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Talk to the IBM Linux Hackers
We've all heard plenty about IBM's investment in Linux, but we don't hear much from -- or about -- the actual Linux developers at IBM. This interview is not with one person, but with a number of IBM Linux people spearheaded by Dave Hansen, who volunteered to help us with this interview. Of the group responding to your questions, Dave says, "There are more people, but the majority of the group's skills are represented. No surprise that we'll have our responses reviewed before we send them back to you, but we'll try to expedite that.
"A little background:
The group's experience is pretty broad. Most members were Sequent employees who worked on Dynix/PTX before IBM acquired Sequent (we are still mostly based in Beaverton, OR). Not everyone was with Sequent; Matt Dobson and Dave Hansen came into the group last summer, right out of college. A few of our Austin colleagues are long time IBM employees who worked on the AIX kernel before moving to Linux. Ask about anything from the rmap VM, to PTX's crashdump facilities, to life in Portland :)
- Martin Bligh - Large IA32 system VM scalability, Specweb, NUMA
- Dave Hansen - Big Kernel Lock, SMP locking, Specweb99
- Matt Dobson - NUMA API/ Documentation
- Rick Lindsley - SMP/NUMA Locking, Performance Tuning
- Patricia Gaughen - Discontiguous Memory for NUMA
- Bill Irwin - VM/rmap hacker
- Hanna Linder - dcache_lock scalability
- Janet Morgan - I/O Scalability
- Ruth Forrester - database/performance/scalability"
Now that Linux has been ported to run on high-end machines under virtualization, when will we see a kernel tuned for (e.g.) scalability to 64-128 processors natively?
I'm out of my tree just now but please feel free to leave a banana.
Will IBM try to blend aspects of AIX and Linux together, or will the 2 development paths remain discreet?
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
What *new* feature(s) are you most excited about developing?
Care to tell us if there is anything in Linux kernel or other GNU programs that can profit from your previous AIX experience? How big a paradigm shift was it for you to move from AIX to Linux? Were you pleasantly surprised, unpleasantly surprised or not surprised at all with what you saw in Linux kernel? Did you learn anything in Linux that you would like to see implemented in AIX?
You can't handle the truth.
Is there any work on the file system limitations or software RAID device restrictions (I was told no more than 12 devices per RAID setup)? What changes are being made.
My work is particularly interested in filesystems > 64 TB and RAID with > 20 devices.
IBM will be using linux to help sell their hardware. Other companies have tried this (VA Linux, which owns Slashdot, once had linux hackers on their payroll). Obviously, IBMs hardware is in a different league as an x86 clone, but do you have any thoughts on Open Source business models and their validity? Once the kernel is running smoothly, will you be disposable since the "Open Source community" can continue development for free?
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Why does IBM feel that Linux is important to IBM, and how important does IBM feel Linux is to the future of computing in general?
...interesting if true.
Is Linus accepting your changes well? How directly do you submit patches, and what are your experiences on the overall Linux kernel development style?
I think, therefore thoughts exist. Ego is just an impression.
IMHO, IBM makes some of the best mobile hardware out there -- one of the professors I support raves about his ThinkPad 600, that went with him into the Israeli desert for several months and is still running strong, no service required -- but the linux support for that hardware has been, um, erratic at best. Yes, we've been occasionally been able to purchase the odd model with linux preinstalled (usually it's *more* expensive than the comparable model with MicroSoft preinstalled, grr) but an awful lot of the hardware (mini-pci modems, &etc) is rather difficult to drive with a penguin behind the wheel. Why does IBM's linux enthusiasm fade so quickly at the small (physical) end of the hardware scale? Is there momentum underway to change this?
Need a UNIX/Linux/network guru in the Boulde
Do you see any place for Linux on the desktop? If so, will you be able to fend off the PC hardware group better than the OS/2 group did in the past?
Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power.
As many people here, I am a huge Linux fan, but I am so much so that I am trying to figure out how to get into the professional Linux world when I graduate.
I attend Clemson University and am in the Computer Information System (CS + business) program (and doubled in Political Science). My goal is to become a Linux sys admin, or perhaps some other Linux guru type job. The work that IBM is doing with Linux is also very appealing to me.
So, how did you get your job, and what would you recommend as the path to follow for us geeks just getting started in the professional world as to how to get into Linux? How can I become as entrenched with Linux as the professionals at IBM? I have had two internships (not with IBM, nor with Linux, but with other CS stuff), but how can I get an entry-level job in a Linux intensive environment like IBM? How can said job lead me into a career where I can be deeply involved in the Linux world?
Lawrence Lessig is my personal hero.
I would love to know what distros are popular on your desktops, at work and at home.
Also explaining why you chose that distrobution would be great.
Thanks
When you were starting out as a group, did you encounter a lot of friction and resistance from middle and/or upper management about your wanting to work on Open Source projects for IBM? If so, what did you do to overcome the objections and become the team you are now? I think the answer to this would help a lot of other people in other companies get mainstream acceptance of the idea of OSS in corporate environments.
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"You spilled my egg... I needed that egg."
What features do you find linux most lacking in?
