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IBM Calls Linux "Logical Successor" To AIX
pknoll writes "Though it probably won't happen soon, IBM is talking about Linux eventually replacing AIX. The article at Globe Technology states there are IBM folks working on 'chips for 2007' systems, and the viewpoint projected is described as 'multidecade,' but it's an interesting view into the future of IBM and Linux."
If Linux support tools evolve to the level of SMIT and other such AIX things, then I can see this happening.
Blar.
Are you kidding? What are those commercials about linux on TV then?
I think you are badly mistaken about the role that IBM wants to take with Linux. They aren't interested in putting Linux on the desktop for the same reasons they never put AIX on the desktop. For them (and for most people) its a server OS.
I agree it would be nice for them to push it on the desktop as well, but saying they don't support it just because that isn't the role they are taking with it is irresponsible.
The Anti-Blog
Considering IBM were one of the companies who helped splinter Unix in the first place is it a good idea to pin the future of linux on them.
Also dont they have a mjority stakholding in SuSE practically the only distrobution you cant download iso for?
They have their own tools but all of a sudden, Linux comes along. Because most middle-management add it to their dictionary of buzzword compliance, IBM simply replaces their existing tools with Linux. Their prices don't change and, all-of-a-sudden, IBM becomes synonymous with buzzword compliancy. And they get to milk developers who work for free!
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
'cause AIX is actually pretty damn good. It may not have the rampant 'coolness' of Linux with all its little gadgets and what not, but it's a rock solid stable system with many advanced 'enterprise level' features.
In most of the ways that matter, AIX is well ahead of Linux. Seriously, Linux has some catching up to do if it to replace AIX.
I think the only things holding back Linux from replacing AIX are:
I installed Linux on an IBM eServe recently and it took to it really well, although I did have to use the "vanilla" install option of the Debian netinst to get it to use the ServeRAID card.
unixkb.com -- articles on practical Unix issues.
I also believe that IBM is behind Linux, but not just as a server OS.
We all know that mainframes are getting smaller and smaller, it's just a matter of a few years before they end up being the size of laptops... Linux is a very logical step for a small desktop "mainframe" and/or server. Using Linux as the OS on both would just make connectivity and streamlined installs and upgrades that much easier since all would work using the same OS.
-Cnik
I bet a large number of AIX admins on various POWER boxen, after having shelled out untold $COINAGE on their systems are simply thrilled by this... after they picked themselves up off the floor laughing.
IBM is doing a decent contribution to Linux with various contributions such as JFS and its people involved with various SMP, VM & filesystem projects. But to state something like this right now.. well, it sure would make me question any future investment in AIX-related systems and software, wouldn't it? After all, a server-room Unix system isn't your typical purchase of 'buy for 3 years useful life...' (at least not when I spec'ed boxen..)
-'fester
Yeah - how are we supposed to know what to think? Aren't we supposed to be using /. to do all of our thinking for us?
What about the IBM Linux Technology Center.
What about the many, many people IBM donates to work on strategic open source initiatives.
What about nearly every IBM application running on Linux.
What about nearly every piece of IBM hardware running linux.
What about billions of dollars of services contracts to push the kernel's and distributions's limits, as well as keep places like Red Hat and SuSE alive with big fat checks from service contract customers buying their wares.
And what about the fact that just by saying 'linux is the future' IBM is making linux the future in the minds of a lot of people.
What did you eat today? http://www.atetoday.com/
250 people IBM employs to improve Linux at its Linux Technology Center.
This seems like pretty good support to me.
IBM needs to use all the programmers who formerly worked on OS2/AIX to make a user friendly Linux distro
Why should they do this? They make money from selling Linux servers and supporting them. Anyway, IMO Linux is already user freindly.
10 years ago... people would ask
5 years ago
2-3 years ago
NOW :- We want to use linux, to reduce our IT budget cost . Also we are fed up with the security issues with M$ products and the licnesing costs are killing us. Plus we have heard that linux is an excellent replacement for legacy *inxs.
Although IBM may not have contributed directly to kernel code, they are doing a lot to improve LINUX's image in the mindset of MANAGERS of IT Project,
As they say, Win the MANAGER and the staff will follow.
for the last time people, I am "frodo from middle eaRTH", not "middle eaST".
