer doing Linux and others in the sales stage.
I doubt customers will accept Linux as a replacement for AIX until they've got Linux deployed on Intel/AMD boxes.
its a nice thing to say shows IBM is serious and means that they can claim to M$ that they are not trying to market Linux to anyone except people who used unix
(which is a good thing the less the big ape hears about linux the better)
BUT in reality as a solution it wont fit everyone AIX gets most of its power through its custom hardware
and template binarys are something real cool that linux wont get anytime soon the thing that IBM love about linux is that the researchers in the LABs love it and since alot of IBM blue sky stuff turns over their proffits then its a good bet considering hardware is where IBM really shine (buy a harddrive today and you pay IBM one way or another)
the point is horses for courses
the nice thing is that their is a winer overall in a multi disapline event and its nice to that IBM thinks the winner will be linux
regards
joh jones
That is the real question.
I am sure IBM is not sitting there idling. I would hope they are not leaving it to us(the open source community) to build them the os they want. I assume they are hard at work on this project at hand.
That is nothing but good news. Not only could we benefit from the things they build but more importantly, maybe they could be the leaders of direction. "Where do you want to go today?"
Some people may worry about a big corporation being too heavily involved in their "free os". I personally look forward to the days to come if IBM get truly involved. I first tried linux a few years ago and loved it, and continue to use it today. However, I thought at this point it would be farther ahead in some areas. If it takes a company like IBM to come in and challenge, lead and contribute then fine by me.
Even if it doesn't work for IBM, the advances will benefit all of us who use it now and this is a Good Thing.
But assuming that GNU/Linux can evolve to an acceptable level (the level of UNIX, in other words), and assuming that the support from IBM, HP, Sun, and Compaq continues, we'll be in a great position. One of the promises of UNIX was portability; if five commercial UNIXs have a common interface, they should be easy to port between, right?
Wrong... years of corporate specialization and AT&T's rightful protection of the system have created a computing culture which is almost as closed as Microsoft's. Now, porting an application from Solaris to HP-UX can potentially take as long as porting from Solaris to NT.
Enter GNU/Linux. Stallman, Torvalds, and the rest of the usual suspects essentially ripped off AT&T. (It's crucial that you understand this. While those developers can be thanked for the GNU/Linux implementation, the design and archiecture is stolen-- albeit modifed -- IP.) GNU/Linux is UNIX-like, but is also completely open. Thus, if Linux can meet these corporate giants' needs, they should adopt it.
IBM's adoption of Linux for the enterprise will mean many things. It will mean that RS/6000 customers like myself will get new software faster, because Linux is always ahead of AIX on software developers' port lists. And if Linux can also run reasonably on Sun and HP hardware, then we could be talking about UNIX's dream of portability, embodied in GNU/Linux: an open, common interface for hardcore RISC systems. This would be a good thing for everybody expect supporters of inferior x86 servers: x86 hardware vendors and Microsoft.
But while GNU/Linux has brought this uptopia one step closer, it isn't here yet. Talk to any knowledgable, experienced developer or sysadmin, and he will tell you that GNU/Linux simply can't touch UNIX for the majority of serious computing tasks. Linux is cheaper, and in some instances is faster, but just can't deliver the same kind of scalable performance and rock-solid availabilty that are the reasons I'm running AIX right now.
--
I like to watch.
I've been noticing this for a while, and I've got to get it off my chest.
Is it just me or does it sometimes seem like CmdrTaco posts the 'best' stories? I get the feeling that he's pulling the best for himself, not letting anyone else post the 'big' stories...
Is he really a tyrant with a large ego appetite? Where everyone is walking around on eggshells, careful not to upset the big 'T'? Lest he throw a 'hissy fit' and a large dosh of 'shit' their way for posting what was clearly a 'Taco' quality post?
These are the things I think about before I force myself to go to work on Mondays...
CrplChimichanga
It would really be nice to see someone (IBM) try to build a Linux desktop system. With high quality hardware and Linux with GNOME or KDE we would end up with a machine resembling an Apple G4 + OS X.
Could there be any money in such a move?
Why does everyone (especially in the Open Source community) try to force Gnu/Linux into the dominating place for OS'es?
Unix OS'es have limited application, because of their close relation to POSIX. I.e the usage of Linux (the kernel) in embedded systems is extreme bloat (although the nerd in me would like that linux-wrist-watch).
When will people realize, that an OS is like any other tool, and you should select the right tool for the job, not the same bloated tool all the time.
SLOGEN [ http://ungdomshus.nu : Sebastian cover music]
But perhaps IBM is only refferring to userland apps, rather than kernel stuff. Userland apps
can be portable stuff.
These machines have the same hardware, but different OS-es. The RS/6000 group ships their systems with AIX, while the AS/400 group ships their systems with OS/400 and if the customer wants a Unix, with Linux, not with AIX.
Rumour has it that the groups don't like eachother that much. What I wonder now is: is IBM axing the complete RS/6000 group in favor of the AS/400 group?
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
It's no secret that IBM would like to give Microsoft its comeuppance, if nothing else than for transforming the term PC from synonymous with IBM computers to synonymous with a M$ operating system(and of course there are tons of ohter political, business-grudge, and economic reasons as well). This statement from IBM seems to be saying they'd be willing to really throw in with Linux (rather than beng nice to and courting Linux users as customers, which is mostly what they're doing now) if someone else will do the dirty work of bringing it up to the task.
What Linux could really use right now is an influx of cash for some serious intensive development. Well, here's a thought: I'm in non-profit development (fundraising) and education is a very hot topic. It is easier to get major funding for supporting education from both government and the private sector than it is for a lot of (arguably) equally important issues. Developing software for education, both administrative and in-classroom, could be a great center for a non-profit Linux development effort. And a lot of the base-level work would be in service of the whole Linux community. IBM's support, both financial and political, could give them a toehold in a computer market where Apple has had a major advantage (sorry Apple). All it needs is some Linux gurus and some seed capital to start it.
... when they have Java? Just let AIX perform well on the high-end and Linux perform well on the lower-end and Java be the bridge.
¦ ©® ±
So IBM said that it's willing to switch to Linux when its ready, but when is it ready to beat AIX ?
Linux is a great system (I run it), but somehow I can't imagine Linux running on 32 CPU Power3 based servers running an industrial strength journaling filesystem (neither ReiserFS, XFS, ext3, or IBM's JFS are up to par on Linux).
Lets hope that IBM still remembers this when Linux gains these abilities.
Anyone that has followed the progress of AIX development would know that AIX was destined to be shelved. Does Monterey ring a bell to anyone? After that project fell apart it would be apparently obvious that Linux would be the direction especially after the HUGE BLUE investement in Linux.
Remember OS/2? OS/2 is currently making the most money it ever has for IBM, simply because it's in maintenance cycle now... IBM simply does no new development, and continues to make money on support, while encouraging folks to consider other OS options.
IBM never completely drops support, and would never leave profitable AIX shops out in the cold.
They are already porting JFS to Linux and have a bunch of Open Source projects. Check their OSS Website So they are actively working to get things ahead.
Top Most Bizarre/Disturbing Error Messages
IBM did umm the patch to run on S390
(evil clock ticks evil interupts muhhaha)
so what do you mean ?
regards
john jones
p.s. list of kernel work from SGI looks like big iron in many ways I cant find a IBM page anywhere or heard of any of their work beyond the NGPthreads and s390 patchs
(oh yeah and the PowerPC port which IBM does a good job of helping out)
Linux Scalability
Kernprof (Kernel Profiling)
SGI kGDB (Remote host Linux kernel debugger via GDB)
NUMA (NUMA support in Linux)
Bigmem (Big Memory support for Linux)
Lockmeter (Linux kernel lock-metering)
Post/Wait (Post/Wait Synchronization)
SGI kdb (Linux kernel debugger)
Raw I/O (Enhancements to Linux raw I/O capabilities)
POSIX Asynchronous I/O (KAIO)
LKCD (Linux Kernel Crash Dumps)
STP (Scheduled Transfer Protocol)
In other news... Slashdot's "swordboy" announced that he will drop Windows 2000 for Linux if it matures to his liking
So will every other consumer and business in the world (save MS).
This is not news.
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
Still I spose its better then having them create a text based adventure game to compile a kernel.
Linux beats AIX?
I think it'd be childish to throw beets at AIX. AIX had its day in the sun (and probably on one at some point) and it was a great OS. If linux is truly better it should humble itself and send AIX off with a retirement party, not just throw things at at. Especially beets, they stain clothing.
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
someone mad a negative comment towards redhat. i guess people dont like the fact that redhat is commercialized.
Yet i think the linux community owes alot to redhat. for one, RH is responsible for ALOT of companies adoption of linux. companies like to see a strong corperation to stand behind there product. this is one of the reasons windows is choosen over linux. Alot of this has to do with executives and not the IT people.
Redhat was the first linux distro i used. it is a great way to learn linux. if i had tried to ue debian as my first linux os, i would still be using NT.
redhat played a large part in making linux as popular as it is. and so, thank you redhat.
P.S. this post is offtopic =D
Taco, there's this nifty util called ispell, specially designed so that's it's interactive mode works with other code neatly. Whether or not it's built into slash already, it ought to be, and at least editor stuff should go through it before it posts. Crimeny.
IP is just rude.
Is there any torture so subl
We are discussing 3 different beasts in this thread. Unix, Linux and AIX. While they have an enormous number of similarities, they are different. I learned AIX many moons ago, and am much out of date (Version 3.2.5 was the last I used) but I remember being very impressed by a really simple idea that IBM incorporated into AIX that all other *nix'es could benefit from.
They implemented "CRUD" (Create, read, update, delete) as deeply as possible in all of the OS commands. This means that they took the prefixes "mk", "ls", "ch" and "rm" and prefixed almost everything with them. Hey presto, one unified (sort-of) command set.
They also looked at cron, lp, at and realised that they had two schedulers with differing capabilities and merged them into a superset "qdaemon".
Now, IBM are not totally silly - They maintained all of the usual compatibilty commands, and also realise that you cannot unify commands like "grep" but...
