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SGI Hiring 5+ Linux Kernel Hackers
cybrthng writes "Well, according to some adds on linuxtoday and also via SGI's SGI Employment Opportunities Webpage You can search under technical/engineering jobs and sure enough they're looking for a few good men to develop linux for SGI :) "
Nice to see them start to make a bigger play in the Linux
arena. I'm hearing cool rumors from over there- let's hope
they're better then the name change...
Sounds interesting. Now, if only I were willing to move...
Yes, but will the SGI linux be free with the source code and include all those fancy goodies too?
"On a personaly note OpenSource is why I run linux not Solaris 7 (now that it's free for non-comercial use) or *BSD."
What the hell are you talking about? The complete code for FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD is available to anyone at no cost. Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't that equate to being open source software?
Code doesn't have to be GPL'd to be free...
-jake
I can't find any poll regarding a Pro/e port to Linux. A search on Linux yields negative results. Where specifically is this poll?
So maybe now would be a good time to start learning C/C++ for the future, LSD. And I don't understand what's wrong with C++ in a kernel, if done correctly. An OO kernel framework could work very nicely, without being any slower than traditional C stuff.
A small point...
I think Daryll ported the Glide driver to Linux, and it was David Bucarelli (sp? - sorry) who wrote the Mesa driver to interface with Daryll's Glide driver.
That's still quite a lot of work done by these two individuals. I hope all the gamers out there appreciated it.
It's great to see Daryll going to PI - hopefully to work full time on 3D/Linux.
You know, I'm not an activist, and I personally think that a lot of feminists are extremists with chips on their shoulders... But after a few years in the computer industry as a developer, it amazes me how chavenistic the industry as a whole still is... SGI is looking for a few good people, not a few good men.
I believe SGI is going to make a move to standardize on linux. why would you want to hire this many kernel hackers just to port your application ??
SGI is working on MIPS Linux as well as the tweaks for their Intel-based Visual Workstations.
I think once the necessary features of IRIX (+ binary compatibility) have been integrated, SGI will be standardizing on Linux for both the MIPS and Intel product line.
Total standardization / synchronization is probably 2 years a way (SWAG), but it's coming.(NT will no doubt still be available on Intel, and Linux/MIPS on SGI's bigger iron is not even to an alpha state.)
The IRIX user base is too small to leverage Open Source benefits in the way that Linux can. SGI is not stupid - they can see the benefits of going to Linux (namely, no more dumping development dollars down the proprietary hole of IRIX).
True, but with the introduction of ia64 and the Profusion chipset, linux on intel will scale pretty well. since SGI is in trouble and looking to re-define itself, a bold move would be to stndardize on ia64/profusion, CONTAIN the proprietary hardware/OS and achieve new levels of price/performance.
Whoa there, cowboy. New hardware doesn't make software scale. Linux is primarily a uniprocessor OS (though a damn slick one), with some recent developments that helps it scale to, uh, a couple more processors. The world of difference between 4-8 processors and 128-256 can't be spanned by better glue logic alone. SGI has software that has undergone years of tuning that can properly bridge that gap. While it is nice to see that Linux is making inroads to the SGI product structure, it still has a *long* way to go before you'll find it running on the Big Iron with performance within a negligable margin of existing software.
linux is always changing, wouldnt it be kinda inconvienet for them to keep having to upgrade kernel versions on each new release? i smell a change :)
Sick and tired of Linux 2GB file (not filesystem) limit!
XFS is way way cool,
Any idea if XLV and DMF will be included????
Wahoooooooo
Could this be an irixfying of Linux????
Open Source XFS and everything else that makes SGI's unique ( little things like hinv, inst, chkconfig, xlv, dmf, etc ) to Linux and....
Suddenly you have a zillion sysadmins who know how to administer both intel and Rx000 based SGI's.......
It could grow on you...
Anybody that's reading this thread that has low-level programming experience, embedded systems, and/or Linux experience and is interested in supporting Linux on PowerPC platforms for a _major_ company in the Southwest U.S. drop me a line.
-Matt
mmporter@home.com
Whoa! You can't stop the Linux landslide! Slashdot announced a Linux job opening last week, and now FIVE this week! AMAZING! Wow! I guess there IS a future for Linux geeks!!
WOW! EVEN MORE AMAZING! I'm learning Linux! SEVEN job openings at one time!!! I guess all of that Linux stuff really isn't a waste of time!!!
I agree. I love IRIX. But the cost to maintain it as a brand is clearly not justifiable in the market.
Spend the money to have that great IRIX talent port the best parts of IRIX to Linux: VM system, scheduling, SMP, NUMA, XFS, etc. Many of the more user level features that differentiated IRIX from competing versions of UNIX are now part of Linux.
Then you sunset IRIX, freeing up those resources for products which generate profit.
XFS might not initially include Guaranteed rate I/O because of scheduler and VM reqs.
