One vote for IBMHelpingLinuxWebsite.. <G>
On Tue, Mar 13, 2001 at 12:41:00AM -0800, Mike Sensney scribbled:
> At 07:26 PM 03/12/2001 -0500, George Metz wrote:
> >Hopefully, the way Linus is going about things for 2.4.x, the kernel will
> >be a lot stabler a lot sooner. I can honestly say that I haven't seen any
> >issues running as a workstation. I agree that servers are a bit touchy
> >ground, but it seems to be coming along better than 2.2.x did.
>
> I saw Rick Lindsley of the IBM Linux Technology Center (LTC) at a lecture
> last December. He had been working for Sequent for 9 years when IBM bought
> Sequent, formed the Linux Technology Center with the formerly Sequent
> programmers as the core and has turned them loose on Linux kernel
> development.
>
> The LTC has rewritten the scheduler in the 2.4 kernel and improved
> performance by 25% on a 4 processor computer to where it is 2.5 times the
> speed of a single processor computer. They are confident that they should
> be
> able to achieve 3.99 times the speed of a single processor. They have
> already done this on Sequent's own OS. Their plans for the future include
> support for 16 processor computers. All of this without having an effect on
>
> single processor performance (one of Linus' personal requirements).
>
> The first step was to do a major rewrite of the scheduler and then prove to
>
> Linus that they were still using the same algorithm, just cleaner code.
> Then
> they started doing multiprocessor improvements. Alan Cox has signed on to
> do
> peer review of their work. Also they want to do other work on hardening the
>
> kernel and file system redundancy. It is IBM's view that if Linux is to
> reach common use in big iron, it must be much more dependable than it is
> currently. That is IBM's goal.
>
> Rick said that currently the LTC has around 40 programmers. They plan on
> expanding to around 80 to 90 programmers, not including support staff. The
> facility is located in Beaverton, Oregon, though many of the LTC personnel
> are located around the world.
>
> IBM believes that the importance of Linux is only going to grow. As such it
>
> is better to get involved now than to have to play catch up later. They are
>
> willing to play the game by the OSS rules.
--
rick -- A mind is like a parachute... it only works when it's open.
ICQ# 1590117 [EMAIL PROTECTED] (home)
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