...is Linux brave enough to embrace this sort of shift? Is the community open to having bounds placed on their creativity in order to maintain an environment suitable for corporates? Or are we just going to end up with GNU/Linux, Linux and IBM/Linux ???
Enjoy Y2K? Roll-on Year 2037!
that day and what license he/she is publishing under...:)
well, will those quite familiar with aix please enlighten us with what linux could be missing? it's got xfs, lvm, ppc support. and that's about the end of what i know aix and linux now share.
Well, as a SysAdmin who manages 50 AIX servers and 20 Solaris servers I can try to offer some info.
As has been written in a couple of posts already, AIX is designed to run on enterprise-level hardware. The bonus is that since the OS and hardware all come from IBM, there is a single point of contact for those problems. There are some really cool things that separate AIX from other UNIX's:
* Most of the critical OS functions can be controlled via the SMIT interface.
* Unlike other flavours of UNIX, AIX does not use flat files to define parameters for daemons. AIX has all the relevant information stored in an internal database (The ODM).
* AIX ships with a journaled file system and file systems can be grown on the fly.
* AIX gives way more control over disk management than other flavours of UNIX. It is easy to implement the various type sof RAID. AIX also lets you control where certain files can be physically located on your disk, and during off-peak hours the system can move files around to re-organize the disks.
* It is trivial to create a complete image of the system on a bootable tape, so disaster recovery is a snap.
There are some downsides to AIX:
* AIX takes >5 minutes to boot.
* If the ODM gets corrupted, your system can be toast.
* Sometimes it is necessary to modify the ODM directly, and this can be a bit risky (see above)
* Third-party support for AIX is sketchy. It is better to use IBM applications where possible.
* IBM hardware is more expensive than the alternatives. You pay a premium for Big Blue.
Of the downsides, the last is the most significant. Not many non-IBM vendors write applications for it, and even if they do, Solaris, and Linux get more attention.
Sorry for sounding like a commercial for IBM, but I like AIX. It does some things very well, and is quite stable. My team manages a lot of mission-critical servers and AIX is nice to work with. We have talked briefly about Linux, the perception is that Linux is not yet ready for enterprise-class workload.
*** Where are we going? And what's with this handbasket?
Stallman. He is, after all, in charge of the entire open source effort.
Having worked in both places, and ridden both beasts, I can give people a qualified yes when it comes to wether or not IBM wants to very deeply embrace Linux. Why a "qualified yes"? I'll try to explain:
IMHO, for the year or so I worked at IBM as a contractor, Linux sort of went from a curious oddity the engineers tossed around on the floor to something that upper management decided would be good for the company to look into. Although I obviously cant speak for IBM as a whole, or even the division I worked in, it seemed pretty clear to me that IBM was trying to move as fast as possible in Linux' direction...As fast as any company of IBM's size can manage, as it were. My job there was to run-test (heh, or crash-test, depending on your POV) RAID subsystems, writing code basically meant to abuse the array to the point where it failed, and coughed up errors we felt might arise in the feild. We were doing alot of parallel testing on a variety of platforms, Linux included.
Unfortunately, I can tell you from my own personal observations that Linux as of 2.2 wasn't quite ready to handle the sort of stresses that are normally endured successfully by other platforms. Without getting into details (Ay, the spectre of my 6-month NDA looms above) management spent some time trying to determine if Linux was "ready for prime-time", and wasn't finding what it needed..In my little niche, at least. This was a while ago, and I hope that the situation has improved somewhat...but I cant help but get the feeling the same sort of thing was happening elsewhere within the company. It seemed everyone there wants to make inroads towards Linux, to sort of adopt it in a parent-child sort of way, but the Linux picture really hasnt fully gelled yet to where companies like IBM can bet their money on it with total confidence. Nonetheless, the demand is there folks..Customers are asking the company for solutions involving Linux, even on the big iron. IBM wants to embrace Linux, but Linux isn't maturing fast enough in the right areas. It would be wise for us to get hammering on the things that need to be addressed...By the time we actually get around to solidifying whats important (ie. a standardized GUI we can all use instead of two sibling projects who don't want to play in the same sandbox) and hammering out the better known weaknesses in Linux (The handling of SCSI devices, in particular) it may already be too late, unfortunately.
Cheers,
Bowie J. Poag
IBM knows it has lost the low-mid range server war. They may sell a lot of high end servers, but how many non-Fortune 500 companies run AIX?
I think this is what IBM wants to happen:
1. Admins purchase Linux for small Intel-based servers.
2. As system size grows, admins would like to stick with Linux for larger systems.
3. Admins purchase IBM systems that also run Linux, instead of having to integrate AIX.
They are banking that Linux will be thier door into the lower end server market. And then everyone would buy IBM servers over SUN and HP. At least this is what they would like
Why in the world would IBM want linux?
What will they do with it?
Are they planin' to sell it or use it?
Beat AiX? how?
what about the mainframes?
hmm
Got shack?
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Don't you know that IBM is already spending huge amounts of time and effort on Linux. They have painted the sides of buildings touting their association with Linux. Conventional wisdom does not always explain IBM's actions. In this case they are trying something new.
Was taken from hera
I realise this is a flame and that I shouldn't answer it but who have said that you can order a distro, have it set up for you for zero cost, give you support for zero cost and everything else for zero cost.
Before talking about free software in terms of the GPL (The licence Linux has) make sure you know
or at least have a some knowledge in what you are talking about. Browse an hour and you will realise that we are not talking about zero cost but different freedoms they think you should have with software. Of course you may not agree with this but at least you can debate it.
The idea of IBM dropping AIX 100% in favor of Linux is a pretty long shot. As long as they have paying customers for AIX support, AIX will continue to live. Now where Linux comes in as a big play for IBM may have something to do with upgrade paths. Say for instance company X developes an application but they can't afford to ramp to big iron hardware to run it. IBM sells them some netfinities running Linux to get them jumpstarted. Then if their business starts to expand they would have the ability to migrate them up to a RS/6000 or AS/400 based system. The big kicker is that they can maintain 100% portability across the hardware platforms. Migration is a simple compile away :) This is a pretty powerful proposition, especially with the market in its current state. VC is dry, revenues are down, the idea of starting cheap and ramping up when needed may be Linux's biggest strength.
~
This sounds like a great opportunity for the Linux world. I know there has been motivation and drive all along to make the product better, but now that a big company like IBM is issuing a challenge things will probably improve a bit faster. If IBM does start selling business machines running Linux, maybe we'll start to see prices drop on some information services. Well I guess that's thinking a little too positively, but still, this seems like a good step in the growth of Linux.
~ now you know
It was 3 years ago when the ball dropped on the infamouse (and powerfull) OS/2 solution. (well, someoen over at http://www.ecomstation.com is picking up now).
IBM Changes software and solutions like there is no tommorow. If it isn't Calle E-Gizmo then IBM will change it to that.
IBM Supporting linux is great, hooray! woopie. But don't expect much. It was the users who supported IBM and it was IBM who told the users to shove off. Hopefully that won't happen again.
AIX just sucks so i don't know why they're saying anything about linux competing with AIX. AIX has more patches then you can shake a stick at, java is flaky at best and supported libraries are rare at most.
Oh well.
with slashcode 2.2, the post numbers are absolute instead of relative to the article. this makes it easier to link to a specific comment, and presumably has some other benefits. who knows?
They could always do like Caldera and put the AIX kernel under a Gnu distribution. They have JFS already.. seems logical to me. That way they can keep those 'monster machines' running and have uniform apps across the board. Dos, Aix, Windows, OS/2, and who knows what else. Time to weed out the garbage.
-- Ted tsikora@powerusersbbs.com
They know IRIX has seen its day as (primarily) an imaging OS, and they've stepped-up production to get Linux on MIPS, a top-notch IRIX virtual OS layer, and general community support for development tools. At their facility in Eagan, MN (right around St Paul), layoffs were upwards of 800 people (who saturated the local IT pool horribly, but we won't go into that). Through all of it, they never let up in looking for anyone with Linux kernel development experience, and they're willing to train people who are only familiar with other kernels. If this isn't a last-ditch signal for Linux salvation, I don't know what is.
actually, it seems like Timothy gets better articles; i'm not an Anime fan, and most of the political and science stories end up in Timothy's name.
not that it matters two shits in a bucket. who cares what name the stories are posted under?
You know there may be a reason that linux doesn't run well on big iron. Because for the most part Joe Random Hacker doesn't have one. Perhaps it would to IBM a whole lot of good to set up a couple of these in some metropolitan areas so that Joe Random Hacker could come in try out his latest kernel build on one. The could probably declare it a public service and get a tax write off. I'm sure their accountants could figure out how to do this.
Slashdot is an anagram for Has Dolts, and I am Dolt number 468543
Well, this is the feeling I get when I read articles like this. Why not *BSD? BSD is (supposedly) considered better server OS, and I assume that IBM is looking for a server OS. I think IBM's marketing droids are just jumbing on the Linux bandwagon, trying to show how hip-cool-trendy the Big Blue is...
J.
(-1, Flambait?)
As I see it IBM is making a big step with their announcement. They are saying that Linux is a solid OS wich is a first(I beleive for a Multi-Nationnal Company). Also my employer is an IBM Premium business partner and I've learned that IBM is doing certification for Linux system (and they are pushing for it as well). a little recap
1- IBM is doing Marketing for Linux
2- They are supporting developers
3- IBM is helping putting Linux in the Business world
I dont think AIX will be replace soon but as thing goes if it does then I just my use it.
This is my opinion not my employers.
ty
If IBM axes AIX for Linux, then it would just repeat the very same mistake it did with the PC. Unitarism may be bad for business in terms of short-term expenses. But in long term it is rewardable to have a few R&D teams instead of one big huge team. Let us note that Linux benefitted a lot from AIX on the part of jfs and lvm. Weird to know if these things would evolve so well in a monolithic environment.
AIX may be hard to understand. Much harder then Linux. But this system works much better than Linux or even Solaris in cases when one needs higher security, good file management and automatised work round the clock. Here we have two AIX systems serving as Web servers. For the three years they worked we never had serious problems with them. Practically they only suffer minor upgrades and are practically carrying the same system they came with. No matter the time, these machines keep performing high in this OS. And we keep sticking on it no matter that there is a more modern variant of Linux for these machines.
