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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."
As Linux gets more and more momentum behind it, it starts to seem like it will be the last OS that will ever make serious inroads into the general public.
This is not to say that Tannenbaum cultists won't write their own little systems or that Bell Labs won't come up with some ingenious new idea. The thing is that the Open Source nature of Linux makes it possible that any new idea that exists in the real world can be incorporated into the Linux operating system and so Linux grows at the expense of other operating systems.
It's a lot like UNIX, which may be owned by SCO, but whose spirit is embodied in a handful of operating systems including Linux. Lisp is also this way, introducing very useful features that can be copied by other languages making them more Lispy than Lisp becoming more "other-languagy".
I have been pwned because my
IBM's Linux strategy has been comprehensive (from top to bottom) for some time. Perhaps this just signals that they feel those versions of Linux are stable enough to promote more heavily, or perhaps it is just a reiteration of what they have been doing all along.
I don't really see how supporting Linux on their own machines distinguishes them from their competitors, any more than having their own house RISC already does. Sun is getting eaten by Linux, but HP and SGI both support Linux on their new machines with Itanium 2 processors that are competitive with the POWER family.
When?
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Finally they will start selling 970 workstations with RH or SUSE installed. Hell even MS said there would be like 5 64bit longhorn version, coupled with C#, we would get some real competition in the hardware business.
Sleep is for the weak.
You could be right. But my guess is that Linux will continue to evolve to such a point in 10 years that we won't recognize it as as the Unix work-alike it started out as.
Maybe we'll just drop the term "the OS" and say "The Linux." But since some geeks (like me) may hold on to the idea that Linux is just the kernel, I hope that "The Debian" gets that place instead. It has a good shot since it allows for different kernels which will allows more freedom for innovation of the OS.
I really like how so many PPC based OS's are coming out, morphos, amigaos, etc. And with QEMU allowing cpu emulation on the PPC, soon it wont matter which CPU you have, you can run any OS you want.
Are we almost near processor independance day?
If so, it's very unfortunate. Although it's possible to incorporate anything into Linux, the poor quality and structure of the code means that many things are much more difficult to implement there than they would be in research systems, or even in some other UNIX systems. Solaris in particular has a very clean code base.
I do think there are things that would be too difficult to implement in Linux to be worthwhile, and if they ever turn out to be important it will be at the expense of Linux. Also, I think it is unfair to characterize Andy and his type as cultists. He has a lot more understanding of OS issues than Linus does. I'm not saying he would necessarily make better decisions in implementing an OS, but to write him and his community off like that is naive.
In fact, Linux has already lost a lot by rejecting academic input. As it expands to new places (new architectures, and to larger and smaller machines) it is getting more of that input in bits and pieces. It still feels a lot like the early Macintosh, where team members would omit their PhD from their resume when applying because management saw it as a negative. A significant portion of the contributions to Linux are from academia, but they have to slip in unnoticed because the community, and its leaders in particular, believe that academia has no value.
Intel has been really reluctant to help with Linux on the Centrino. This is worrying because it might be a glass ceiling for Linux on new hardware.
If Intel doesn't support linux on its new hardware we can go AMD & IBM and never look back.
ls
http://tuxmobil.org/centrino.html
Humour aside, what you may not realize as an industry expert is that they have enough patents to last them a lifetime even if they pursued a purely IP Licensing based business model :)
Besides, ever worked on labs that _really_ need to do serious number crunching (hint, hint)? They swear by IBM. PC clusters are a joke, Macs even more so.
I once had a discussion with a CEO of quite a big product development organization who was thinking of diversifying into Bio-informatics because they had done some pioneering research and had some patents and cool algorithms. Mind you, this is a really technically savvy guy with years of experience (who would probably even tell you Perl syntax) and respected by VCs for his experience and expertiese -- not a yuppie management guy.
One of his core business models for furthering the bio-informatics idea was to contact IBM and get them to design CPUs that would optimize the algorithms for certain vector and matrix operations. And he had enough information from IBM contacts who confirmed that if the idea proved viable, they would do so.
IBM still has that respect and trust among corporates that most other companies don't. And IBM has that trust factor for new research -- sure, they're not as big a market presence (relatively) as they once were, but they're definitely one of the better ones out there.
It has been said that the day Linux refuses to open a file because the right ap isn't installed is the day that Linux ceases to be Unix.
It will also be the day I have to abandon Linux in favor of a more "user friendly" OS, in the way that I define user friendly.
I can't say that I'm happy with the idea that "Linux" could turn into a "brand," just a label which can be attached to any old thing without reference to what that thing is.
You can glue a red oval to a VW instead of a black circle, but that doesn't make it a Bugatti no matter what the script in the oval claims.
If and when Linux ceases to be Linus' Unix it'll be time to acknowledge the fact overtly.
At which point I may well find that the OS I have to use instead is. . . Linux.
KFG
Why? Because IBM wants to dump AIX. Why? Because AIX costs IBM money to support. Why? Because IBM is the only one doing AIX. Linux, on the otherhand, is being supported by tons of people doing it for little to no pay. Which means IBM can get rid of the dead bird around its neck, and jump onto the bandwagon which other people are pulling.
IBM isnt embracing Linux out of any kind of morality or evangelism. Its all about the money. Im not saying its a bad thing; quite the opposite. But lets view the situation for what it really is.
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
Remember the battles between network protocols, and how TCP/IP inexorably took over the whole domain until "network = TCP/IP" became a self-evident truth.
The same is IMO inevitable with Linux because it has solved the main issue of how to provide the necessary services on any platform in a non-partisan manner. The people who "get it", like IBM, are swiftly moving to a "Linux everywhere" strategy on which they can build a solid business of services and products. The people who still don't get it, like Microsoft, insist that Linux is an illegitimate upstart with no credentials.
The operating system as a product has become almost completely commoditized. There is simply no compelling reason for someone with free choice to pay for OS software today.
However, don't say "last", this would be wrong. Linus is most likely the "last OS" in the same sense as TCP/IP is the "last internetworking protocol". But new models of computing that provoke new concepts of organization and software are inevitable. Linux is not infinitely plastic and there is an infinite space beyond its reach that will be filled with the upstart OS platforms of the future.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
Am I the only one, who thinks IBM gets too much free advertising on ./ lately? (or just the only one who isn't ignoring these advertorials?)
Ok, they are the target of a riduculous case of SCO, so airtime related to that is fine for me.
But their still just one company, embracing linux. It is nice, that a large company does that, but I think we know that already (for years!) So please posters, be a little bit more critical against articles, like this.
Why don't they make their own distro? Or buy Suse or Redhat? It would make sence, since they are getting to be so Linux oriented.
Slipping Away...
Firstly, Linux has been running on POWER4 since at least May 2002 thanks to SUSE (-personaly witnessed this). Second is that PowerPC is a stripped down varient of the POWER line. They are separate architectures. POWER came first, PowerPC came 2nd. Apple will not be putting a POWER4 cpu in there workstations anytime soon. How do I know this? One POWER4 MCM (8 cpu's on a die) at 1.5GHz is about $150,000. While single cpu POWER4's have made it into IBM's lower pSeries workstation line they still aren't cheap. I have not seen anyone license POWER cpu's anywhere yet in the last decade of their existance so again I dought they will end up in your next Mac.