Look, I know this is "the" mainframe list for Linux.

(chuckles)

Let us not forget that Linux works rather nicely on pSeries, and, in fact,
is pretty competent there.  IIRC, Linux was able to handle changes to
memory size before AIX could.

Linux, without a specific buncha patches isn't as "real time" as AIX,
though, with patches, it becomes a somewhat "harder" RealTime OS than AIX.

Real Time Operating Systems _do_ p!ss away CPU cycles being aggressive
about servicing interrupts more deeply each time one arrives--  i.e.
"running the scheduler"-- and, for compute bound work, you lose a teeny
amount of CPU throughput (this slice "depends" and is likely better
reported by _someone_ out there) servicing interrupts.

So, if you do _mostly_ I/O (and, lemme tell you, AIX has a very thin veneer
of a Unix-like API wrapped around an I/O system just so it acts, vaguely,
like a Unix system, which made Caldera's claim of Unix code move to Linux
seem ludicrous) AIX is a "better" system for it, but, if you wanna do some
honkin' serious number crunching, you'll run a Linux instance in a pSeries
virtual instance.  (The VIO engine for pSeries, as I recall, which is a bit
dated, now, uses an AIX engine to manage the DASD.  And, yeah, I miss this
stuff.)

So, really, RedHat covers a bunch of IBM's platforms.  If there was any
indication RedHat would de-emphasize any of IBM's platforms (be it Z or P
or something far more covert) I could see IBM wanting to engulf and devour
RedHat to protect the hardware investment from abandonment (kind of how
Windows NT was originally on bot Intel and Alpha CPUs until Intel sucked up
DEC's Alpha platform and let it fade out...).

Am I surprised?  Kind of.

Is it a bad idea?  Maybe yes, maybe no.  (What of IBM's competitors
dependent upon RedHat Linux?  They're not going to want IBM able to
interfere with them.)

I guess it is fortunate Oracle (Sun) isn't really interested in putting up
Linux LDOMs on their hardware.

The only "real" Unix platforms these days are Oracle (Sun
not-so-Microsystems-anymore) and HP/UX.  AIX, to people as users, has the
right look-and-feel, though, to an admin, it's a weird animal.

So who will this acquisition most (expletive deleted)-off?

-soup

On Mon, Oct 29, 2018 at 2:39 PM David Boyes <[email protected]> wrote:

> On 10/29/18, 11:37 AM, "Linux on 390 Port on behalf of Mark Post" <
> [email protected] on behalf of [email protected]> wrote:
> > I don't think that matches the reality of the market place, however,
> considering that Red Hat's market share with mainframe customers has been
> _far_ less than 50%.
>
> If you limit it to Z, true. I was thinking of the larger picture on all
> architectures. Procurement people don't like extra work, and if they can
> extend an existing agreement with a little work vs a whole new vendor,
> they'll go with the existing agreement.  IBM is a good example of that.
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions,
> send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or
> visit
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> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> For more information on Linux on System z, visit
> http://wiki.linuxvm.org/
>


--
John R. Campbell         Speaker to Machines          souperb at gmail dot
com
MacOS X proved it was easier to make Unix user-friendly than to fix Windows
"It doesn't matter how well-crafted a system is to eliminate errors;
Regardless
 of any and all checks and balances in place, all systems will fail because,
 somewhere, there is meat in the loop." - me

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