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IBM to offer Linux support under AIX
cswiii writes "This c|net article talks about IBM, following the footsteps of Sun, to offer Linux support upon IBM's UNIX systems. " The most recent announcement from Sun, about LXRUN is quite similar. Essentially, both parties have modified their Unix flavors to enable AIX and Solaris to run Linux binaries.
Now how about IBM helps us get AIX binaries running under linuxPPC?
This is my signature. There are many signatures like it but this one is mine..
Because, the tighter one's grip, the more star systems will slip through one's fingers.
Sun Microsystems wanted control, specifically so that someone like Microsoft could not "embrace and extend". Linux, with the GPL, gives up that control. You can embrace and extend all you want...so long as you ship your extensions with the source code. In ESR's annotations of the Halloween Documents, he notes that the openness of a development environment paradoxically prevents forking, as forking is the last effort at moving a development process in one's own direction. In an open situation like Linux, where anyone can (and does) enter a change, few people have a reason to fork Linux.
I see two Microsoft strategies to dealing with the LX86 runtime environment. One is to submit code itself (likely under an astroturf front) which sabotages the kernel. This would have to be extremely subtle, if it is doable at all, since bad additions to the kernel will generally get thrown out (binary Darwinism).
The second is to embrace and extend, but outside the kernel level. They cannot E&E in deep kernel (because their extensions would necessarily be copylefted), but nothing is stopping them from creating a payware shared library with The Killer Feature. By doing that, they can get people to write software to their library, thus requiring all users of said software to buy said library. It would be the OS monopoly all over again, but sitting on top of LX86 rather than just the Intel hardware itself.
That is, Microsoft can sacrifice kernel control and still collect their tax. To do so, they would need a Killer Feature that Linux can't provide. The most obvious such feature is Win32 itself. If they ported Win32 to LX86, they would be able to convince vendors to stop porting to Linux, since every LX86 can become a (relatively) proper Windows box.
Do we have countermoves to this strategy? What are the odds of this happening, and the factors that change these odds? IMHO, MS will have to swallow some pride to do this, but they might at that. Then again, it would be at least a partial victory, as Those Of Us Who Know would be able to run around beneath the Gates layer.
--The basis of all love is respect
Yes, the article is deceiving. lxrun does NOT require any modifications to the operating system to run Linux apps.
.001% of Solaris users, but the Voodoo drivers do not currently work with lxrun. The reason is that Solaris's /dev/mem is only the size of your physical RAM, while Linux's is apparently 4GB no matter what. Since the Voodoo driver mmaps the card at whatever high RAM address the PCI/AGP bus gives it, this fails on Solaris. So no accelerated Quake 3 for Solaris (yet) :(
/dev/mem structure in Solaris be changed. I doubt that would happen.
:-)
;-)
However, there are a couple of modifications that do need to be made to make lxrun perfect (at least on Solaris). First of all, there is a way on Unixware (lxrun's original platform) to produce the necessary ld-linux.so.1 that actually is lxrun. It's a little confusing, but that would essentially allow you to type "linuxquake3" instead of "lxrun linuxquake3" to run Q3test.
Unfortunately, the current Solaris linker doesn't have an essential option (I think it controls the relocation) to allow this to happen. I have heard that people at Sun have done this modification and gotten lxrun to work in this transparent mode. Therefore, Solaris 8 may have this option (no guarantees though).
Second, this probably affects
Obviously, getting that to work would require that the
Also, kernel modules are out of the question... I think. Never tried modprobe or insmod. That could have some "interesting" effects though, given their close dependence on the kernel. Hopefully it just ends up with signal 11. I guess I get to test them today
Oh, BTW, don't use Stampede with lxrun... for some reason pathnames don't work properly. They were fixed when I put in SuSE. Dunno if it's the glibc2.1 or the Pentium optimizations.
In other words, it's a lot less buggy than I thought
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I find it interesting that Sun and IBM are basically indicating a willingness to take advantage of Linux-oriented applications while maintaining a proprietary operating system on their hardware.