There are only a few but significant minus with AIX. One is the terrible lack of support and documentation. Well, IBM may not feel this critical but when one compares the situation with Linux, BSD or even Solaris, then AIX is seriously loosing. The second problem is the way the system costs. It's a Hell of money if one considers that even version upgrades cost good money. And finally is the fact that AIX is not so well integrated on the community as its brothers. The system may be excelent but it is hard to use popular open source tools on it.
IBM's 'Peace, Love, Linux' ads on the trains in the NYC area tout Linux as 'born in a dormroom' and now 'no other OS can keep up.'
It was surprising that they'd take a swing at AIX, but they've clearly decided Linux is the way to go. At last January's e-business expo, COO Sam Palmisammo said they'd spend $1 billion on Linux this year.
"Or the question is: can Linux beats AIX?"
I don't know. Cans it?
Ack, ack, ack ack ack ack ack ack!!! I yam what I yam and that's all what I yam. I don't need no edumakashum, I needs me spinachk.
AIX and Linux are already merging: many of the GNU and open-source software packages are available for AIX. Redhat Package Manager and RPM packaged software is available for AIX 4.3.3 and the new 5.1L (no indication yet if they are going to move away from the installp format to rpm only). New filesystems have been added to 5.1L (/opt, /proc) to be more compatible with Linux oriented software packages. Gnome and KDE are even included with 5.1L and can be installed as your default desktop when you load a new system.
Many other people have pointed our the areas where Linux needs growth and AIX is strong. AIX is weak in areas where Linux provides strength:
Multimedia - Linux has better sound support
User Business Software - Love to see Star/OpenOffice or Applixware for AIX
Desktop Interface - Until AIX 5.1L, only desktops available were X11/Motif and CDE.
As someone who works with AIX, I'm very excited about the improvements Linux will bring to AIX.
If "disco" means "I learn" in Latin, does "discothèque" mean "I learn technology"?
"can Linux beats AIX?" beats. Where did this guy go to school, Hope College?
robsmama
You'll never have to deal with another "Fr1zT P0sT!" message again, except for the only legitimate one.
Oh yeah, I remember. It's slashdot, home of the ill-informed 14-year old Linux zealot.
Thanks for reminding me why I hate it here so much.
If IBM writes industrial-strength, expensive, supportable applications for Linux (like Domino, for example) then they can sell those apps to people that don't have the bucks to buy their specialized hardware.
For the past several years, IBM has been moving into the support and services areas with less of an emphasis on selling hardware. Selling complex software that requires specialized implementation services fits perfectly into that model. Porting those Apps to a less expensive platform makes the apps (and the implementation services) appeal to a much broader range of small- and medium-sized businesses. They can sell to companies that can't currently afford the big iron to run those apps.
Opening up new markets for tried-and-true applications is probably a very good business decision. I've never been a big IBM fan at all, but personally, I think it's a shrewd and calculated move. I applaud them for making it.
- Freed
"Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death, and sweet as love." -Turkish Proverb
I would argue that its appearance in the scientific-computing community wasn't a fluke; in fact, I'll assert that scientific computing was one of Linux's earliest natural "markets."
Scientific organizations typically have
- lots of raw intellectual and technical talent,
- meager funding and tight budgets,
- a "doing it right often means doing it yourself" mind-set, and
- lots of in-house curiosity.
Can you think of a more natural environment for a home-brew OS's ferment?
(I started using and supporting Linux for serious scientific computing in 1993.)
I dunno how much money IBM makes or loses off this, but they've been pushing their various management and consulting services pretty hard. Or, least that's what I remember from a few years ago when I was directly exposed it. Going with Linux like this opens the markets they already have their foot into. AIX, I suspect, is a dead end, and IBM knows it. Not too many people use it these days, and everyone seems to be going into Linux on the server side at least.
Good lord. Why would you love to see SMIT go away? It is easily the best designed and most powerful administrative interface/frontend on any UNIX.
Sure SMIT allows morons to admin a machine, but it is only an interface to the WEALTH of commands that exist on the back-end. Once you've done a lot of AIX work you use them, only firing up smit when you're concerned about doing something kinda odd/dangerous correctly, or to review command syntax.
AIX is probably the most misunderstood and least known UNIX out there. Makes me sad, really. I love it, and don't really think any other UNIX compares to it from an administrative/features standpoint. But understand this - If AIX features were available in Linux, I would certainly prefer Linux...for more reasons than I can list.
Honestly I don't really understand why any major vendors would be supporting Linux development in PREFERENCE to their own OS. The slant here (historically for the past 1-2 years) seems to think that SGI, Compaq and IBM are dying to pitch their current OSes in favor of Linux. I just don't see that happening, for a multitude of reasons.
For SGI it could be a long-term strategic plan, if they migrate solely to IA-64 for their hardware. But customers [admins] are going to be pretty unhappy with Linux of 2001-2002 being run on their higher-end hardware I think.
IBM I believe is just hedging bets, and designing a mechanism by which they can be poised for a large sweep of AIX into the mainstream. Once I can run AIX on commodity hardware I can actually afford, it will be done. (IA-64...but when the hell will it be a reasonable cost?!!?)
Compaq...don't know much about Tru64 anymore, and Compaq is a small player. Alpha is a terrific architecture and Linux/FreeBSD are reportedly ROCK stable on those so who knows.
I don't mean to get on a rant here (:-). I just read things like "IBM Wants Linux", which is a slight misrepresentation of the story, and wonder how much pro-Linux fascism there really is on this site.
sedawkgrep
Is that a salami in my pants or am I just happy to be me?
Obviously you have spent too much time in the Sun Solari-um!
IBM will ditch AIX in favor of Linux if they think Linux is better. Well, I should hope so. Since they aren't trying to fund their company with the OS, but just want it to take advatage of their expensive hardware, it makes sense that they'd want to provide their customers with the best OS for the hardware. If that means they don't have to work on AIX any more, so much the better.
They'd probably say the same about BSD if they thought it might get that good on IBM hardware.
I agree with you completely. SMIT is the best Unix admin tool ever. Period. It is great to be able to get more complex tasks that you seldom perform done quickly. (Plus it logs the command-line for you)
The other vendors are supporting Linux in prefrence to their own Unices because they can't afford to maintain them. SGI simply cannot afford to develop IRIX.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
I'm in the middle of porting my company's software apps to various UNIX flavors from NT. They decided to start with AIX, they made this decsion before I was hired, I come from a mostly Linux background and I really wished that was the first flavor they planned to port too. This is my first experience with AIX, I was more than happy to see IBM's Linux devel kit for the RS/6000 and I would be much happier if Linux would replace the rest of the system as well. I just wish my company would have had the forsight to port to Linux first, especially since the first port is like a study project anyways, we wouldn't have to spend so much $$ on test hardware. Maybe I can convince them to go with Java instead of .Net in the future so they don't make the same mistake and miss the Linux boat again.
Yes but every time I try to see it your way, I get a headache.
However, I've seen AIX, and I know that IBM obviously has some pretty decent *nix coders in their stable. You'd think they could take what they have and coble together "AIX/Linux" instead of throwing away a perfectly good OS.
They would have to put up with the primadonna Linux kernel "community".
Who has the time to deal with people who demand one page patches only to the most bloated kernel in OS history.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
. . .is developers that really WANT it to be a competitive, production OS. Linus has called it a hobby OS, and I get the distinct impression that Cox regards it as an interesting academic excercise.
I agree that it has potential. On the other hand, it's not capable of handling much of the REALLY BIG or obscure hardware, and it's not as stable as some of the things IBM is selling right now (they actually have 100% uptime guarantees for some of their massive systems).
These problems are also compounded by where most of the development happens. Linux, unlike several other *NIXes, is largely developed for and by hobbyists using PC hardware. In many ways, Linux has been blown out of proportion by "true believers" (aka "Penguinistas") who forget that it's Linus's pet project -- not (deity)'s gift to computing.
If Linux is to overtake OSes like AIX, it's going to have to take steps to mature and become more reliable, flexible, and capable. Programmers need to rethink its kernel architecture, iron out a lot of bugs that the OS has grown around, adequately set some standards. Linux will HAVE to support uncommon hardware (and/or 4+ GB RAM/large numbers of processors) to avoid being laughed at by the big boys.
I will say, for my part, that I'm not sure Linux is really the right "Open Source" OS to push into the GREAT BIG MONSTER COMPUTING market. It wasn't really intended to go in that direction, and will need a great deal of retooling before it's ready to.
T3/Dev
"Where would I be without IBM?"
For the love of god! Please!
I made a post on Friday in the "purple book" thread (see my user info) that I still think that IBM should do their own Linux distro (or buy an existing one) for the same reasons as why the IBM PC was more quickly adopted by "corporate suits" than the other PC's at the time which they viewed as hobbyist toys (seeing the similarity to today as most "suits" view Linux this way). The Steve Mills quote was mentioned in the responses.
So how would this AIX->Linux switch happen?
1. IBM buys an established distro like RH or Suse, then GPL's the AIX tools, then rebuilds the distro to include those tools?
or
2. IBM GPL's the AIX tools, then rebuilds AIX around the Linux kernel, and calls it something like "AIX Open"? (which would essentially be IBM's Linux distro)
I think what companies with such strong trademarks and consumerbase as IBM sees in Linux is free labour.
AIX costs huge amount of $$$ to develop, with Linux all they have to do is to put a few engineers on adopting it. Instead of spending money on developing a whole OS, just write some drivers and adopt it to your hardware.
Ofcause, initially there will be some high costs moving towards Linux but in the end I think free labour is a all win situation for IBM.
I think some people are missing the point. IBM is not saying. "Dump AIX and start installing linux." They are not even saying it's a good idea to put linux on AIX hardware. IBM has said that they believe that Linux will grow to be suitable on enterprise hardware. This is a great step towards standards from Backend to handheld. It could be 5 years before we see a AS/400 running linux in IBM sales material. But that day is coming according to IBM. They have never said this or maybe even thought this with WindowsNT or even OS/2.
