Slashdot Mirror
Linux Scores An Ace At Wimbledon
JamesD_UK writes "IBM has a short article with some details of their Linux systems at the Wimbledon tennis championships. Aparantly IBM has been using DB2 on a Linux platform to provide statistics and information on the competition since 1999. VIPs will be offered a chance to use O2's XDA to view match details over wi-fi. Time to apt-get install champagne strawberries kismet?" There's also a BBC article about the system.
I would also expect IBM to use Linux during the upcoming Olympics.
Thats what I want to know.
"Would you, could you, with a goat?" Dr Seuss
DB2 since 1999 on Linux ... :)
I wonder if that might qualify as a better AD for IBM . (a eminesque boy watching Wimbledon , "The future is Open" )
But Wimbledon is not an "Open" technically is it ?.
(though I bet IBM never though about advertising on the French Open)
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
Last time I looked at my XDA II (just a few seconds ago), it did not have wifi built in.
I can't get into O2's website at all. I get bounced saying that my browser is out of date. I'm using Mozilla 1.4.1, and I don't really want to "upgrade" to Netscape 7, as they suggest. Warning users with an odd browser, that's fine. Forcing them out of your webpage is just plain stupid. It's sites like this that make me squicky about browser detection code in general.
09
Here is another example of why linux/unix is the system of choice for these types of sites. I never hear about a windowsOS with SQL2000 running on IIS making a site like this work...reliably...it would never happen. If you need to scale, do it with minimal fuss and get RESULTS, then Linux/Unix is your choice. I am sure it is there own distro, as they use alot of their own software, and not the Open Source packages that come with most distros... Linux is just...coool!
Advantage Linux!
Stop corporate
Mine has a really advanced GPRSWIFI built in. It's hella cool. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to get it to connect to my access point yet. I must not have the right SSID.
With al this talk about statistics why didn't IBM send out a wire and server counter to get down to the statistics this Slashdot maniac is intrested in?
I want number of servers, km/miles of wire, Gb's of gathered data, that kind of stuff.
Do any readers out there know of great story's like this about large scale events that do have these numbers?
Real programmers don't document.
It was hard to write so it should be hard to understand.
OUT!
But to a tennis player, love means nothing.
I never hear about a windowsOS with SQL2000 running on IIS making a site like this work...reliably...it would never happen.
Hold on a second. I'm a big Linux fan and all but, to make claims like this is just not right. There are many large sites that use just the setup that you describe and they work just fine. Look at Dell or eBay for starters.
They mean to win Wimbledon!
If it's not Consolidated Lint, it's just fuzz!
On the French Open website, someone mis-did the serve speed statistics here
They gave the correct km/hr speed, but misconverted to mph. 1.6 Kilometer = 1 Mile. However, they accidentally did 1.6 miles = 1 Kilometer, and thus, Andy Roddick managed to hit several blazing 350 mph serves.
I was laughing all night.
However, they've changed it now.
IBM's website states that it is powered with some servers running linux and other running AIX.
The combination of Linux and AIX provides managers with the flexibility, reliability and scalability required to meet the challenge of hosting and maintaining the busy site.
But a Story titled "Linux and AIX Score an ACE at Wibledon" Just doesn't have the same ring to it.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
make -e no_rain
See, it's not THAT good.
TheHustler
http://www.elmarko.org/ - Useless bilge
http://www.asylum-games.co.uk/ - Co-Founder
Very off-topic:
Google has been very generous with invitations for gmail lately. If you want one, just send me a mail to
wallclimber33-gmail@yahoo.com
You'll be able to see Linux as the ball boy on the #23 court. By the end of the tournament, he will have mastered prepring the PIMMs and lemonade, mowing the lawns, pitching the rain tent over centre court, judging the semi-final match, win the tournament, and establish himself as owner of the facility.
I like this. A lot.
Getting this on BBC is bound to be more important to spread the word to the 'laymen' than on Ars Technica.
BBC seems to be very in favor of Linux, lately. They keep mentioning it, mostly in their Technology section of course, but I'd guess it's a lot more mainstream than Ars Technica, so this namedropping of Linux in relation to professional/big events stuff must have its psychological impact on *a lot* of peeps.
Them going from thinking "Linux is for nerds," to "Hmmm... Linux has become professional stuff, check it out!"
but are the xdas running linux?
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
I would guess SuSE Linux Enterprise Server V8 (Service Pack 3, RC4, with certification-sles-eal3 package) as this is the distro that IBM sponsored for Common Criteria EAL3+ Certification. This would allow IBM to run a "trusted" (as in "We know what it's vulnerabilities are") OS.