(If we don't examine our weaknesses, we will be crippled)Solaris 9 is getting great reviews. Between the strengths of the traditional open source community and IBM's resources, do you see a point in the next several years where you expect Linux to surpass Solaris in all of its core strengths? Or does Solaris have some unique values which will allow Sun to continue to position itself to advantage, at least for some applications? Please answer this as a technical rather than marketing question.
___
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
I'm one of the few people who really enjoyed the OS/2 desktop and it's features. Have any of the former OS/2 developers been contributing to Linux?
:)
Specifically, the user interface and accessability people - OS/2 was very polished - does IBM see a benefit by offering this expertise to the GNOME/KDE projects?
If so, how does this tie into IBM's vision of Linux of the desktop, if you have one?
About a year ago it was announced on the Linux for AS/400 web page that "OS/400 V5R1 will support the first version of Linux for AS/400's." I haven't heard much since then, and there doesn't seem to be much information about Linux on AS/400s on the IBM web page. Can you comment about if, and how, porting of Linux to AS/400 machines is developing? Thanks.
Finding God in a Dog
What can IBM tell us about the company's future plans for voice recognition under Linux, and in particular, if IBM found supporting the ViaVoice SDK economically unviable, is there any chance that they could open source the code so that volunteers could continue to maintain/develop it?
As evidence of the open source community's interest in the SDK, check out the projects in Sourceforge that rely on it. I just hope that IBM doesn't let the Linux ViaVoice SDK go the way of Blender !!!
IBM's C/Set C++ compiler (becoming Visual Age C++) was one of the best C++ implementations of its time for both performance and standards compliance. Now the product's been discontinued for Windows & OS/2 but still exists for AIX & S/390. Is there any hope for Linux support for this compiler?
In general, the Itanium has seen quite poor adoption rates and even Intel/HP admit that their initial public silicon is really only fit for software developers and platform work (due to low performance, and altready established players in the 64-bit field).
Do you think that IPF64 line will see any kind of broad industry adoption? Will it become just like rest of the (non-embedded) processor architectures designed since the x86 -- constantly fighting for 5% of the market? Do you think the AMD Hammer architecture will be a meaningful player in the field?
Since your group is a key player in the Linux on IA64 and GCC for IA64 projects, can you give us any status information about recent developments in the project since the IA-64 Summit?
Thanks,
-Chris
What were the major porting problems the 390? Do many people use it? How has management accepted Linux in the 390 world?
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
Does IBM have any plans to create its own Linux distribution? Doing so would certainly generate a great deal of publicity for IBM's Linux strategy, as well as serve to make Linux a household name. What are your thoughts on this?
There are a few debates raging in linux kernel development these days. I was just interested in hearing IBM's take on a few of these subjects:
:)?
[1] Rik van Riel VM (RMAP) or Andrea Arcangeli VM?
[2] Is a new kernel build system needed for the linux kernel?
[3] Modules/InitRAMFS or regular ol' monolithic kernel?
[4] Which journaling file system does IBM see becoming the de facto journaling file system for Linux? In other words, what's so cool about JFS
I apologize for sneaking in a few too many questions.
w o r l d w i d e w e b e r
From the brief bios, and Sequent pedigree, it looks like there is a lot of focus on high-end features like NUMA, async I/O and the like.
Other commercial organizations, notably SGI, are also putting forth effort in those areas. There is actually quite a bit of overlap.
Since these are "open source" projects, do you collaborate with your traditional "enemies" such as SGI and Sun on Linux? What is your management's attitude towards that type of collaboration? If not, do you "look" at the work the others are doing in comparison to what you are doing?
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
What you have done for the IBM-specific (and strategic) technologies is great, but how will your work benefit the average PC user?
In other words, what are the areas of the Kernel where IBM invested resources that x86-based machines will benefit from, in terms of performance, scalability, robustness, etc.?
As an IBMer with a thinkpad, I'd like to ask a very straightforward, down to business question.
When will I have Linux running on my Thinkpad, supporting my internal IBM needs?
Seems to me that there will be some initial development cost, perhaps a bit of training, but in the end, a Linux machine would be more easily maintianed. Between exporting xterms, allowing support to telnet or ssh in and needing to be root to really screw stuff up, I think there's a great deal of leverage there. I've looked into the C4EB (Client for E-Business, for those not in IBM speak) stuff, but I can't find out how to run my Lotus 1-2-3, Wordpro, Freelance, etc. (including secure tunneling aka working from home) without kludging it. Certainly, it's fit for some needs, but my job places me in a less flexible position.
My background: I'm a hardware engineer, been playing with Linux since Slackware 96 (in 1996) as a user and admin. I won't allow an unsupported distribution, like Debian or Slackware, to touch my machine, as so many IBM specific things make assumptions.
How about a CD (or 4) that I could boot to that could 1) shrink my Win2k partition 2) set aside my hibernate partition so hibernating will stop blowing away my Linux partition 3) install Linux, Gnome or KDE, Wine and integrate Lotus 1-2-3, Wordpro and Freelance. Sure, I could do this on my own, investing the weeks or months that I had when I was a student, but I'm married now and my management won't support a hardware engineer playing with software on that level.
I think it'd be sweet to be able to hit a shortcut that would export to a bot, signal a telnet or whatever, so an automated script could diagnose simple problems and queue for human review if necessary.