Could it be that IBM is waiting till Linux can do all the things AIX can do? When that day comes. won't it be easy for IBM to release the code needed to make a AS/400 kernel? It would be in their best interest I would think. The JFS project led by IBM seems to be a step in that direction.
The interesting question is going to be how far will IBM go to help Linux in the enterprise? I think that alot of people into Open Source miss the scope of IBM's importance in the computing industry. This is IBM!!! When IBM says something works. They do not just do it because they want to cheese off Microsoft. IBM is too mature for that. Their customers pay a premium for the IBM service touch. In my mind it is worth every penny.
Another thing to keep in mind is that IBM makes attempts to keep up with what the market wants. In most cases they do a very good job of figuring out what the customer wants before they do. So in a nutshell what IBM is telling the world is that they believe that the customer want's Linux! If they know it or not. Given IBM's track record I would think this would make the Open Source community take pride in how far their Software has come. IBM is taking careful steps to help Linux March with the big boys. It would be a shame if They were slamed for trying to help OpenSource, Themselves, and their customers because the Linux community has unfounded fears about Large for profit companys that want to join the community with only good intentions for all.
Last one in jail is a fascist.
(2nd try- registration didn't work the first time and it went it as AC)
I made a post on Friday in the "purple book" thread (see my user info) that I still think that IBM should do their own Linux distro (or buy an existing one) for the same reasons as why the IBM PC was more quickly adopted by "corporate suits" than the other PC's at the time which they viewed as hobbyist toys (seeing the similarity to today as most "suits" view Linux this way). The Steve Mills quote was mentioned in the responses.
So how would this AIX->Linux switch happen?
1. IBM buys an established distro like RH or Suse, then GPL's the AIX tools, then rebuilds the distro to include those tools?
or
2. IBM GPL's the AIX tools, then rebuilds AIX around the Linux kernel, and calls it something like "AIX Open"? (which would essentially be IBM's Linux distro)
What has it gots in its cachesssss...
:/
But wait a minute, I thought the one OS to rule them all was supposed to be Windows 95...
deus does not exist but if he does
Am I the only one who sees this a way for IBM to sound hip-and-cool(Linux) while pointing out how advanced their home grown UNIX is and how it handles the "big-stuff" so much better.
My work on the FOLK project (IMHO) demonstrates that all the technology needed to support highly-scalable Linux systems, with all the capabilities any corporation would expect from a top-of-the-line OS.
HOWEVER, the patches necessary to get Linux to that point are NOT yet part of the mainstream kernel, and in some cases, maintenance is...
This leads to the "not obvious" answer -- IBM has to do it's OWN "FOLK-style" project, to include the necessary capabilities, essentially forking the patches to keep them in line with the kernel.
IBM would ALSO have to do a thorough kernel audit. For for the FOLK project, we're looking at reverse-engineering the specification, fixing that, and then fixing the code to match. (The reason for using that approach is that specs are generally easier to debug, and are generally a LOT shorter, making it practical for one or two people to do.)
The argument about Linux "not scaling" is true -and- false. SGI showed that part of the problem was in the scheduling. HP has an excellent scheduler plug-in system, so you can have schedulers that are optimal for any given configuration, if you really want.
There's also a problem of latency, but the low-latency patches deal with many of those issues.
Of course, not all clusters are going to be simple arrays of processors. You might have nodes on a VME bus. No problem - the VME patch takes care of that.
Then, you have local-area and wide-area clusters. MOSIX and bproc deal with those issues, too.
For those still using transputers, there is an excellent b.004/b.008 link driver, out there.
Software base too limited? There's an ABI patch, which gives you support for a wide range of UNIX OS' binaries. The WINE patch is pretty decent, too.
All in all, if IBM play their cards right, and pull Linux out of the quagmire its been in, this could benefit both IBM and Linux enormously.
(Quagmire? What quagmire? The Linux kernel's rate of development has not been impressive, in the 2.[34] arena, even though development of Linux kernel code is as fast as it has ever been. Linus has wanted to slow down, but I worry that it has become -too- slow, and risks getting stuck in pure-and-simple human inertia. The IPv6 stack, for example, is now WAAAY behind the USAGI version, despite the fact that the Linux IPv6 has had many more years in which to develop and grow.)
I really and truly hope that this is the Miracle Grow for Linux, and not the Strimmer. I guess we'll have to wait and see.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
There were probably hundreds of companies selling various products to pre-war Germany which later were utilized by Nazis to do whatever they did. ...
Are you going to sue them all ?
Where does that insanity end ?
Once I read some guy writing that Jews pretty much made business out of Holocaust and it looks like he was right and this business is going very well. First extortion and blackmailing of Swiss banks, now IBM
ummm. me? we have ermmm... 6 odd big buggers, and loads of smaller e series + rs6000 jobs. (not forgetting the 150odd tiny as400's) only prob is they are in constant use over the weekends...
they might try and replace AIX with Linux... But I can't see db2 and os400 on our as400's getting replaced... I know turbolinux and (some other vendor?) produce AS400 distributions... but we dont use the as400's for email+http... so its linux on our boxes is worthless.
tho we did upgrade the as400's httpd process to run apache now (its always good to stay uptodate with IBMs PTF's)
no sig for you
(It's crucial that you understand this. While those developers can be thanked for the GNU/Linux implementation, the design and archiecture is stolen-- albeit modifed -- IP.)
... namely from MINIX, which was a minimal, educational recreation of UNIX 7), not stolen in any sense of the word, not even in the "newspeak" sense that the Copyright Cartels and DMCA Apologists have redefined the word to mean.
While you make some good points, I take exception to this characterization of GNU/Linux's similarity to UNIX and its POSIX compliance as "stolen IP." Numerous court decisions, including Apple v. Microsoft, have consistently ruled that compatiblity, compliance to standards, and even the wholesale mimicking of a competitor's look and feel do not constitute a violation of intellectual property in any manner. The design and architecture were copied legally (actually, to be historically accurate, they were copied from a copy
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Now the Giant, along with many other companies, jump to Linux bandwagon.
As I write this on my thinkpad (with no superflous [sp?] windows keys) I must say IBM is not just now "jumpin on the wagon". I think they are already there. Please. Thank you.
Mary Ann Fisher, IBM's Linux Program Director, World Wide Sector, spoke at the CALUG meeting in June. She discussed the why's, how's, and when's of IBM's Linux involvement. You can hear her talk here. No guarantees on the audio quality or the site capacity!
I mod down all the "free iPod"-sig losers.
Are you people aware that this company is all but good?
IBM played a very central rule during world war II helping the nazis to find jews.
http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/
Now then they want to stop paying people to develop software and instead use free labour everyone hails them as gods.
Thats just insane!
I've used AIX a fair bit in the past. Some points of difference.
/usr vs /opt), others deal with usually subtle API differences. I've been responsible most of the porting here, and AIX was always the most difficult compared to Solaris and HP-UX. Linux has an advantage here, but i think AIX was getting better (certainly compared with AIX from the mid-90's.)
First AIX has a great file system. That is to say that i can use the admin tools to increase the size of a file system on a live system. No reboots. Perhaps some of the Linux JFS implementations have this as well.
Second, i quite like SMIT. I'm a programmer, not a paid sys admin, but no one else had UNIX experience, so i was stuck with support. SMIT, the admin tool, has everything all in one interface. No graphical shine, just a simple to use interface. Plus TTY support for when i don't have X11 access.
As was mentioned before, not all the config on an AIX box is through flat files. Some information is in the ODM object database. This is scary shit to me, and would perfer not to have to make changes in ODM. If you do it wrong, you can hose the machine. I think that Linux using only flat files is an advantage.
Porting to AIX is a hassle. At one point, it was said that AIX stood for 'AIX aIn't uniX'. Some of the porting is just dealing with file system differences (i.e,
Lastly, the biggest difference for me was with accounting. While we don't use any (for our testing / lab machines), AIX has a lot of built in accounting that Linux seems to lack. If IBM wants Linux to replace AIX, this will most likely be where the most effort would be spent. AIX would logically be based on the security and accounting model used in the mainframe OS/390. I can't remember all the details, but you could set quotas on disk, cpu, memory, number of processes, log-in times, etc, etc. I don't think Linux has this kind of accounting quantum. Most Linux users are just not used to thinking about putting that much restrictions on user accesses. But if you put yourself in the mindset of people that would use that accounting (think banks, airline reservation systems, government, stock markets, medical facilities, etc).
-- Straights are for fast cars, corners are for fast drivers.
Probably it's a matter of momentum. A lot of business decisions get based on market potential, which in turn depend on growth rates, which in turn depend on how much attention the market is getting.
Right now, Linux is getting the attention so that's wher the market potential is. IBM could try to push BSD, but they'd face an extra hurdle in the selling process and risk getting stuck in a market below critical mass. So they choose to focus on Linux.
So it's kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy in a way.
Ever try to do multi-headed X on AIX? You can't, because their stupid operating system won't let you map more than 4 regions of memory-mapped I/O into a process address space. Not only that, but the OS takes steps to prevent you from working around that!
Ok, so people don't use AIX for CAD, but my company has huge demand for multi-headed X on PPC platforms, and it's nothing but sheer stupidity on the part of IBM that gets in our way.
Down with AIX. Hurray for Linux!
We are going to be getting an IBM RS/6000 with AIX. It will be running an Informix database ap called Medic Vision for Doctors' offices.
Can AIX run a free Linux web server like Apache, or do we have to go with an IBM "solution" like WebSphere?
In case you didn't know hospitals and doctors' practices are very hard pressed for cash these days.
Nobody in our IS dept knows any Unix and I have only played around with Linux at home. I feel a bit nervous about how hard AIX will be to learn. We are very far from rocket scientists here!
from Oak Park, IL home of Hemmingway and F.L. Wright
Help end the use of Sigs. Tomorrow
Ive got 3 words for the people who think linux isnt ready for the big boys...
Google Dot Com
"Think, It aint illegal.....yet" - George Clinton
Thanks for the info :)
They are not selling hardware they are selling integrated systems - which means a hardware platform with an OS especially made for it. So if they manage to roll their own linux kernel and keep it reasonably up to date this might work. But installing stock SuSE or Redhat on their machines will not cut it.