You sly dog: you got me monologuing! - Syndrome
... this sort of news used to be exciting to us OS/2 users, until we found out that it doesn't mean diddly! :-(
$ strings FTP.EXE | grep Copyright
@(#) Copyright (c) 1983 The Regents of the University of California.
I liked it a lot. The real-time scoreboard was a java client, connecting to a DB2 database on linux. This database was updated by the referee PDA.
The Roland Garros site describes the solution.
..an ace, you serve one. Apt, don't you think?
Makes me wonder how much of this (if any) is implemented using Websphere and J2EE...product(s) and technology IBM really has been pushing. Sounds like they are just using more of the MQ series stuff for messaging.
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
In tennis, (in Wimlbedon and english-language tournaments, at least), the referee never says "zero". When the score is 30-0 the ref does not say "Player leads thirty zero". He says "Player leads thirty-LOVE".
So, to a tennis player, in the context of a match, LOVE means ZERO. Get it now?
IIRC, it comes from the french language, because the number zero looks like an egg, so in french it's "l'oeuf".
So, the correct mod was "Funny". But no, you had to read the post, not understand a word of it, and mod if "Flamebait" because you don't understand.
And to parent poster, well done. I laughed quite a bit :)
There's not much useful information on the page, unless you own one and need a ROM upgrade. But it should let in the O2's own browser, right? Here is a review of the thing that tells you more than the site does.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Deuce.
Why? That's irrelevant.
The customer asks IBM which distro to use, they tell them use Whatever Linux and the customer says OK if you say so. I don't think that IBM tested SuSE and Red Hat and chose "the better" one. It's probably just a DB cluster and couple of WebSphere servers - not exactly space science.
Actually I just thought of something else - many IBM's Linux wins are people who used to buy IBM's UNIX servers. Now they don't want UNIX any more, so IBM tells them we'll give you Linux.
They charge them a lot for services and the customer still manages to save some money.
But what will happen the next time such customers want to upgrade? If they don't change the OS, they won't need special compatibility and other assurances from IBM any more. Any hardware will do and any service provider too.
By then, IBM should get their utility stuff right or else their margins will get squeezed by HP and others (barriers to entry will be very low).
Why not Oracle? It's better and less pain then DB2.
DB2 earns them money, MySQL and Oracle (and I'm willing to bet flatfiles and DB files as well) don't.
IBM doesn't have that kind of dependency on Microsoft now, so they can be as agressive with the marketing of this as they like.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
I believe IBM will not be a major olympic sponsor as it has been in the past. 2000 in Sydney was the last big year...the IOC got greedier and greedier.
Blar.
my ID string, if anyone cares to figure out what's getting gacked, here:
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.4.1) Gecko/20040312 Debian/1.4.1-0jds1
09
I work for a small non-profit and we use Open Source stuff for all of our core production environments. We haven't paid a dime for what we have, well except for hardware. And we are not in hardware business! IBM and Novell will rip themselves second assholes trying to promote Linux because it makes their solutions cheaper! When I worked for IBM, Linux was the word of the year. I bet it still is.
See, IBM is desperately trying to become the big blue of the 80s. They will explore and do anything to regain their status and Linux is a good answer, because customers can pay the same amount of money for much better systems if they do not have to shell out for the OS and other software.
Yeah, but does it run.... wait, nm.
but I want to see how they match up vs the Motorolla MPX, HP IPAQ 6300 series, and the XDA IIIs.
-- Note to liberals, yes please flee to Canada.
strings /usr/bin/ftp | grep Copyright
@(#) Copyright (c) 1985, 1989 Regents of the University of California.
(SuSE 9.1)
koolaid
Linux Serves An Ace At Wimbledon?
I don't know if they fixed their browser sniffer, but last year Radio Wimbledon claimed that Mozilla didn't meet system requirements even with that was wrong. Hope that is fixed this year.
? id=210781
See bug report:
Radio Wimbledon has bad browser sniffer
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi
Suse. I know the someone there, and he told me it's been a Novell Netware on IBM shop for years. I would ask him to confirm but I'm he'd only ridicule me for hanging around /. Here's a bit of mail header from him:
Received: from AELTC-MTA by aeltc_office.aeltc.com with Novell_GroupWise; Tue, 11 Mar 2003 16:38:01 +0000
"It's not your information. It's information about you" - John Ford, Vice President, Equifax
Time to apt-get install champagne strawberries kismet?
You must mean:
swaret --install champagne stawberrries kismet
...pong.
Mod down OwlWhacker's whoring. Sure Firefox is great, but it doesn't solve the grandparent's problem (Mozilla browsers blocked by O2).
Sorry, couldn't resist.
Pat
F U C K linux