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.

Comments

Based on past experience...

[FreeLinux]

I would also expect IBM to use Linux during the upcoming Olympics.

Re:Based on past experience...

[Sunspire]

Well, Microsoft can at least claim credit for running the show over at the special olympics. The reboot frequency seems to be hovering around 9 days on average. But please don't call IIS unstable, it's simply uptime challenged.

Who's distro?

[ralf1]

Thats what I want to know.

XDA with wifi?

[Anonymous Coward]

Last time I looked at my XDA II (just a few seconds ago), it did not have wifi built in.

O2's Site

[zerOnIne]

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.

Re:O2's Site

[OwlWhacker]

Go get Firefox 0.9:

http://mozilla.org/

You won't be sorry.

Re:O2's Site

[martinthebrit]

Strange. I'm on 1.0.1 and it lets me in fine.

Re:O2's Site

[OwlWhacker]

I didn't say that there wouldn't be an error, I just suggested getting Firefox 0.9.

;)

Double Fault!

[Marxist Commentary]

Advantage Linux!

Not much of a win.

[mcgroarty]

Sure, tennis may love Linux.

But to a tennis player, love means nothing.

Re:Not much of a win.

[chegosaurus]

> How was that modded flamebait

Because the moderator didn't understand it. He saw the words "linux" and "means nothing", and thought perhaps the OP criticized linux. The natural reaction in such circumstances is to mod as flamebait. Everything in any way critical of linux, whether intentionally or not, is flamebait. It happens to me a lot.

Put on the brakes.

[FreeLinux]

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.

Re:Put on the brakes.

[Coppertone]

Sorry, but ebay use Websphere as well....

http://www-306.ibm.com/software/success/cssdb.ns f/ CS/NAVO-5DFURA?OpenDocument&Site=tivoli

apt-get

[Anonymous Coward]

Never mind the strawberries,..

apt-get -purge remove cliff-bastard-richard

This can only mean one thing...

[jvollmer]

They mean to win Wimbledon!

If it's not Consolidated Lint, it's just fuzz!

Did anyone remember how IBM screwed up the FO?

[xIcemanx]

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.

Re:Did anyone remember how IBM screwed up the FO?

[ch-chuck]

I always wondered what happened to that NASA programmer.

AIX

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

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.

And the Umpire types:

[the_twisted_pair]

make -e no_rain

Now that Linux has hit the lawn...

[spoonani]

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.

Good.

[Rxke]

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!"

Re:Another Fine Example

[AliasTheRoot]

To draw a parallel...

Exactly! That's what I try to get across to my co workers - Coca Cola will never be able to match the thirst quenching ability of Sprite. (Though I tend to cringe when I think about making Sprite floats.)

I remember when ...

[lwriemen]

... this sort of news used to be exciting to us OS/2 users, until we found out that it doesn't mean diddly! :-(

In tennis (LOVE == 0) is true!

[SoTuA]

To the ignorant soul who modded the parent poster as "Flamebait":

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 :)

Re:Since 1999 ?

[hearingaid]

Yes, Wimbledon is an open tournament, and has been since the '70s. (For the uninitiated, non-tennis-fan, which I'm guessing is like 99% of /.: An open tournament is one in which players don't need invitations to play. It used to be that Wimbledon and the other three majors, the U.S. Open, the French Open, and the Australian Open, you had to swing an invite from the organizing committee. During the '70s, this policy was generally reversed. Now, players can compete in the qualifying tournament, or qualify for the main draw based on their tour ranking. But that's another story.)

IBM actually uses pretty much the same software for Wimbledon, the French, the U.S. Open, and the Aussie. They're just bragging about Wimbledon because it's the most popular of the four, and consequently has the site that gets the most hits.

Re:Another Fine Example

[m00nun1t]

" never hear about a windowsOS with SQL2000 running on IIS making a site like this work...reliably...it would never happen"

Perhaps because your only source of news is /.?

Manchester Commonwealth games and the Rugby World Cup both spring to mind as running on IIS. Both sites which have extreme levels of traffic in a very short period, both had no problems I heard about.

How about the 4th busiest site in the world, microsoft.com? They were running Win2003/IIS6 on part of their cluster around 12 months before it was released!

Any publicity can be good publicity.

[AltGrendel]

Remember, OS2 was killed by the falling out of Microsoft and IBM.

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.