Who do you think Linux has been taking market share away from? It hasn't been Windows as much as the hard core *nix's. The problem is that it doesn't pay IBM or Sun or HP to maintain their own version of *nix if they aren't able to sell enough service contracts and generate enough money to keep the OS moving forward. Thus they die and move to using Linux where they don'thave to invest as much money into research and dev because much of that is done for free.
This is actually the rightful conclusion for *nix as all the splintering that happened is now going to un-happen and migrate to Linux.
Makes sense to me.
All the best,
--Bob
I'm going to try not to make this sound like a troll... but it's hard to be politically correct while looking a decade down the road....
Like IBM, SGI is also kinda-sorta planning on moving entirely to Linux in time. This makes me wonder what the long-term path is...
Once upon a time IBM and SGI were working with oldschool AT&T SysV Unix and BSD Unix, after years of tweaks, overhauls, and rewrites, each company ended up with their own distinct version of Unix. Obviously this won't happen immediately with Linux, but I would venture to guess that there will be significant forking over time. Right now SGI is using a slightly modified version of Red Hat 7.2 on their Altix machines (basicly Red Hat plus the patches from their "ProPack" overlay). As time goes on I would almost bet that the long term goals of IBM, SGI and others will not match up to those of RedHat and other distro builders. I have a feeling that, oh, maybe 10 years down the road each major big iron builder (IBM, HP, maybe SGI and Sun) will have their own distinct (and somewhat "weird") version of Linux.... and soon the term "Linux" will be as generic as "Unix".
This makes me wonder.... why bother with the Make-Work of moving to Linux in the first place? Why no keep working on the existing tuned kernels of AIX, IRIX, Tru64, etc?
IBM IS NOT IN THE LINUX DISTRO MARKET.
They are about embracing, and extending current technologies. This includes supporting Red Hat AND SUSE (heaven forbid they work with more than one linux distro)
And, for the UMPTEENTH time, IBM IS NOT OUT TO WIN LINUX ON THE DESKTOP. Last I checked, there aren't very many people out there running AIX on a Thinkpad, or a Desktop machine.
IBM is focused on the SERVER market with Linux, not the desktop market. There isn't a desktop market for linux at this time.
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
The article points out that AIX is handled by the Server group at IBM, not the software group. So while this Mills guy says exciting things, he isn't necessarily the guy to make that decision.
"Give a woman two glasses of wine and some pad thai, and they'll agree to just about anything." the Sports Guy
Will it be also forgotten?
It has many interesting features. Will IBM port them to Linux as it did with some of AIX ones (JFS is just one example)?
Less is more !
I work for a small company in Austin TX that ports software. We like to brag that we can port anything to anything, but in reality, all the work that I seem to be doing is porting from either Solaris or HP-UX to Linux. AIX takes a very close second to the targets that we are porting to. Of course, this is very biased, since we're an IBM business partner. :-) I'm sure there's ports going on somewhere to Solaris and HP-UX.
In all of the arrangements that I've been involved with IBM on, their people have been completely indifferent about porting to Linux in preference to AIX. They simply don't seem to care what the hardware is running, as long as the customer is buying shiny new IBM boxes.
Something interesting though - IBM's Visual Age for C++ compiler was a pain in the ass to figure out. There's a zillion command line switches, and getting the right ones set to build proper dynamic libraries took a bit of figuring out. gcc was much nicer in that regard. But, now that I've got them figured out, I really like IBM's compiler more than gcc 2.95. I haven't had the luck of using gcc 3.2.1 yet (third party libraries aren't typically built with it yet, and I use Debian at home) but I can't wait. That new gcc compiler will really be sweet.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
They aren't interested in putting Linux on the desktop for the same reasons they never put AIX on the desktop.
Crap. I better ditch my 400MHz Power3+ RS/6000 then. Since it's a server, I should certainly not be using it daily as my desktop. Damn shame to have the fast, pretty graphics card in it.
This isn't even a new thing.
