IBM Supporting Linux On Power Processors

aheath writes "IBM issued a press release today titled 'Businesses Embrace Linux and IBM POWER Technology', indicating that: 'IBM eServer pSeries and iSeries systems are available for SUSE and Red Hat Linux operating systems (OS) on IBM's POWER microprocessor-based architecture.' CNET News are running a story about this, too, explaining: 'IBM has put more weight behind its effort to attract customers to Linux that runs on its own Power processors, an initiative that distinguishes Big Blue from its competitors in the server market.' IBM has also signed up 300 vendors to provide software to run under Linux on Power processors."

Comments

Yesterday

[Wesley Felter]

Yellow Dog for the G5 has been available for a while; it's working OK in my office.

POWER, PowerPC and Apple

[Lulu of the Lotus-Ea]

Well, first thing, of course, is that Apple CPUs are IBM CPUs. For the G5, the whole design is from IBM; but even the G4s are fabbed by IBM (though designed by Motorola). So big blue likes the PowerPCs all around.

Still, the IBM announcement makes some sense of my IBM developerWorks editor's push for a rush job on an article about Linux on PowerPCs. Despite the rush, I think it turned out well. Take a look at:

Linux on Mac: a POWER programmer's primer

Re:Futile

[5.11Climber]

... Intel and AMD lead, hell, even Apple's CPUs are more popular than IBM's.

More popular by whose standard? Their market share may be negligle but it is definitely high-end. Companies (banking, FAA, etc.) will pay top dollar for machines that simply don't fail.

I work for an orgainzation that requires a minimum of 99.9999% uptime. We have been using IBM RISC-based gear since the RT came out because of this. We used some Sun gear for a while but those just didn't cut the mustard.

Re:Forshortened, and three heretics ago...

[TheRaven64]

While I hate to say anything that might be construed as support for the GNU/Universe naming convention, consider the following system:

A Debian install, on top of a NetBSD kernel. The shell is bash (GNU), and this interprets all of the init scripts. The loader comes from the GNU project. The next thing to be launched is XFree86 (not GNU, and not GPL'd). On top of X, runs gdm (GNU again), which provides a graphical login screen to the user. Once you log in, you are presented with the GNOME desktop environment (no prizes for guessing what the G in GNOME stands for...) You browse the web a bit with Epiphany (can you guess?) and mangle some figures with GNUmeric. Perhaps you decide you don't like Epiphany, and download the Linux version of Opera. Of course, this runs fine on NetBSD's Linux binary compatibility layer.

By your definition, this is a Linux system (i.e. it executes a Linux ELF binary). I would contend, however, that there is a lot more GNU (i.e. lots) than there is Linux (i.e. none) in this system.