If you want to write VB apps (i.e. you are
a DB programmer for NT) then VB is worth
learning.
As for learning to -program- VB is out
of the question. It is a well acknowleged
fact that BASIC is responsible for teaching
more bad programming habits than any other
popular language, assembly included.
Now my word isnt that powerful, but i decided to keep my mouth shut until i heard SGI advertising this, but this year at Comdex sping '99 me and some friends took a look at SGI's room. (wasnt on the main floor...probabl cause of all the expensive computers...but VA Reasearch had Quad Xeons servers out..hmmm). And we started talking to a heavyset man in sharp suit that really knew a lot about the SGI's. Well he was on his way out when we started talking to another sales rep about the O2's when he informed us that, the man we had talked to was a really Big Player in the SGI community, so we went back over to him, and had a little more to talk to him about, and my friend poped the question "Why dont you guys put Linux on your systems?" and my friends this is the good part he said "Keep that thought in mind" and he winked :)
Well my friends, sorry to hold this information out on you guys for so long, but i would of rather had the "I told you so" attitude rather than the "Opps im sorry for getting your hopes up".
radioflyr
Engineers in the field of Electronic Design had a heck of a discussion about
Linux vs. Ms-WinNT in Integrated System Design magazine quite some time ago.
The editorial that started it all and the articles that followed are listed
below mostly in chronological order.
Editorial - April 1998
Cover Story - July 1998
Cover Story - August 1998
Editorial - August 1998
Linux vs. NT Public Forum
And this one in Electronic Engineering Times:
'Real' designers reject Windows NT
It seems that, overall, at least hardware engineers with a job to get done
prefer *nix over NT by far.
I doubt it. SGI already has Irix for MIPS, so there is no compelling reason for them to pay to port Linux to MIPS. Linux engineers will probabally be reimplementing a lot of the work SGI did for Irix to get it as as scalable as it is today in Linux. Hopefully they will also be porting xfs to IA86. Imagine if everyone in the world used the same winning filesystem.
I read the internet for the articles.
Posted by 2stroke:
Hmmm, if pro/e is going to be ported to linux then I'll have to convince SDRC for porting I-DEAS to linux. My new visual is waiting down the hall to replace my good old indy. I can't wait to start on the Visual but I am afraid NT will never be as good as IRIX, which hasn't crashed on me ever.
Dirk
hmm, these two are a driving force in the mechanical cad arena (ptc makes pro/engineer). ptc has a poll on their page about porting pro/e to linux. Sgi is hiring kernel hackers.
This could be the breakthrough on the desktop linux has been looking for. Stability of unix, applications of linux (yes, linux has more office apps than irix, and softwindows is horrid)
I currently use an octane and pro/e daily. If sgi would have went with standard memory instead of some goofball type, it would have looked very good for those visual workstations.
Linux, Sgi, and Pro/e that would be nice.
dave
It seems likely that these new SGI hires would be doing i386, possibly IA64 work. I think it is highly unlikely that they'll be putting Linux on 128p O2000's, now or anytime in the future. SGI has spent years turning IRIX into a scalable, reliable, hard-real-time OS; IRIX's only peer on high-end hardware is Solaris. The price of making IRIX scale this well has been (as for Solaris) poorer uniprocessor performance, which is Linux's strength.
SGI (if they aren't crazy) isn't interested in spending another six years turning Linux into the operating system they already have; instead they want to use Linux's desktop strength to shore up a weak area for their OS.
...it damn well better be, because of the GPL.
--
Kyle R. Rose, MIT LCS
[ home ]
Why learn a standard that is pushed by one company versus a standard that's been in use for a long time and is something that will stay around for a while? I.E. C/C++ versus VB.
Greed? All the money made by VB developers? Don't C/C++ coders make more? Oh yeah, I forgot. VB is supposed to be the easy way to make a buck in programming. Everyone is looking for the easy way out. I suppose if you're only interested in coding a quick and dirty Windows app, you'll use VB. But I don't think that's what programming is about.
Maybe it's just me. I care more about enjoying my job and making something that I can be proud of, than about the money. And I cringe every time I'm forced to think about VB.
Then again, I've coded in VB just because I'm going to school now and I will take any job I can get that can deal with my schedule.
Ben
I think someone mentioned that the job description mentioned putting this into the Open Source community.
Besides, if it's getting rolled into the kernel, it has to be free for use by others, doesn't it?
As the current owner of a visual workstation, I'd like to point out the memory in them is not a 'goofball' type, it's standard ECC Buffered SDRAM. You can buy it from thechipmerchant.com and tons of web places (as we have).
Yes, Buffered ECC SDRAM is not what goes in most no-name PCs (std PC100 SDRAM is unbuffered), but it is what all DELL workstation-class machines, all IBM intellistations, etc. use.
3dfx is a monopolistic company that will NOT Emprace open source. They wanted some developers for closed source drivers.