This was, of course, the mode for most of what is now deemed 'open source' software prior to the development of the Linux kernel, only then it required the software be recompiled on the platform in question. It also renders the need to actually run the Linux kernel as moot -- Linux binaries will run quite nicely on any old proprietary operating system that puts in the appropriate hooks.
Goodbye Linux.
IBM is making the same mistake that Sun just made, and Digital made before them.
Emulation doesn't sell machines!
Anyone ever see NT running on a high end Intel box? Compared to a mediocre Alpha box? When the services you need are available as native Alpha code, Alpha always turned out to be superior.
Well the applications never came. Digital started marketing heavily for their x86 emulation onboard but it didn't work. Sure, Alpha's are still supported by NT, but out of the thousands of NT machines I've designed and installed, my clientelle only accepted five Alpha-based NT boxes.
Alpha is still the superior technology, and not all that much more expensive than Intel these days. But it doesn't matter. Without the native apps, the servers just aren't moving (at least in the NT industry).
If IBM wants to hitch its wagon to Linux, we need to see Linux running natively on RS/6000's. We need to see IBM shipping binaries of popular GPL applications, prepackaged for IBM systems (of course the source is available as well).
Emulation is just a kluge, and a poor marketing gimmick. IBM's customers are more clueful than that and won't fall for it. Show me a 43P running "Blue Hat Linux" with KDE and a full suite of GPL'd apps, with IBM improvements, running natively, and I'll show you a hot seller.
Emulation sold many machines for Apple Computer. Good emulation was necessary for allowing the "Power Macintosh" series to take off. In fact, the emulation was a little bit *too* successful: some vendors were satisfied enough with its performance that they continued to release 68040 binaries for a year or two after the Power Macs' release, electing to add new features rather than port what was already a sufficiently fast product.
What's the difference? Apple pushed the Power Macs as the next step in their line; they were the clear successors to the Quadras, the new cutting edge.
There is no such unambiguous message with Pentium vs. Alpha. Intel markets their chips beyond belief, regardless of the Alpha's superior performance, and people buy it. It's as though some other company had released the PowerPC Macs while Apple shouted the glories of their upcoming 68060 machines with colourful dancing bunnymen.
-Mars
Do Linux gurus blend into IBM's "Big Blue" mentality?
Yes. I work at one of IBM's major locations and Linux is probably almost as pervasive on people's screens as AIX (either that or folks are running GPL'd window managers on AIX). In any case, Linux is quite popular here and the management has been quite tolerant. The corporate lawyers are pulling their hair out over GPL issues though.
I have heard from others, too, that IBM has relaxed its strict personnel rules over the past few years. But can they integrate Linux developers into their fold?
We can and we have. I don't have to tell you of course that the Apache credits are thick with IBM contributors. But Apache!=Linux. The main talent behind PHP just started working for IBM as well. Of course, this doesn't mean IBM is looked favorably upon by Linux developers, but it does mean that "Open Source" (God, I hate that term) developers can find a happy home at IBM.
It was interesting to note that at Linux Expo, a great many of the attendees were incognito IBM'ers. IBM definitely had a stronger presence than even Red Hat (though the pretty young lady at the Linux Magazine booth, who shared space with Red Hat, did get me to come visit...)
So existing Linux developers can and are being brought into the IBM family. Existing IBM'ers are also learning to embrace Linux, despite the fact that our corporate lawyers are making it almost impossible to do business in the Linux industry through official channels (for example, we are not allowed to look at GPL'd source code, but at the same time we need to create binary modules for kernel code that contains intellectual property).
The final problem is that the bean counters don't know what to make of it. They are used to seeing nice clean sales figures and since Linus is so... well... so FREE (in the free speech sense, as well as the free beer sense), nobody really knows what the true numbers are or even if the estimates are close. This drives them crazy. Without hard numbers, it is too hard to procure funding to start producing products for Linux. The only reliable metric we have to go by is IBM customers calling their IBM marketing reps and demanding Linux versions of IBM products.
Getting back to Linux inside of IBM; there are several "early adopter" groups within the company that have fully embraced Linux and would be a great place to work. For example, the Netfinity group has embraced Linux whole hog and would be a great place to send resumes. There are other very big announcements that have yet to be made, and will make this AIX announcement forgettable.