It's pretty obvious why IBM are taking a serious look at changing over to a whole new kind of *nix. Simply compare the two. Before you read this article how many of you - and honestly, now - how many of you didn't know what AIX was? At least a couple, I can be sure. On the other hand, who reading Slashdot has never heard of Linux?
AIX is an obscure, nasty system that costs IBM money to maintain. Linux, if I remember my first foray into the operating system correctly, cost me naught but a handful of blank CDs and every other IRC monkey could give me free techsupport for it.
I rest my proverbial case.
I've never thought that there was any mystery in IBM's interest in Linux. Their product line has no common OS. Linux turns the MVS, CMS, OS/400, AIX, Windows, etc., etc. etc., muddle of completely different operating systems for every flavor of hardware into something intelligible: We run linux top to bottom!!!
i le/368660.stm
It has added bonuses too:
It weakens Microsoft's operating systems monopoly
It gives IBM another crack at selling their apps on hardware MS would own if it ran Widows
It might even be payback for making IBM pay significantly higher royalties for Win95 than other large customers (as payback for OS/2 & Lotus Smartsuite). http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/the_company_f
Gives IBM a chance to sell system integration services and service contracts.
Provides programmers world-wide to contribute to IBM's success
Gives IBM a story that sounds similar to Sun's:
Sun: Complete binary compatibility from Desktop to Midframe.
IBM: You can run linux top to bottom
No, I don't think that there is any surprise in this at all.
At this point, this is probably just a statement about likely future direction, and as such it doesn't mean much, but in the long run I would expect that many of the AIX engineering and support people can be retargeted for Linux. AIX has a lot of support for things their customers really need, and it will take a while to move the important bits of this over to Linux. Probably, they will not OS all of this, but it may become available for purchase for other platforms. All of this is good for the industry.
... is my biggest fear. I've seen so many companies move from being Solaris/HP-UX shops to Linux.
A world in which UNIX is loses out, is a world that Microsoft would like very much. Fighting against UNIX vendors is much harder than fighting against Linux vendors, especially since the Linux companies wont have that kind of money (you can't charge for Linux boxen what you charge for a UNIX box) to fight back
Just my two cents...
Not now. The Linux kernel, while improving, does not have the enterprise features needed by those who use AIX. That said, I do believe Linux can replace the AIX kernel. If and when it does, you still have to possibly port some of those tools. For example, AIX has some great commands (not just smit) that are very nice. Ones that come to mind are lsdev, lsfs, lsvg, lspv, the odm itself(not as bad as you think), lsattr and many others. Smit is a lifesaver when you just can't remember the commands to do a certain thing. Also, AIX's ability to expand filesystems on the fly, the LVM, HACMP, SP and other things are essential for AIX shops. The pSeries machines (otherwise known as RS/6000) are IBM's best selling servers. The Regatta (p690) is doing extremely well. Almost everyone I have come across who runs AIX (except us....we're cheap, er poor bastards!) has a p690. Also the Shark (Enterprise Storage System) is tremendous. In 2 racks you get redundant storage. One rack can die and the other takes over. Each side has it's own battery backup, plus there's 348 MB of Non Volitle storage. Also you can have 22 TB of SSA in that rack! All of that works because of the fine work IBM has done on AIX. Linux can replace it, but it will be a while! :)
Gorkman
You must be referring to the makers of NT et al; Linux was deliberately made to look like and work like UNIX because the writers did know it so well.
First, let me point you towards Wikipedia's history of Unix
Also, I found this on Usenet, hopefully it will give you a good idea on the background of Unix:
And finally, correct me if I am wrong, but it is assumed that Linux gets it's name because it is the brainchild of Linus Torvalds
Actually you got it backwards, Multics was extremely multiuser, was the reasoning behind the name. UNIX started out as largely a singleuser simplification of Multics (which was a very complex system), first named UNICS, which makes the pun much simpler to understand. The name was changed to UNIX when multiuser support was added.
Multics is really to operating systems what Algol was to programming languages, the huge research project where they found a lot of the do's and dont's in operating system design. A great system all in all, a bit too ahead of its time though.
See http://www.wagoneers.com/UNIX/City-U/Multics/ for more information.