--Ulrich
On no accounts allow a Vogon to read poetry at you
Everyone in this discussion is talking about how Linux is not quite/ not yet up to the mark of a commercial unix variant. I have occasionally used Unixes ( AIX/Solaris/Linux) mostly as a programmer using POSIX/Unix APIs and haven't found much difference(other than the fact that the documents for linux are much better and charming).I don't really know much about "enterprise quality , mission critical" operating system features. So assuming these people are right, where do you get such comparisions / technical information /feature lists ? Any links , mailing list etc will be greatly appreciated.
And while we are at it , can anyone please explain why the hell I can't print a < sign in my subject header ?
http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/
I agree with most of your comments. SMIT is way cool. IBM should open source the SMIT framework, and let linux hackers fill in the proper commands for Linux.
/proc, some in one .h file, some in another .h file, and *NONE* in the normal kernel configuration method.
The ODM is real drag though. It make AIX administration so different from every other Unix, that only the extreme usefulness of SMIT makes administering the system tolerable.
IBM's jfs/lvm are great too.
But you forgot one really great thing about about AIX. You never need to rebuild the kernel! (well, hardly ever. The authors of the O'Reilly Unix admin book mention one case.) Kernel parameters are self-adjusting for the most part.
Linux doesn't have the kernel parameter hell of System V (driver hell instead), but it does have kernel parameters, and if you are working at the high end, you _will_ need to tune them. And what's worst is that there is no one central place to find them all. Some are in
A question I like to ask folks when they are intensely debating their favorite OS, etc:
What operating system and hardware do you want controlling your final landing approach in bad weather at your favorite bad-weather airport?
It is interesting how our responses don't always mirror what we *like* to work with.
Oddly, this is one of those cases where I begin to prefer AIX or IBM mainframe hardware..
Yep, I went from administering AIX with SMIT to HP-UX with its SAM tools. SMIT was far better, the command logging espically, I'd do something in SMIT, check the commands and start doing it from the command line. With HP-UX, I just figure out the command line stuff myself because SAM is so worthless (espically for setting up disks).
Don't you mean that the usage of Linux in some embedded systems is extreme bloat?
I used to think like you do, but the term "embedded system" covers a wide range of devices. I've programmed everything from wimpy-little 8-bit systems (not quite the 4-bit bottom end that some people still work on) to fairly large process control systems. They are all considered embedded systems because of the fact that they're special-purpose devices, but they have very different software requirements.
The little 8-bit devices were typically used for real-time control of local hardware and were programmed, often in assembly language, at the "bare metal". Big process control stuff often has significant database and display requirements so I tend to suggest running PostgreSQL and X11 under Linux. (I'm also involved in a system that makes extensive use of Windows NT Embedded, so it's not just something Linux fanatics do.)
What's interesting is that as the price on more powerful processors and memory drops, the embedded systems built from those parts get faster and more capable of running software built with techniques that weren't efficient enough before. One example is the fact that higher-level languages are now commonly used on new embedded designs. Ten years ago, that didn't happen all that often. The use of operating systems instead of programming to the "bare metal" is another example. The more advanced techniques allow greater programmer productivity, enhanced reliability, and lower maintenance costs and the reduced costs mean that it's economical enough to do on smaller and smaller systems.
With the wide use of so-called "embedded PC" devices, that trend has accelerated because Wintel PC's have to be both immensely powerful and quite inexpensive to compete with the market and the hardware manufacters take advantage of the technology developed for desktops to reduce the prices of their own products. The fact that many embedded systems only have to be "real time enough" and the fact that embedded systems tend to be very sensitive to marginal costs bodes well for the use of Linux for embedded systems into the long term.
Yeah that peace sign campaign really goes along well with what RMS and Ted Nugent (wait, I meant ESR) have been doing lately for Linux.
Why not just use OpenUnix from Caldera? Unix with Linux.
Thanks for reminding me why I hate it here so much Then leave.
IBM does make money from hardware. Find proof here. You call $8.7B not making money on hardware? Get a clue. Note, services made $8.7B also, which is not too much more than what they made in hardware (according to my back of the envelope calculations).
Holy s-, it's Jesus!
Also, by comparison the admin tools from Sun are laughable. Only SGI comes close with a GUI only tool, but it is only half as capable as SMIT.
"were probably hundreds of companies selling various products to pre-war Germany "
The difference is that IBM made custom-made product explicity used for hunting down jews. They did know what they where used for and worked with the nazis on the project. They worked with nazi germany during the whole war, hunting jews.
That cannot be compared with companies selling general usage machines to pre-war germany that then was used for making guns.
That comment about unixes and such is informative?
/. readers are dumbasses.
For who? A bunch of morons?
Get real. Sounds like a typical (if it bashes something compared to linux its a great comment)
Sorry mods, but not all of
Why is this post marked as a troll? It's _facts_ people, don't you know what a troll is?
A few years ago (1995-1997) I actively maintained several AIX boxes as part of my job as a Unix sysadmin, and thus got to know the nasty beast first-hand. Granted, AIX is twisted and mutant, but there are a couple of areas where it does rock.
/etc/inittab -- it will happily let you edit /etc/inittab and do whatever you want with it, but it will quietly go behind your back and undo all the changes you made. To change /etc/inittab, you have to go through certain AIX commands that I have forgotten. There actually was a reason for this, but the details have slipped away.
/, because then you had to make sure to make the new disk bootable (and generally every AIX sysadmin would screw this up the first time and destroy the system as a result, but see the second point below). The volume manager lets you create and delete and resize filesystems on the fly; it wasn't so good at shrinking filesystems back in 1995 but I'm sure it's gotten better since then. My sysadmin style between Solaris and AIX was totally different: on AIX I'd create filesystems exactly as large as I needed them at the time, and would only grow them when they got to 99% full or so, whereas on Solaris w/o Veritas I'd simply slice up the disk into as few filesystems as possible and allocate all the disks at system install. The AIX way was lots more flexible, though it did involve the loss of the traditional BSD-style disk slice partitioning.
First let me pass along an analogy told to me (alas I don't know its origin). There were these two intelligent alien races. They didn't know each other's language, but they did have a universal translator that could translate between them; however it was somewhat buggy and didn't always do a terribly good job, but it was good enough most of the time. The first alien race had BSD Unix, and knowledge of System V Unix, and told it to the second alien race through the broken universal translator. The second race, thus enlightened, went off and wrote: AIX.
Humor aside, my AIX experience was something like "SUCKS" "SUCKS" "SUCKS" "oh wait, this is cool" "SUCKS", heh. What the open source community needs to do is identify the cool parts and add them to our own OSen. An example of what NOT to add would be the way AIX plays fast and loose with
Ok, on to the actual cool things about AIX. For those of you that have used Solaris + Veritas, you already know how useful it can be, and what a pain in the ass it can be as well. AIX has had a volume manager for longer than any other Unix, and does it quite a bit better. In 1995, it was no problem at all to take all the data/filesystems on one disk and migrate them all to another disk transparently without taking the OS down or even degrading performance very much. Well, except if you were moving
The other thing that AIX totally rocked on was its backup command, mksysb. This created a bootable tape with the entirety of the root volume on it (generally you'd have a root volume with all the system filesystems, and a data volume for your big-ass database etc.) Literally all you had to do to restore your system was change the keyswitch into 'Service' mode, pop the tape into the tape drive, and power the system on. It would boot off the bootable tape, find all the backup info, and restore the entire system to what it was at the time of the backup. No muss, no fuss, it just worked. It saved my bacon a couple of times, and it certainly made for less frazzled sysadmin nerves, knowing that no matter how badly you hosed the system, you could go to the last backup and you wouldn't have to even think to restore the thing, just pop in the tape, boot it up, let it do its thing, and go have a beer.
Anyways, these were the two brightest shining points of sysadminning AIX when I was doing it. I'd love to have either/both of these features on any OS I'm responsible for, and I'm sure that these are the kinds of things that IBM wants from Linux.
At least mafia-owned pizzarias make excellent pizza. Compare to Bill Gates.
What people like about IBM is their stability and support. Even though they may not be actively selling it, IBM still supports OS/2 and will continue to do so for a long time. That is in stark contrast to other companies that laugh at you if you need support for an "obsolete" product.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
If there customers are asking for Linux instead of AIX, and in IBM's bread and butter, that is OEM's who install their software on an IBM box, and IBM support services.
Chopping AIX's cost out of the picture, makes your vertical market solution a bit more cost competitive.
the RS/6000 software cannot run on the AS/400 hardware and vica-versa. The As/400 PowerPc chips are unique from what I have seen in the IBM server offerings.
/390, a As/400, and an RS/6000 all servers - and they all appeal to different corporate cultures you can make some impressive sales)
Now there is competition between all groups in IBM, which is probably one reason IBM sells lots of servers (when you can call a
Now, the As/400 runs Linux virtualized... with no real perfomance penalty, and this is how they run Apache, which btw is mostly threaded because of Rochester As/400 programmers...
The key to the whole article is that Linux receives a lot of press, but its not a powerful operating system. Its an average operating system that is open to peer review, and average and open can mean many times more value than excellent and closed.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
It should also be noted that POSIX and the Single UNIX Specification (etc) are published standards specifically so that independant parties can re-implement them without having to pay licence fees. That's the original meaning of the term "Open System".
The money is on the certification side (the "UNIX" brandname). The fact that Linux hasn't been certified hasn't seemed to hurt it a bit.
When I hear the word 'innovation', I reach for my pistol.
I imagine that IBM would attempt to avoid forking the kernel. OTOH, they would be quite likely to come out with their own distribution. Or to rebrand one of the extant ones. They might even buy the company, but probably not. But I suspect that an "IBM Linux" would be quite acceptable to many people. And if they had to edit the code the remove all the red hats, or top hats, that would be a minor expense. Don't think of a fork, think of the way Mandrake started.
Now IBM would probably only sell their distribution to those who bought their hardware, but they might well be willing to sell maintenance contracts (which might [optionally?] include their distribution) to anyone. Just as Red Hat prefers to support customers who are running Red Hat Linux, because it cuts down on the variety of problems that they have to deal with, so it increases their profits without increasing their expenses.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
http://ltp.sf.net
They never put me under an NDA, so I assume this is public:
They are actually doing quite a bit of work porting linux to the iSeries (AS/400) and pSeries (RS/3000 et al). They are writing libraries that allow Linux applications to run on AIX.