SGI is looking for people to make the opensource support for their system better. They are also donating a TON of their own technology to the Kernel and X projects including GL and its companian technology, SMP work, etc.
In short OpenSource people LIKE what SGI is trying to do. People don't like companies who release Binary only drivers like 3dfx.
On a personaly note OpenSource is why I run linux not Solaris 7 (now that it's free for non-comercial use) or *BSD.
I've been talking to SGI engineers and marketing
people every week or so for the last several
months, and I am impressed that they are moving
strongly in the right direction. They've made
a considerable amount of progress on a volunteer
basis; to get their new VW (Intel) box running
Linux. Last I heard from them is that they were
going to hire a couple of engineers full time.
The way that I see it, is that SGI has a fairly
simple decision to make; are they interested in
all of their previous customers (like me) or not?
Current (and former) SGI users would prefer Linux
to NT; but it is true that the SGI userbase is
sadly small. Still, the growth of Linux, at
the apparent expense of NT, seems to have shown
management at SGI the light.
This announcement that they want to hire 5 people
is further news that they are even more aggressive
than I had thought. Great.
This, along with the funding of Precision Insight
to write a direct rendering infrastructure for
Linux, shows that SGI gets it. Note, too, that
Precision Insight has just hired Daryll Strauss
of Digital Domain (who did, in his spare time,
the full-screen OpenGL for Voodoo cards under
Linux) to further their work. They're looking
for more people, too...check out
http://www.precisioninsight.com
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
A few days ago some 3Dfx job opportunities were posted. Not everyone was thrilled about the fact 3Dfx wanted to employ some Linux developers. Will this discussion repeat, only with the name 3DFX replaced with SGI?
Its an obvious reference to the movie with the same title, or if even that was taken from an old expression. (Im not an english native speaker so I wouldnt really know).
You dont slam armstrong for saying "a giant leap for MANkind" do you?
But then again, I cant really say that I know what its like to be a woman in this industry. It might be like one of those thins you smile smugly about the first time but really gets on your nerves the twentieth time.
C++ would not help you much for these positions. Plus you would need a strong background in operating system development and experience with multiprocessors.
---
Awesome! Looks like these will be the ones who'll be rolling all those IRIX goodies SGI promised into the kernel! Just imagine: better scalability, cc:NUMA, a better MIPS codebase, etc. etc. *ooh! warm fuzzies*
This ranks second in coolness only to the development of a REAL libGL.so for Linux }:-)
iSKUNK!
Yeah, you will probably not be writing fluffy
code that you're used to in VB; I
think they need serious
kernel hackers to address sgi-specific hardware
stuff and OpenGL integration (hopefully).
I doubt they'd go for Linux on MIPS; why throw
away all that IRIX devel? I'm sure this is
for their VPC line. Probably want to get some
driver support into the Linux kernel for the
sgi cobalt video chipset and take advantage of
the UMA.
--- witty signature
Would be great if I knew C/C++...
Should of learn C/C++ instead of VB...
"Windows 98 Second Edition works and players better than ever." -Microsoft's Home page on Win98SE.
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
Maybe I should learn ASM..hehehe. Anyone seen a kernel based on ASM?
*Rambles on* I remember a project years and years ago that was an OS basic on Basic..hahaha
"Windows 98 Second Edition works and players better than ever." -Microsoft's Home page on Win98SE.
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
req # | date posted| title
------+------------+---------------------------
35470 | 03/19/1999 | Linux Kernel Development Eng
35726 | 03/05/1999 | Linux Kernel Dev Engineer
35727 | 03/05/1999 | Linux Kernel Dev Engineer
35730 | 03/05/1999 | Linux Kernel Dev Engineer
35731 | 03/05/1999 | Linux Kernel Dev Engineer
35742 | 03/05/1999 | Systems Eng-Linux OS Dev
36186 | 04/30/1999 | Dekstop [sic] Linux Product Manager
------+------------+---------------------------
Here's an excerpt of the Responsibilities section of the marketing job (36186):
you do the math!"Yeah well
There are no references to gender on the kernel jobs that came up from their search. Maybe twas the messenger.
Beth
I hope they'd consider female applicants too.
It's true that there may not be many female kernel hackers to go around, but it's insidious inadvertant slips like this that contribute to the situation, and that's bad for all of us.
very interesting.In tomorrow land or turmoil city?
icey
It really doesn't say if they are going to work on MIPS or the new Intel-boxes. Does anybody know if this is a sign that SGI officially will put Linux on MIPS? (I hope so)
I've just had a talk with a SGI rep here (we have an Origin200) and he said SGI is preparing an open-source release of XFS (like they did with GLX).It might be a few months away though...
XFS is the journaling filesystem used by IRIX. IRIX with XFS has some unique features like "guaranteed rate I/O". I wonder if they'll port this to Linux.
If you don't know what XFS is good for, recovering an 18 Gb XFS filesystem after power failure takes a few seconds ! No more waiting for fsck... Less downtime...