"Plus we have heard that linux is an excellent replacement for legacy *inxs."
I dunno, I think the first couple of INXS albums rock harder than any Linux distribution ever could.
You might have been fooled when you bought it, cause it seems that you got a workstation rather than a desktop...
Yes I know that the differences today are small, after the Intel processors getting faster and faster, but I do belive that there is some differences between my Ultra 10 and a high end Dell Pc. The Sun station is slower in speed but can do certain tasks better at the end of the day. Therefore I think that the different words for desktops and workstations still are valid.
Actually IBM did put AIX on the desktop in the form of RT-PC. In fact the AIX first appeared on the desktop before on a server,
IBM is doing fine selling server hardware (w/software). They never wanted to be in the OS business in the first place. First they gave the marked to Microsoft, then they figured it was a bad idea and tried to strike back with OS/2, but it didn't work out. They don't mind that they're not "in control" of Linux. They just don't want someone else to be either.
However, now that IBM is just "one of the crowd" selling PCs, I don't think you can expect the same support when it comes to the desktop. But everything that makes a good back-end server and server tools, goes a long way to make a good desktop too.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
So far, he's refused an absolutely huge patch from an IBM team, there were two competing implementations and the IBM team lost out (LVM?). Anyway, the team acted with dignity and honour, and got to work immediately with helping the other team. So - they have no history of this whatosever wrt to Linux.
Anyway, the moment there was a patent problem with the kernel, there'd be a non-infringing implementation in within seconds.
OK, I personally think the parent post should be modded as flame-bait, or a troll. But that's my opinion.
IBM has contributed a lot of resources (people and money) to the Linux cause. They've done research into putting Linux on small devices (such as those nifty watches), and on large mainframe-type systems. They've contributed code to many Linux-related Open Source projects, as well as to the Linux kernel itself.
Oh, and they even sell ThinkPad laptops pre-configured to run RedHat. Who else does that? Precious few hardware vendors, that's who.
Yep, smells like flame-bait to me.
It is not that the Linux you know now is going to replace AIX. The point is that IBM will invest to bring Linux up to the level of AIX over the years, and when Linux is as good as AIX at what AIX is good at, you will get a product like AIX but with the "coolness" of Linux.
IBM is merely reinforcing their already rock solid commitment.
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
Absolutely. I actually LIKE Notes. It's what LookOut should be but isn't. I use it at work. Maybe if there was a Linux client I could persuade someone to try out Linux as an alternative OS here. Then again, this is a big company and they LOVE Microsoft here.
"But you've already got a DVD. It lasts forever....In the digital world, we don't need back-ups..."
-- Jack Valenti
Bell Labs also have a history of Unix on their web site, written by one of the creators of UNIX. Do not miss the "Next" links below the articles and read how the story of Unix unfold! I almost did and thought they just had a short blurb about it. :-P
:-)
It's actually pretty in-depth and I found it interesting at least.
It also discuss how the B language (first letter in BCPL; the basis for B) evolved into C, and some of the obstacles they met when creating "The bext B" that became C, the idea of Unix pipes, a discussion of the syntax of Unix commands,
It proceeds into discussing the Unix "wars" between Sun and AT&T, the creation of the Open Software Foundation, etc.
Some quotes:
"Like another legendary creature whose name also ends in 'x,' UNIX rose from the ashes of a multi-organizational effort in the early 1960s to develop a dependable timesharing operating system."
"He [Ken Thompson] put pipes into UNIX, he put this notation into shell, all in one night," McElroy said in wonder.
"Thirty years after its creation, UNIX still remains a phenomenon," Ritchie marveled.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
And finally, correct me if I am wrong, but it is assumed that Linux gets it's name because it is the brainchild of Linus Torvalds
That's true. Linus didn't really call it anything at first, but when he wanted to upload it to a BBS to share it out, he needed a name. He came up with "Freax" ("Free UNIX", sorta). The BBS sysop didn't like that name, and changed the name to "Linux" ("Linus's UNIX", sorta). Linux was the one that stuck... nobody really liked Freax (not even Linus).
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
"Why no keep working on the existing tuned kernels of AIX, IRIX, Tru64, etc?"