One of their biggest projects is helping to fix/improve SMP support in Linux, and hopefully make it reach the point where it can handle the 24 processor systems they want to put it on. This includes improving I/O, and memory management, and handling large numbers of simultaneous processes.
These are things that Linux does okay on, but the power, resources and money that IBM is willing to put into it will help poor Open Source developers quite a bit.
The best part: They are releasing the code they write back to the community. They are actually helping. I think this is what you wanted to here. IBM is on our side. (in this case)
Source: I interviewed for one of the positions which would be porting Linux to the AS/400, now sadly named the iSeries. I didn't take it though. Don't be mad at me.
ScaredCity(?tm?) has also come out in support of the gnu penguinista rebels. will linus be able to handle the lode, or will all the hobbyist whiners disappear in a sh!tstorm of Mi$leading pr spew?
the next anticipated converts are these guise. will the 'net ever again be a safe haven for bulloneous billsh!t? i DOWt it.
Viva La Revolucione
this post was rendered with total immunity from Billy'sBugs(tm), evile payper LieSense viworms.
Bullshit. It was a device used to classify and count people - quite generic if you ask me.
Remember, it is only a device, just like a gun is a tool.
Ultimately, Nazis were responsible for extermination NOT machines.
These people are looking for ways to squeeze IBM for some money.
The question is not will Linux replace AIX, but should Linux replace AIX.
Look, don't get me wrong, the first Net server I ever got running was AIX (on a Mac, talk about irony).
The question we should be asking is, do we want Linux to become the corporate behemoth? I mean, it's nifty that Linux is an option, and that they support us, but maybe we should let Big Blue keep doing Unix with all its crufty apps for the corporate guys, and Linux does what it wants to do.
So long as they support us, help us get drivers, publish their specs, do we need to control the whole sandbox?
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
I never knew there was more to it. what tuning can you do that would be useful in a workstation? I'm sorry if I sound stupid, but I am _really_ interested. As relative newbie (I've only been using for a year), anything I can learn, the better.
C Pungent
When they removed the vac and restarted the UPS, all the AIX machines came up flawlessly, no lost file, no corrupted file system, no nothing, thanks to the JFS. The engineers had lost only the work done since the last autosave. Oh, and they bought a broom for that lab.
Drawback: The very concept of SMIT requires to override the basic Unix principle of configuration files. The files are modified by SMIT to reflect the changes in the OMD, an object-oriented configuration database. If you manually edit the files, the OMD will override these changes.
If IBM is serious about Linux replacing AIX, they'll port SMIT. Encouragingly, they already ported JFS and open-sourced it. Meanwhile, Linux could use the on-the-fly extensibility.
-- SysKoll
--
Mad science! Robots! Underwear! Cute girls! Full comic online! http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
IBM is a hardware company. They don't care what operating system you run as long as you run it on their hardware.
Sure they would be happy to drop AIX if (and only if) Linux became as good an option as AIX. So what? They'd run MS-DOS if that worked as well.
Don't know if the first point you made is supported by the new LVM specs available in the 2.4.x series kernel (I'm stuck on 2.2.18... damn closed source FastTrack drivers!!!) but the second point is just a matter of bash scripting isn't it? Now that we have devfs all you need to do is tarup the whole root with the exception of /proc and stick it in a bootable tape/cdrom (multiple) with perhaps the addition of a mkinitrd in between (it shouldn't be too much of a problem to write)
Mi domando chi à il mandante di tutte le cazzate che faccio - Altan
I mean, after all, they did develop the PC, and look at all the control they *don't* have over it ;)
I was using AIX workstations until a couple of years ago. Here are some of the things that drove me up the wall about them:
AIX is so un-UNIXy that the Unix System Administrator Handbook kept making fun of it throughout its pages as the odd-man-out (it also deals with Solaris, Irix, HP/UX, and others), comments they removed in later editions presumably not to upset AIX users too much.
In defense of AIX workstations and servers, they are very reliable machines, and people who work only in the AIX world and don't deal with other UNIX systems probably never notice and don't care about the idiosyncracies.
Altogether, I see a big culture clash if IBM tries to move AIX users to Linux. And I think that clash may well end up harming Linux if it causes stuff like JFS and LVM to be adopted more widely in Linux. Let's not fall into the Microsoft mindset where everybody must run the same software; there is nothing wrong with having Linux, AIX, Windows, Solaris, and other systems co-exist. We don't need an OS monoculture.
Or better yet question:
"Can CmdrTaco spell check his postings before making stupid errors?"
Flame away!
Brielle
There were these two intelligent alien races. They didn't know each other's language, but they did have a universal translator that could translate between them; however it was somewhat buggy and didn't always do a terribly good job, but it was good enough most of the time.
So Douglas Adams was right after all! Babel fish is really alien technology!
Marcelo Vanzin
Wow, this lends some credence to the rumors that IBM would like to acquire Red Hat.
I want IBM to port smit to Linux. smit is a great sysadmin utility for AIX. Originaly IBM was making smit compatable with most unices out there, but in order to make AIX more attractive they held back and only made it for AIX. Now with the switching of roles IBM needs to release smit for Linux!
I see the clear advantage of Open Source in the fact that IBM is considering Linux an alternative to AIX.
I don't really think AIX development has been profitable: it is a heavy self-made UNIX, which runs on a limited base. Although much money can be collected from each customer, IBM still loses in the process.
From the other point of view, Linux is already there. There are numerous people except IBM who want to make it better (some of them are IBM's competitors in this market, like SGI). Improving Linux does not cost so much.
In addition, the community receives powerful tools that it can use. The market fragmentation decreases, simplifying the technical support duties. IBM's hardware costs less, and more people buy it.
I own a Geo Metro, all 3 cylinders (it's a '91) and 55 horsepower of it, and to call it a great car is to stretch the truth just a TAD... "A motocycle with some foil around it" is perhaps closer to accurate. (The Geo's for sale now. Got a Honda Civic that seems huge in comparison...)
Now maybe Linus will be more willing to start supporting "big iron" a little more. Yes, it's cool that Linux still runs on 386's, but isn't making an OS partially crippled for backwards-compatibility the arena of MicroSoft?
steve
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
I think the reason is plain economics. It is far less expensive to support a small subset of a system to get it specialized into my hardware than developing a complete system for it.
How is the kernel supposed to catch up to an OS like Solaris? IBM has 3 OS's to work on, i.e. AIX etc. On the other hand, Sun has 1 OS to support all their machines from back in the SPARCstation 1 days. It's completely specialized to run on ultrasparcs (albeit, intel is supported, SLOWLY). For Linux to support everything that Solaris does, it would take forever. Sun has the money to throw into the development because it relies on Solaris and nothing else. Linux runs really well on Intel hardware, and I think with the coming of 64bit processors, dirt cheap prices, and new motherboards, that it will become much more efficient to run intel/amd hardware. Plus once more cache is placed on these processors they will be more suitable for servers.
I don't think it's a matter of when Linux catches up, I think it's a matter of when I can put in 64 intel/amd processors in a system of 8 system boards and do it while the system is on. Right now, AMD & intel are having a big enough problem finding decent chipsets to work on 1 damn processor. I think it's a matter of hardware for intel (just because they have the most marketshare). We know they make huge mistakes (RDRAM? Were they drunk when they thought that disaster up?) and companies like AMD are much better. I want IBM to step in this realm and throw some punches.
I've sysadmin'ed AIX boxen in some very complex configurations (high availability clusters for telco repair/install job dispatch, where downtime costs on the order of $100,000/hour) and I can honestly say that I've never enjoyed working with a Unix system as much as AIX.
/etc/inittab across reboots.)
/never/ had a better support experience from any other company than IBM and AIX. It was fantastic. I once had an issue where IBM kept a group of kernel programmers working on a fix for only my former company over the July 4th holiday a few years back. I was flabbergasted to come in on July 5th and find voice mail telling me where I could download the fixed code.
Now, the fact is that "traditional" SysV and BSD commands don't necessarily do what you expect in AIX, but that's because of the way the system was designed.
One of the most interesting features about AIX is that it keeps an internal database of all the devices (physical devices like network adapters, hard drives, memory, CPUs, etc, including logical devices like logical volumes and filesystems.) and most (if not all) of the traditional configuration files are built out of this device/config database. (Hence why you'd lose manually made changes to
I think that's why a lot of admins who come in from Solaris or HP/UX don't tend to like AIX, but honestly, once you master the device and configuration database, though, you will be hard pressed to find another platform which is as robust and stable. You will truly be the master of AIX.
mksysb and AIX's LVM+JFS are without doubt unparalleled jewels of computer engineering. They're excellent products which are simple and intuitive to learn. They're also the most feature rich implementations of a Logical Volume Manager and filesystem I've ever used (and I've used them all: Veritas on Solaris and HP, Compaq's LSM + AdvFS, Linux LVM and md driver) and that's why I've been insanely excited about the port of AIX's journaling file system to Linux -- it's the best Unix filesystem on Earth. (I'm really trying to not be too superlative -- and no, I don't work for IBM.)
IBM also sells unbelievable (and not to mention pricey) technical support for AIX. I've
If it weren't for the cost of the hardware, I'd use AIX again in a heartbeat. I'm glad IBM is considering replacing AIX with Linux when it's ready, but I hope they'll be offering the same quality of support and features that AIX has now.
Good point. And then there's this comment:
:)
"The question is wether this bandwagon is capable of carrying a Giant that huge."
Actually, the Giant will be helping to carry Linux, so it's not a case of the bandwagon carrying the Giant -- because, once they adopt Linux, they also become contributors.
The bandwagon grows because of people adopting it, not in spite of it.
IIS 5.0 beat TUX 2.0 on nearly(see www.spec.org for differences in setup) the same 8 CPU Dell machine in SPECweb99.
That was perhaps offtopic, I know, but it tells me that Windows 2000 is not too bad. And more importantly, perhaps "we" better start hammering more seriously at the target named Windows 2000 before aiming at AIX performance.
