Linux-Misc Digest #905, Volume #23 Mon, 20 Mar 00 10:13:02 EST
Contents:
NY Times Article ("Buck Turgidson")
Trouble with libcdf.so ("Dr. Martin Schreck")
Re: NY Times Article ("Neal G.")
Re: How do I get rid of LILO? (Tom Pfeifer)
Re: Problems logging in at ISP (Ken Moffat)
Re: Win2000 trashed Lilo, of course. I GIVE UP!!! (Brad)
Re: Win2000 trashed Lilo, of course. I GIVE UP!!! (Bernhard Mogens Ege)
Re: Boot-up error and mouse problems ("dccscott")
Partition problems (=?iso-8859-2?Q?Pawe=B3_Kot?=)
Re: Win2000 trashed Lilo, of course. (Bob Tennent)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Buck Turgidson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: NY Times Article
Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 12:02:06 GMT
March 20, 2000
I.B.M. Goes Countercultural With Linux
By STEVE LOHR
A huge company with deep pockets, IBM can afford to dabble in promising
technologies. And that is what the International Business Machines Corp.
seemed to be doing throughout much of last year with Linux, an increasingly
popular version of the Unix operating system that is available free on the
Internet.
IBM dispatched emissaries to speak with members of the Linux community, a
worldwide network of programmers who develop and debug the code. IBM met
with academics, consultants, economists and venture capitalists to plumb the
Linux phenomenon. It made small investments in a couple of Linux start-ups,
and offered Linux on one line of its computers.
But last fall, Big Blue suddenly got serious about Linux.
At the end of October, fresh from a global tour, Sam Palmisano, a senior
vice president, reported that the Internet companies he spoke with told him
that the preferred language of the young programmers they were hiring was
Linux.
At about the same time, Irving Wladawsky-Berger, an IBM executive with
longstanding ties to the nation's supercomputing centers, was hearing that
Linux was generating a lot of excitement in these leading-edge research
institutions. And he had been sending e-mail to the company's other top
technology executives about the rise of Linux.
"In the technical community and in the marketplace," Wladawsky-Berger
recently recalled, "the signs were clear that something profound was going
on."
Less than two months later, a few days before Christmas, IBM had
fashioned -- and Louis V. Gerstner Jr., the chairman, had approved -- an
ambitious Linux strategy. The company that personifies mainstream corporate
computing had itself done something profound: embrace Linux, a symbol of
software's counterculture, as the operating system of the future for the
Internet.
IBM, it was decreed, would embark on a costly program to make all its
hardware and software work seamlessly with Linux. So quickly did the company
mobilize that even now hundreds of engineers across the company are already
engaged in the Linux campaign, and IBM says its army of Linux engineers will
number in the thousands within a few years.
To be sure, other major companies in the industry, including
Hewlett-Packard, Dell Computer and Oracle, also have Linux efforts. "But IBM
has tightly focused on Linux more than any other big company," observed Dan
Kusnetzky, director of operating systems research at the International Data
Corp.
============================================================================
----
Graph
Betting on Linux
Linux, the popular version of the Unix operating system that is available
free on the Internet, is gaining ground.
============================================================================
----
IBM's Linux strategy represents more than a bold, and risky, step in the
field of software. The move is a textbook example of IBM's management style
under Gerstner, who has worked to overhaul the company and its culture since
he arrived in 1993.
In the pre-Gerstner days, decision making at IBM was once described as
"swimming through peanut butter." But these days, after a brief period of
intense scrutiny -- during which the company's technical experts play a key
role -- choices are made decisively and with remarkable swiftness, given
that IBM is a sprawling, $80-billion-a-year corporation.
In this most recent example, Palmisano, 48, who is regarded as a leading
candidate to someday succeed Gerstner, is the senior executive who pushed
most emphatically for the Linux initiative -- and has the most riding on its
outcome. "This is Sam's bet," Wladawsky-Berger said.
The first step toward IBM's Linux strategy came in a Saturday morning
telephone call on Oct. 30 that Nick Bowen received at his home in Newtown,
Conn. The caller was his boss, Paul Horn, the head of the IBM Watson labs.
He told Bowen, a 39-year-old senior researcher, that he would lead an
11-person team to make recommendations on how IBM -- the entire company --
should adapt to Linux. The investigation must be rigorous and exhaustive,
Horn told him -- and finished in seven weeks.
The Bowen report, submitted to top management on Dec. 20, presented a plan
for using Linux to undermine the software advantage enjoyed by IBM's two key
rivals, Microsoft and Sun Microsystems. Microsoft's Windows NT and Sun's
Solaris are the leading operating systems used today on server computers,
the data-serving machines that are the engines of corporate networks and the
Internet.
To combat Sun and Microsoft, the report recommended, IBM should retool all
its server operating systems, from the mainframe OS/390 to AIX, IBM's
version of Unix, to run Linux smoothly. The same should be true of all IBM's
database, Web applications and messaging software, the report said. And IBM,
the Bowen team concluded, should push Linux as the operating system of
choice for the Internet -- more robust and reliable than Windows NT and
eventually overtaking Solaris, Sun's flavor of Unix, as the industry
standard for Unix.