Well, why don't IBM and SGI just stick with their old 'nixes then? If you fork Linux, you go into a full loop and have the same type of problems you had with old 'nixes. The beauty of Linux is not what it has become, but where it will always be going. Fork it, and you lose the most important "feature." I certainly think that each company will be using "niched" versions eventually (think, Debian vs. RH), but I really can't see why they would find it economical to fork from the main branch and return to the dark ages.
Linux provides an open standard that allows anyone (individual or corporation) to contribute to a standard without the fear that they will not be able to benefit from those contributions or, worse, have those contributions be used against them.
Maintaining an OS is becoming way too expensive, unless you have a near perfect monopoly and can control market prices. Smart companies will start to treat the OS as a "standard" (like HTML) and forget trying to control it. Instead, they will focus on building powerful applications to run on this "standard" OS, without fear that the owner will eventually decide to compete with those applications, leveraging their control of the standard, since there is no one owner in existence to control the OS.
It is my opinion that IBM is one of the smartest companies is existence these days. . .
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
I read a thing on what POSIX stood for one time:
P - portable
O - operating
S - system
I - interface
X - all proper OS's end in X
Heh.
As we move forward, there will be variants of the common OS code base for different platforms and applications and, certainly, more applications and GUI's than you can shake a stick at, but the OS qua OS is pretty much finished. This is actually a good thing. It will lead to a stable platform for development of applications while freeing up OS kernel folks to actually do something new and different.
That is all.
Customers have a finite amount of money they can spend on applications, hardware, operating systems, storage and the other components of their computing infrastructure, Mr. Mills explained. "Reducing the cost of the operating system allows them to spend more money elsewhere," he said.
I think this is the crucial part of this article, and the crucial point that most Linux-embracing companies are running with. With Microsoft, the money goes Microsoft and Intel/AMD. MS OSes only run on Intel/AMD hardware. Microsoft's apps only run on Microsoft OSes. Basically, IBM and Sun and the rest are getting bugger all money from this entire market segment, and widespread acceptence of Linux might change all that.
If Linux gets big, these guys are back in the game, getting a slice of everyone's cash. They can sell hardware that runs Linux, and their apps can run on a platform not controlled by Microsoft. And, since Linux runs on everything from a watch to a toaster to a PC to bigass servers, their apps have the potential to be just about anywhere. That's a future IBM would love to come true.
I've worked with a bunch of IBM and Lotus guys and gals, and daaaaammmmnnnn do they hate Microsoft. They'd put Redmond to the torch if they thought it would get them back in the game. I don't honestly think they'd smoke AIX to make Linux succeed, but they definitely see it is a brighter future.
So what if AIX has advanced features that Linux lacks? AIX market share is nothing compared to Solaris and HPUX, and most CAD/EDA Unix shops running Solaris/HPUX have found that Linux on Intel handily outperforms Solaris/Sparc & HPUX/PA-RISC on pretty much anything that doesn't need 64-bits or more that 3GB RAM. So if Linux already does well on the low end and will almost certainly do well in the high end, why shouldn't IBM get in early and position themselves as a leading Linux vendor? It's not like AIX is going to suddenly turn around and outpace Linux usage.
I applaud IBM for realizing AIX had it's chance and won't be a dominant player inteh OS field. They'll roll that AIX expertise and technology into Linux and the whole Unix world, IBM included, will be better off for it.
What AIX lacks is the huge wealth of packages for everything; the bizzilion packages that exist on Linux. Lots of stuff hasn't been ported to AIX and IBM doesn't want to port it. More importantly they don't want to have to re-port it every 1-2 years. Without that wealth of software NT offers a compelling advantage for individual customers. Where is AIX's really good bibliography integration with word processing? Without that it is worthless to my wife. Where is AIX's really good diagraming tool? Without that its no good for me. Where is AIX radiology package? Without that its no good for my dad.
You get the picture. More importantly there are cool features to the kernel that IBM hasn't worked on. Take the XFS filesystem. AIX isn't known for its great multi-media support and nobody at IBM has really considered the issue of how you move gigabyte sized files quickly through the system. SGI on the other hand has worked a great deal on that issue. On the other hand nobody at SGI has worked on the issue of managing the greatest number of boxes with very untrained system administrators.