The matter was discussed at the kernel mailing list in late May and it was concluded that the slight difference in harddisks was the reason for IIS 5.0 winning.
eyeB/\/\ w4nT5 j00
Photos.
and quite welcome in my estimation, as the most voiciferous OEM to embrace Linux. Just their PR is a great thing for Linux, IMHO. Surely you've seen the commercials, with Avery Brooks (Cpt. Sisko, no less!) growling about how your existing software just isn't going to handle the future, and "something totally new" is needed. Then there's the "programmers from another dimension" (the guys in the space suits). Their software infrastructure is in immediate danger of complete and total meltdown, and they're searching the universe for "a new kind of software". They're caught wandering the corridors of Big Blue and sent firmly to the front desk - to obtain visitor passes.
The name of the Beast is never spoken, but it's pretty plain, from the "software infrastructure meltdown" business, where these guys are from. They look kinda like depresed versions of the Intel guys in the bunny suits: the music has stopped, the party is over, and the reality behind all the bullshit the market has fed them has set in. They need software that _works_, immediately. They run into this deliciously geeky blonde who has the solutions: "WebSphere, DB2, Lotus, Java, UNIX, and _Linux_ (pronounced correctly, right on yer TV!)".
The software guys drool. And I can't help but notice the conspicuous absence of M$, WinDoze, IE, NT, XP, IIS, Exchange, FrontPage, or any of those other Evil Empire things from her list.
Now, you & I know better, but to the great unwashed, until they see something on TV, it cannot _really_ exist. See the Intel vs. AMD debate for rants on how important TV exposure is to marketing. Did Dell ever manage to mention their Linux "support" in any of _their_ ads? One of the things Linux needs for mainstream desktop acceptance, (in addition to a user-configurable GIU and other graphic administration tools, "Office Productivity Apps", and yadda yadda yadda) is advertizing exposure. BIG TIME. Is Linus going to advertize on the TV? I doubt it. How about RedHat? Corel? I don't see it. I _do_ see Big Blue, huckstering Linux, and I think this is A Very Great Thing(tm) for Linux.
And YES, IBM's Linux involvement extends to Open Source, as they port their stuff (like jfs) to Linux, they _have_ given back the source to the community.
"In particular, IBM chose to embrace Linux as a way to help administrators with key server management tasks...."
What part of that suggests to you that SMIT won't be ported to Linux? Or that once it is, the source won't be released?
What IBM stands to gain by this is:
Piss off Redmond. There's still a score there to settle, and Linux looks like IBM's chance. Really, If I were BillG, the mere idea of Linux running on everything from the zSeries (aka System/390) down to blenders (while the M$ minions struggle to port WinBloze to IA-64), would keep me wide awake at night.
(REAL) Open Source Development. Not "Shared Source", "Community Source", or any of those other "open" source models which don't work. Come on, everybody knows the party line about Open Source(tm) causing cheaper, more robust, more secure, and generally better software. Well, don't you believe it yourselves? Instead of IBM having to develop their _entire_ operating system, they can rely on GNU/Linux for probably 90% of it, and only have to actually develop for themselves just the specific parts which handle the unique things in their hardware. If they Open Source _that_ (and why not, it gives no competitor anything), the community would have good examples of how _to_ do SMP, massive scaling, and the other things that Linux is weakest at - the big iron stuff that is still pretty much reserved for the commercial *NIXs.
I see IBM's involvement in Open Source and GNU/Linux to be a win/win situation for both Linux _and_ IBM. I applaud them for having the testicles to buck Redmond on this issue.
And have you guys _forgotten_ how IBM's endorsement turned QDos from something nobody in their right mind would have ever touched into the desktop computer industry's dominant "OS"?
Exceeding the recommended torque is not recommended.
Annual Reports are like newsletters to current and potential insvestors in the company's stock. The highlights:
IBM is a Founding Member and contributor to the Open Source Development Lab.
Over the next three years, IBM will invest more than $300 Million to develop Linux consulting, implementation and support services.
IBM is going to invest $1 billion in Linux, and dedicated 1,500 programmers to enable every IBM hardware and software product for Linux.
IBM, like almost no other company I can think of, has the resources to weather this slump in the high tech sector. It's continued support of Open Source and Linux in bad times as well as the good is encouraging. Red Hat, SuSe, Caldera, and every other distro combined doesn't even come close to the resources that IBM is bringing to the table! In fact they ALL could go belly up and as long as Big Blue is still on board, Linux has a bright future. If "money talks", one-billion-three-hundered-million dollars says volumes, and while "talk is cheap," IBM appears to be putting it's money where it's mouth is. I hope they don't blow it!
IBM has a number of porting centers around the country, the entire purpose of which is to provide resources to thrid party developers to verify that their code works on IBM systems.
They provide systems time and technical support. It isn't walk-in, but I don't think they'd turn away anyone who was serious...
Here's one reference:
http://www.developer.ibm.com/spc/spcabout.htm
Jim!
(third party developer)
oh yeah, IBM was the bad guy ten years ago, and Microsoft was good. Does that mean that in ten years, IBM will be the bad guy and Microsoft will be good?
what the hell is going on here??
Because this is slashdot - where facts are trolls and trolls are facts.
"We are happy and comfortable with the idea that Linux can become the successor not just for AIX but for all Unix operating systems," said Steve Mills, senior vice president and group executive of the IBM Software Group, during a news conference.
What a load of hype! Will linux really provide world peace and succeed all Unix? Are we that deluded with grandeur? Does the phrase "buttering up" mean anything to you here? and for what?
To help drive the maturation of Linux, IBM released a free Software Evaluation Kit for Linux to developers.
in other words
Boy, if you thought the MS "embrace and extend" strategy was bad - you ain't seen nothing yet compared to Big Blue's drug cartel "hook and skewer" ..
You're right about the meaninglessness of d.net RC5 as a general benchmark, but let's talk about it a bit anyway, speaking of PowerPC, which I can't imagine why one wouldn't "count" as a RISC CPU (at_18 mentioned it but Jon Peterson ignored it completely). Anyway, it flies on RC5. On G3s, their Mac clients tend to score a Kkeys/sec number that is about triple the MHz of the CPU, or about 330 cycles per key. On x86 machines that I've seen, the Kkeys/sec number was about double the MHz, making 500 cycles/key. On my G3/466 Powerbook, their v2.8010-463 client for Mac OS X is currently putting away 1.54 Mkeys/sec, which I guess is comaprable to what you'd get from a 750 MHz x86. And it runs cool enough that I can leave it on and crunching around the clock. Would you want to do that with an Intel laptop, with all the power-saving options turned off to keep it running at full speed?
And that's not even mentioning the G4's vector unit: nobody seems to really agree on just how much real-world applicability AltiVec will end up having, but for what it's worth, RC5 is a pretty spectacular one. My G4/400 gets over 3.2 Mkeys/sec, or four times more than an x86, clock for clock.
David Gould
main(i){putchar(340056100>>(i-1)*5&31|!!(i<6)<< 6)&&main(++i);}
Yes, AIX is solid, reliable, and has capabilities that Linux currently does not match yet. But surely you jest when you praise the ODM? This Windows-registry like mess is precisely that : a mess. Let me count the ways in which it ruins the whole experience :
Its a departure from the what you see is what you get configuration scheme of Unices everywhere. As was mentioned by someone else already, changes that you made to the configuration files can disappear after reboots. You and IBM may call this a feature, but to me it is a bug.
It introduces yet another secret initiation ritual that you must learn before you can administer the darn thing.
It is not flexible enough. Even if you go through the secret initiation ritual, you still cant use the ODM to do everything that is needed. Complex tasks frequently require you to edit the boot scripts anyway. So why have the ODM at all?
Another gripe that I have about AIX is the documentation. Have you seen the documentation website? It is slower than mud. Yeah, the documentation can be installed on the system - but good luck to actually finding what you need. The documentation has to be the shoddiest written piece of manuals that I have ever come across. I frequently read the Linux man pages to figure out how to use a command on AIX.
And let me address another point you brought up : support. Yes, IBM support positively rocks! Whats to stop them from supporting Linux the same way?
There is no such thing as luck. Luck is nothing but an absence of bad luck.
IBM wants my cock!
the question is: can Linux beats AIX?
the question is: will cmdrtaco ever learn how to spell?
IBM is as good as it is because it gives the customer what it wants. IBM is just trying to position itself for when Linux takes off, it will be the front runner.
A lot of people are asking about Linux -- some serious, some not. But I think everybody has the feeling that it will take off at some time (on the desktop). We're all used to waiting for Microsoft's stuff anyway, so this is not a deterent.
How many stories have you read about Microsoft screwing customers by changing their licensing or how many city governments have to prove that their licensing is in order whenever Microsoft asks for it.
When Linux is ready, IBM can walk in with the total package, desktop to servers, and make a whole lot of money on the transition. The customer get a unified system on one os with no licensing headaches.
IBM recently has converted DB2 and Websphere over to Linux PPC. They're getting it ready, but they need it solid. They need a linux system that can handle the transactions of a AIX system. But IBM won;t say anything about the desktop till it ready.
Remember IBM is driven by the business world. IBM isn't embracing Linux out of the goodness of its heart. IBM is embracing linux because the Fortune 500 want it. With a big database like DB2, Websphere for the enterprise systems and Kylix for heavy database apps, the Fortune 500 has the tools that it needs.
No one has control of the direction that Linux(tm) goes in, at least no one can decide on their own.
The only kernel that Linus can control is his own Linux kernel. If IBM want to roll their own Linux kernel then they can, and so can anyone else.
Do all the distributions use 'straight' Linus Linux kernals, or do they patch them as they see fit? I don't actually know the answer to that one, but I'd guess that some at least use AC's Linux kernals.
Linus only appears to 'control' the ongoing direction due to people only using his kernels (or kernels derived from his).
Did you notice the second part of the question? The part about ``less code''?
Especially since we're talking about running in a mainframe/server environment, where you'd use a stripped down, GUI-less version of NT...
Oh, wait. You can't.
Other Unices may have better design than Linux (I know very little here, so I can't give any real examples), but NT is *not* a paragon of lightweight design.
IHBT, piss off.
-grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Is there an itemized list of What Linux Needs To Become Enterprise-Ready somewhere?
I'm hearing vague chants of ``scalability!'' and ``ease of administration!'' here, but it would be much more productive, I think, if there were a concrete, to-the-point summary of what Linux's design goals need to be for acceptance in the enterprise.
-grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
I mean, a server where root can't log on at all, even from the console, isn't that useful.
Well, there's su, but that's beside the point.
-grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
I'm not an AIX expert by any means, but heres a few things... hopefully someone with more AIX experience can chime in.
Scheduler: We run db2 on AIX/RS6000. We used to run it on linux/X86, but that was extremely painful, for a variety of reasons. On our linux systems, if the run queue ever got much over 100 processes, even for a very short period of time, the OS would tailspin into a state where the kernel was using 99% of the CPU time. On the AIX box, I've seen the run queue get as high as 900, and the box just worked through it. While having the queue hit even 100 isn't something I like seeing, I do expect the system to be able to work through it, assuming it's a short-term load (as was the case). Even when DB2 on AIX does go off the deep end (we have a bug where it occasionally puts the kernel into a high CPU load), the kernel maxes out at ~90% CPU, so you can still get into the box and do things.
Filesystem: you simply can't compare the capabilities of JFS to ext2fs. Things like being able to resize filesystems and being able to determine where on the platter they are placed (though I'm not sure this is used much today). And I know very little about what JFS can do; I'm sure there's others that have much more info.
Yes, linux does have RFS, but that brings me to the next point...
Maturity: AIX has been around for a very long time... AIX 4.x alone has probably been around as long as linux. This means far, far fewer bugs, and much, much more optimization. Look at the recent rewrite of the linux vm system as an example... AIX enjoys years and years of research while linux is arguably still in a 'growing up' phase.
Advanced features: Take a look at what's comming up in AIX5L. Things like advanced clustering (more advanced and capable than anything I've heard of for linux or any other free OS). Not to mention things like HACMPS.
This doesn't mean that Linux is an 'inferior' OS; only that it's targeted at a different market than AIX. (AIX on a desktop? Ewww...)
now we have to prove to IBM that we can beat their AIX and it seems to me that they want us too. it all seems so strange that the big bad corp of old is now so eager for us to show them that we can do better than they. this really is fun. so much better than the last few days bitching about RMS. coding is what linux is about not politics amongst the elders. IBM. how weird is that?
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I think some Linux-folks recently beats AIX. Look at: http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/169200.html
I was recently at an IBM seminar where they were pitching themselves as the white knights - defenders of linux against the evil Microsoftian empire. Basically they said that they'd invested over a billion dollars in linux development, most of which is taking the form of their developers working within and building upon the open source application community for linux. Specifically they mentioned a research and development centre they'd set up in Canberra (i live in Australia. Canberra is our capital city) housing around a hundred developers.
Give it a couple of years and perhaps if this strategy proves fruitful we might see them helping to develop the OS itself. "Why?" you might say, "Why would IBM want to put itself out of business?". Well, they wouldn't be. Their core industry is hardware, and linux is not hardware. Many of the case studies given at this seminar were of large companies with fairly hefty computational requirements (supermarket chains, casinos, etc.) using a linux solution on IBM hardware. (FYI: the case studies were all European).
remember that IBM is part of the "we" you're referring to. They've got people contributing to Linux kernel development (e.g., IBM peeps did most of the work getting Linux/390 production ready).
Speaking of the graphical version of smit, ever notice that the little running guy looks like the Healthy Choice running guy?
http://carlucci.net/smit/
IBM sells high-end hardware and services. A free operating system does not diminish IBM's profitability in any way. If you need a huge machine (like an S/80), you must pay IBM millions of dollars for it whether it comes with AIX or linux. Nobody bought those machines for AIX anyway; what IBM was actually selling all along was high-end hardware that few vendors have the ability to manufacture.
Linux does offer IBM an enormous advantage: a common, open operating system that spans their entire product line. This has always been sorely lacking and has been the main reason Sun has been triumphant. IBM offers six (!!!) operating systems. Prior to linux, none of them ran on all of IBM's machines. It's absurd to have a vendor be completely incompatible with itself.
Linux offers a common, open, standard operating system across a broad range of machines. This allows IBM to be more competitive with Sun. Linux does not detract from IBM's profitability at all (S/80s are still expensive) but increases their competitiveness. It seems like a no-brainer to me.
I havn't had the opportunity to use JFS yet (I've heard it's excellent), but you havn't had the opportunity to use SGI's XFS either. It's simply amazing, and supports things JFS doesn't quite yet, such as quotas, ACLs, and even software RAID. It's amazing in terms of speed, especially with larger MP . . . ah . . . files. :-) Check it out at http://oss.sgi.com/projects/linux-xfs/
While a choice of operating systems is a good thing (did you know that IBM are paying for a FreeBSD port for the RS/6000!) 99% of companies are buying a hardware & software package (RS/6000 + AIX). Note: I said companies... quite different buying habits from Joe Average User buying a home machine.
Same goes for AS/400's, without OS/400 it's nothing. Again, most people are buying an integrated server package.
This 'my supported arcthitecture list is bigger than yours' argument that keeps happening is more a pointer to the size of a certain part of a zealot's anatomy rather than a valid argument.
Mr IBM, if you're stupid enough to drop AIX and OS/400 you might as well close up your hardware division.
Wanna make something of it?? If so, who the h*ll gives a damn?
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
HP/UX has all those features except the ODM. They call their admin tool sam, and you don't need a calculator to use the included Veritas LVM (AIX users will know what I mean).
I don't know about you, but I'd kind of miss that little running man falling flat on his face.
It kind of takes the sting out of the fact that you've just hosed up your system irrepairably.
-- Good judgement comes with experience. -- Experience comes with bad judgement.
Logging the command line is a truly powerful teaching tool, I'm glad someone mentioned this truly useful feature. I learned many a system administrative trick by observing what smit was about to do in the little log box. I wish more tools would provide an intuitive interface while making the hidden actions of the gui visible.
Were windows to take this approach I might not loathe it so.
-- Good judgement comes with experience. -- Experience comes with bad judgement.
Don't trust AIX, its admins don't have either beards or greasy T-shirts, just fancy polo shirts and shiny shoes.
I'm a heavy user of Linux systems, and have touched two AIX machines in my career. One was AIX 3.2.5 and the other was AIX 4.1. Both systems were very stable, yet difficult to set up certain things, like dynamically linking g++ and gcc libraries, and new tarball versions of sendmail. Aside from that, AIX has the maturity factor on its side. Linux has been around for 10 years now, but this installation of AIX 3.2.5 (if I'm not mistaken) was installed BEFORE Linux first debuted, or if not before, very close. It has had the time to mature and grow to what IBM and their consumer base wanted. Just something to think about...
By better and charming do you mean inaccurate and incomplete IF they exist at all??? Try to see through the haze of linux-induced euphoria and tell the TRUTH. If there is any one thing separating linux from commercial unixes or even FreeBSD and NetBSD, it is the quality of documentation: linux documentation is either outdated, inaccurate, or has a declaration by the GNU foundation saying that man pages are obselete (isn't there a GNU utility to automatically convert texinfo documents to man pages?). That is, if there are texinfo documentation....
Ciao
----
FB
Can't forget the Linus "Sexier than Elvis" Torvalds print ads in PC Mag, I laughed my ass off the first time i saw that one.
Read my plan to save the Bengals
Monterey has not "fallen apart". Monterey was the codename for version 5 of AIX wich is now available with Linux Afinity, i.e. library compatability
I don't understand how this would make it easier to link to specific comments. I've always been able to link to specific comments just fine in the past. In fact all those old links just seem to be broken now because of this new system.
The only advantage I can think of is that it discourages "frist post".
Just a note on the analogy... it is in fact a quote, and you have a very screwed up version of it. I won't post the real quote, and I'll explain why in a moment, but if you want to find it, google for it and you'll find it rather quickly. The reason I won't post the actual quote here (and the reason why I'm replying at all) is because the original quote is by a Monk from alt.sysadmin.recovery, and the FAQ for that group specifically prohibts reproduction or usage of anything said in there that isn't authorized by the author. They are a right bunch of Bastards, so I'd beware of incoming ballistic missiles and other such LARTs ;-) . And for the record, the real quote gives a suggested "negative" depiction of AIX... yours is likely a paraphrasing of the original to show AIX in a better light, and that will be the rub, as it were.
Know ye not that ye are Gods???
In other words, if you buy a UNIX system from IBM, it will now be already equipped with pre-installed AIX and Panes....
(GD Sorry, couldn't resist)
2) Vast majority of companies needing something better than Windoze servers will find the current linux adequate.
3) IBM's goal in AIX was stability, not speed. And with all the bugs I've seen, they haven't done a very good job at that either.
Fact is, linux would outperform AIX on powerpc upto 8 cpus. Check this out for example. Indeed, open your eyes!, this is but one of dozens of demonstrations of the superiority of open-source software (linux/freebsd to commercial unix) I have come across. Linux outperforms solaris on sparc boxes, outperforms OSX on mac's, outperforms dgux on alphas, on and on.
tcboo
I agree with njug in that the Linux kernel performs bad on non-intel, multi-processor as well as on shared memory SMPs platforms. That should not be much of a problem. Agreed, SMP support for machines with 4 processors should be enough for most budget conscious people. If you want support for 64+ SMPs!!! go for Solaris. We really don't have a problem, Linux clusters are a very good solution for anyone who wants affordable power. Of course, work is underway to make Linux upto par with the high-end heavy-weights. Nevertheless, Linux should not try to become everything for everyone (oooh, I hope I got my point across) But, then these are all just my opinion. My point is we should not take such comments to heart. Its all hunky-dory in (on!?) LinuxLand :-)
Do you know the story of the donkey who always said "No"?
Do you guys realise that AIX is only for IBM's low-end machines? They make some HUGE machines which usually run OS/390, which is a killer operating system. Linux/BSD certainly have a helluva long way to go before they can crunch like those guys.
PS: I object to being called "Anonymous coward" for not creating an account -- especially for a site like slashdot, which seems to champion privacy principles.