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Red Hat, HP, Intel Join in Itanium Linux Alliance
joel_archer writes "According to this Yahoo! article, Red Hat will begin selling an Itanium version of its Advanced Server Linux in partnership with HP. This is one of partnerships currently underway between these two companies. HP is a key partner for anything Itanium-related, the company invented the design underlying Itanium before handing it off to Intel to develop and manufacture. Bolstering that effort, Red Hat and HP have signed a deal under which Advanced Server will be certified on and available with all of HP's Intel-based ProLiant servers--not just Itanium systems, but also lower-end Xeon and Pentium versions and superthin 'blade' systems."
http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/ftptmp/1024501320. d32fd091334bd166624816e3d84d319a.php#others
It looks like HP, Intel, and RedHat have been in the mix since 1999.
http://sverre.home.cern.ch/sverre/Linux_IA64_proje ct.html
Itanium's the thing with the rediculously-constructed VLIW philosophy. Right? The one that runs like shit unless your compiler is close to being sentient.
./configure;make all; it on an Itanium Linux box, will it be in the end as optimized for that architecture as it can be?
I haven't really heard much about Itanium, and had assumed this meant it was dying, because unless people compiled to Itanium it wasn't using its full potential. However, this Itanium Linux thing is a very, very good sign for Intel; even if Windows NT may not be at fullspeed for Itanium, that's ok, because we can have Linux distributions where all new software is compiled targeted & optimised for the difficult Itanium instruction set. This was, i thought, always one of the great underused advantages of open source software-- it makes hardware platform irrelivant-- and why i'm glad to see things like Gentoo emerging. (Err.. the pun was not intentional. Sorry.)
However, though, i must ask: How well is GCC doing insofar as itanium specialization goes? Last i checked, there was a hyperoptimized intel compiler, but not a lot of people were using it because it wasn't integrated with anything else. Is this still the case? Is gcc up to speed with the intel benchmark compilers, as far as optimizations go? And if not, is it possible for a linux distro like this to use `intelpropeitarybs` in place of `gcc`? Is there work still to be done?
If i download something off freshmeat and
I have installed countless proliant servers and they are very high quality boxes.
HP has it's own custom compiler for Linux Itanium. In fact HP controls the design team for the official Itanium C compiler, of which the Linux version is a showcase example. That was HP's part of the deal with Intel, to supply the VLIW compiler technology. The point is, they don't need GCC. Although since Red Hat is the de facto owner of GCC, I wouldn't be at all surprised if some HP technology eventually shows up in GCC as a direct result of this partnership.
RedHat still releases the software they write under the GPL, and their software is still widely available for "free." RedHat has put their money where there mouth is and is making good on their claim to charge for support and not for software. RedHat has seeded the business community with high quality Free Software, and is now reaping the benefits of their work as business start using this software and (more importantly) start paying for support.
Anyone who links Linux with some sort of lame counter-culture anti-business meme is just being soft headed. RedHat gives away software because it makes business sense to do so, plain and simple.
actually, from a business standpoint having choices is much, much better, seeing as you get the ability to tell the vendor 'meet these terms or i'll go with product Y'. With no competition, you have no leverage.
Maybe now my shares of RHAT will actually gain some value! :-) Red Hat has been making a lot of critical partnerships like this recently.
Say what you will able Red Hat vs. other Linux distributions - it is the partnerships and support of other Enterprise-sized vendors that is going to make or break Linux. Being that Red Hat is smart enough to make these partnerships, my money is on them to be "the" premier Linux vendor for the corporate market.
Take care,
Brian
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100% Linux Web Hosting Solutions
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Have a look here if you don't believe me - this means you have to fork out $495 (yes, you read that right) for Red Hat Linux on an HP Itanium box compared to nothing extra for XP, HP-UX or indeed other Linuxes (Mandrake, Debian and SuSE all seem to have ISOs for Itanium available).
Surely HP must now resume shipping Red Hat Linux with their Itanium boxes [they did used to ship RH with the boxes until quite recently] ? Or is $495 considered peanuts compared to the cost of the boxes ?