IBM itself cannot compete with Microsoft. IBM + SGI + german government + FSF + KDE group +... can compete with Microsoft.
Frankly I think they should open source as much of AIX as they can today and get the community to help them port things their management tools ASAP.
I mean, to bring LINUX up to AIX's level of functionality will require that IBM re-implement, and retest all that code. It's almost like starting over from scratch.
Well, first of all, they don't have to maintain a whole Linux distribution (even if they would have to, it's not that expensive), just the features they are interested in.
Currently IBM maintains 4 different server lines: Linux and Windows servers on x86, AIX servers on PPC and Linux-OS/390 mainframes and Linux is the only OS that runs on all of them.
Without Linux, IBM can't even offer their customers an upgrade path. What if the x86 server doesn't cut it anymore? Throw everything out and implement a mainframe solution? The upgrade path without Linux would be: Windows -> AIX -> OS/390. See how ridiculous that is?
IBM has realized that Linux makes the life easier for everybody - their customers *and* IBM.
I mean, AIX does do everything LINUX does right? Am I missing something?
Yes, you miss tons of software on Linux that doesn't run on AIX (sure porting to AIX would be possible, but that takes time). AIX is so rare that even mainstream free software is usually NOT available for it.
You miss that you can find a Linux-expert very easily compared to an AIX expert.
You miss that Linux makes it possible to develop and test on cheap x86 systems and only use the expensive mainframe for one final test and production use.
Just had to comment this due to all the strange assumptions/misconceptions made about IBM (and used as arguments which thus fail...).
And also a great excuse to post my first slashdot reply....
Fact 1!
IBM had a revenue of $81.2B in 2002, making $1.5B on Linux not that much money (but still money in a slugish market...)
Fact 2!
the revenue - margin - profit was divided as follows:
Services - $36.4B - 26.3% - $9,6B
Hardware - $27.5B - 27.1% - $7.5B
Software - $13.1B - 84.4% - $11.1B
Other - $4.3B - 52.7% - $2.3B
So saying that IBM is a hardware/software/services company is all wrong.
They are all of that, an IT *SOLUTIONS* Provider. Granted the strategy lately has been focus on services (and ~160k of the ~300k employees are in the services division).
Fact 3!
They spent a great deal of time/money on OpenSource/OpenStandards contributions, last number I heard was 2-300 fulltime developers and about 1500 with the "part timers", mostly working with Apache, Linux, Eclipse, Java and W3C. And also important, IBM spends $5B a year in *basic* research alone, the same amount as the 10 next big spenders (also won the most approved patents 10 last years) which drives the whole IT business forwards, like them or not.
Fact 4!
The so called big battle for the desktop is a battle for $28.4B with $11.9B which is M$ numbers for 2002 (I know this number is "wrong" as it doesn't acount for M$ server software (pulling down) and Other desktop OSes (pulling up) but still...)
or 35% of IBMs revenue (now add the revenue of Sun/HP/Dell/Oracle/Sybase/CA etc. and work out the Desktop to IT market percentage...).
Linux is more important in fighting M$ in the low range server market than the desktop market $-wise.
Fact 5.
They have anounced their on-Demand strategy ($10B/5year effort) where Linux is one of the four pilars to make it happen
GridComputing - AutonomicComputing - "OpenStandards/OpenSource" (Linux/ip/http/webservices/xml/java...) - Integration
So Linux is important in a number of ways to IBM.
Fact 6.
Yes, IBM is listed on the NYSE so their out to make money......
Not a fact but...:
Yes. IBM is embracing Linux (for good and bad?) because it's important in a number of ways to them, desktop wars not beeing top of the list, most listed in the other posts though. And Yes IBM has a record of not dropping OSes quickly so AIX will not disapear quickly, but given the onDemand strategy it might in time, they all might in time?
Fun fact:
You can run a Linux compiled application directly on AIX through linux compatibility support (don't know how good it is though.
Cheers Jasse "It's all a bunch of treehuging hippie crap" - E.Cartman