IBM is going to support Linux

Well, according to this report, IBM is going to fully support Linux, and Sell PowerPC based machines (low end RS/6000) bundled with Linux. Its about time.

Comments

An IBM'ers perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah relief...

...this stuff has been going on internally for so long. We've got Linux running on some cool hardware. Of course, we have to be able to make money in order to put this stuff out there which is why you aren't likely to see some of the higher end Linux ports.

IBM has some really cool Linux stuff going on. It's just a matter of convincing the bean counters that we can make a profit off of free software, and convincing the blood sucking lawyers that we aren't going to get sued by Gnu or something.

As for some of the pricing complaints I've read here... yes, valid concerns. I think what you are missing here is the support that is included in that price tag. IBM support is about the best in the business. Unhappy customers can actually escalate all the way up to Gerstner but rarely do. Nothing like 24x7 support, where you can actually get the attention of the engineers that designed your hardware and software.

If some of the other stuff gets out the door next month that I think is coming out the door, this may be the final catalyst towards Linux dethroning NT in the server room. The technology is there in our labs. You just have to ask your marketing rep for it. No, make that *demand*. And you have to be ready to back that up with $$$.

Ahem..

[Mike Hicks]

Well, as others have already noted, the price is not what I consider 'low-end'.. at least, not from a Joe Consumer point of view.

It's good that there is a cost savings for those who might not have previously been able to afford the systems, but it's definitely not at the level I'd like to see..

I've always wanted to get a PPC system, but the costs have always been too high.. One of these days.. ;-)

Anyway, I think it would be absolutely great if IBM (or some other entity) could start selling decently-priced motherboards and systems based on PPC.. Apple has pretty well cornered that architecture (at least at the consumer level), and I'd like to see some new stuff come out of it. This would be especially good for people who want PPC, but don't want to upgrade their entire systems when they upgrade the processor.. This is something that works well for the PC industry (swap in a new mobo every so often at a few hundred bucks, rather than an entire new system at over a thousand..)

Cool Start.

[BadlandZ]

I have been looking at the little 43P for a while, and I assumed that AIX was part of the reason that a box with these specs cost so damn much. So, thinking something like this running Linux would really cut down on costs, I had hopes someday I might get one. Now after reading that linked report, I wonder. What systems were they talking about exactly that are $15,000! Can't be the little ones.

I do like the fact that Compaq, Dell, IBM, SGI, HP, Apple, others now offically support Linux in some way. But the way makes me wonder. Dell won't do a kernel for duals, Apple doesn't make getting a "MkLinux" box easy, it's a "do it yourself" kind of thing. The IBM report linked seems to be WAY on the high end for a typical user (Heck, even the box that runs SlashDot can't be worth $15,000, is it?).

My hopes now are with companies like VAResearch. Hopefully someone will come along soon that will sell boxes that truely span the $700 to $2000 range, that come with Linux professionally configured, with good support, and offer some hardware choices like Motorola, AMD, Cyrix, Alpha, MIPS, etc... But, as the "Big Names" come into the Linux ring, I thought that would happen, and in truth, it's getting farther from the truth it seems...

Which brings up an interesting point

[BadlandZ]

I guess, maybe I obscured my point. Linux is an OS that was developed initally to run on a 386SX...or, extremely low end system. UNIX in general can quite easly blur the line between workstation and server. I can run a 386SX20 w/ 6M RAM, put apache on it, imapd, and basic server functions like shells and call it a server. And, in truth it IS a server, which can scale fairly well up to 10 users or so for pop3, and do a pretty decent job for web serving (easily taking about 20 hits per minute, provided it's static pages, and not cgi or database stuff). As a matter of fact, I have done just that in the past, and it worked well. And the hardware costs were under $70 USD. And there is no way in the world I would ever call that box something that could be used as a "WorkStation."

Battering about the term "Server" to justify the high price tags of new brand name (DEC, Compaq, IBM, Dell, etc) Linux boxes doesn't hold well in my book. I know people who keep thier workstations load peged for weeks at a time doing calculations, rendering, etc. And I see servers that couldn't handle workstations loads that easily handle massive server loads (Alpha box in ND-HECN that has well over 1000 users, but my K6 will outrun for pure CPU power, the CDROM.COM FTP server that holds records for transfer in a day that is a dual PPro, and wouldn't hang for massive rendering or number crunching quite as well as some workstations sitting around my department).

The primary diffrance that "they" are suggesting makes a server a server is RAID, multiple network interfaces, etc... But, at the same time, not all of thier "server" offerings have these features standard (What makes Dell's Linux server a server anyway?).

I think they don't want to do Linux workstations (IMHO) because they fear the "My Big Gulp won't fit in my new 20X Cup Holder" phone calls. Slashdot is a Dual Pentium II 233 for crips sake, and it's a "server," and no one would argue that it's really just a workstation, and not a server.

I guess, in my mind, no one has doubted Linux's ability to be a server for a couple years now, but it seems that's where it ends. And, to me, that's not news. Saving a few thousand dollars on a high end server by choosing Linux insted of DEC-UNIX or AIX on your server may be big news to some people. But it's not big news to the general population, because, more people use PC's/Home Office/Workstations that actually run thier own server. And, today, Linux is make BIG inroads in the workstation market, and that's where it's truely starting to shine. It has always shined as a server. But now that it's shining in the scientific labs doing numbercrunching, theoretical predictions, and data analysis as a WorkStation. Now it's shining in CAD/Rendering/Media arenas as a WorkStation. That's a bigger market. That's bigger news. That's where I would like to see some of the big "brand names" take notice and become active in support.

And, as far as that goes, a "entry level" server would be great to see too. I guess this is happening with Corel's Netwinder, and the Qube... But, I think buisnesses that have 5-20 people in the office could benifit soo much more substantually from Linux than they realize. If there were a commercial solution with ONE server running 10-20 Xterminals (like Mechanical Engineering Dept. at the University of Minnesota has done), That would turn heads, and make news, and prove that the idea of "workstation" vs. "server" is a very blurry line, and you have to think more in terms of "networked solutions" than "My Workstation" and "our company's server." Sometimes the server only needs to be a little 486, and the workstations need to be quad Xeons... but sometimes the workstations only need to be 486's, and the server needs to be the quad Xeons or RS/6000 systems. How can anyone draw such lines as "workstation" and "server" and use that to defend what market and price range they are focusing on?

Now only if MOTOROLA had brains!

[Sleepy]

Seems to me Motorola has a PERFECT oppurtunity here to market their own line of PowerPC boxes running Linux. They did like becoming a vendor, until Apple pulled the OS plug. Here is a way for Mot to controll "their own OS", and at a penny too.

Unfortunately, since Apple killed the clones the Motorola IT departments have been on a search and destroy missions... to the point of replacing all their Motorola- based Mac's with INTEL-BASED NT boxes. How stupid is that? It's like Pepsi putting a Coke machine in the break room! Duh..

It would be nice to see some real CPU competition, and Linux gives at least a chance of that. x86 is as bad technology as Microsoft is for an OS, and it would be nice to see competing CPU's and OS-agnostic expansion boards for PCI...

IBM on the Linux desktop soon?

[adraken]

This is great news, and i hope IBM makes a lot of dough in the Linux server market, but what would REALLY be cool would be a OS/2-style window manager and full ports of its Lotus SmartSuite...