The goal would be to win the hearts and minds of perhaps the most
influential audience in computing -- the software developers who write the
applications that bring the Web to life and make Internet commerce actually
work.
"Today, Microsoft and Sun dominate the application development seats," the
report stated. "We recommend that IBM aggressively pursue a Linux-based
application development platform. Doing so would disrupt the Sun-Microsoft
stranglehold."
The Linux strategy would "provide our server business with a single,
homogeneous server platform," from desktops to mainframes, giving IBM a
"level playing field" in software and allowing it to compete with Sun and
Microsoft for "mindshare in key software growth segments and in
universities."
The report, known as a "corporate assessment" inside IBM ran just over 10
pages. In the pre-Gerstner days, such reports to top management could be 100
pages in length. But today's IBM executives are familiar with the Gerstner
edict: If you cannot say it in 10 pages, you are not focused on the right
thing.
It was only at the beginning of last October that Palmisano took over IBM's
server business. And he started at once to scout for "major initiatives" to
help revive the growth of IBM's big server computers -- mainframes,
minicomputers and AIX Unix machines. He closely followed the activities of
the Bowen assessment team, he read early drafts of the group's report and he
liked the finished document: a coherent, top-to-bottom software strategy for
IBM.
Moving quickly, he said, was imperative. "The Internet has taught us all the
importance of moving early, the advantage of being a first-mover," Palmisano
said in an interview. "We want to be riding that Linux momentum at the
front, not trailing it and defending the past. IBM understands, believe me,
what it means to be defending the past."
When Bowen met on Dec. 20 with Palmisano and Nick Donofrio, senior vice
president for technology, at IBM's headquarters in Armonk, N.Y., he noted a
nontechnical recommendation in the report: put one person in charge of the
Linux effort companywide. "I'm already working on that," Bowen recalls
Palmisano saying.
And when Palmisano met with Gerstner two days later, the chairman not only
approved the plan but also agreed with his choice of who should be the
company's Linux czar: Wladawsky-Berger. At the time, Wladawsky-Berger was
general manager of the Internet division, responsible for making sure
Internet technology and an Internet mindset was spread broadly throughout
the company.
That job, Gerstner and Palmisano agreed, was done; IBM "got" the Internet.
Now, it was time for Wladawsky-Berger to move onto the next,
hearts-and-minds challenge. So the staff of the Internet unit went elsewhere
in the company, the division was folded and Wladawsky-Berger assumed the
title vice president of technology and strategy in the computer-server
group, headed by Palmisano.
They are a contrasting pair. Tall and physically imposing, Palmisano is
regarded as a brilliant executive and hard-charging salesman. Previously, he
ran the company's fast-growing global services group, where he had a special
talent for bringing in big computer services deals, which can span several
years and total billions of dollars. Palmisano's nickname at IBM is "the
closer."
Wladawsky-Berger is six years older and about a head shorter than his boss.
Raised in Cuba, he fled with his parents, Eastern European immigrants who
owned a store in Havana, when Castro came to power in 1959. He holds a Ph.D.
in physics from the University of Chicago, speaks with a lilting Spanish
accent and could easily be mistaken for a college professor.
After his postgraduate studies, Wladawsky-Berger joined IBM's Watson labs in
1970 as a researcher, but he had a taste for the business side of the
company as well. He led the drive to transform IBM's traditional mainframes
by retooling them with low-cost microprocessors, the chips best known as the
engines of personal computers.
"The Linux issue," Wladawsky-Berger explained, "is whether this is a
fundamentally disruptive technology, like the microprocessor and the
Internet? We're betting that it is."
IBM's Linux effort is a long-term strategy, not one likely to affect its
quarterly earnings any time soon. And the strategy appeals to IBM, in part,
because it has lost its operating system battles with Microsoft and Sun. Its
effort in personal computer software, OS/2, was quickly crushed by
Microsoft's market-dominating Windows. And IBM's AIX version of Unix has
become an also-ran behind Sun's more popular Solaris.
So IBM would love to drive the profit out of the operating systems business
of its rivals -- just as Microsoft did to Netscape, the browser pioneer, by
giving browsing software away free. "The operating systems wars of today are
the equivalent of the browser wars of a few years ago," said Scott Hebner,
an IBM software executive. "The operating system is not where the value is."
Yet IBM's strategy can succeed only if Linux, which is distributed free,
does become a genuine alternative to Windows or Solaris, thereby putting
real pressure on their prices. And Linux has a long way to go. Today, it is
used mainly for simpler tasks, like serving up Web pages, instead of for
industrial-strength computing chores like financial transaction systems that
must handle complex tasks, 24 hours a day, without crashing. Even IBM, which
plans eventually to use Linux as its unifying Unix platform (shelving AIX),
says Linux's true ascendance may not come for five years or so -- until
Linux is built up to become more powerful and reliable.
Throughout the software field, the excitement surrounding Linux has less to
do with the technology itself than with the fact that it is the leading
example of so-called open-source software -- software that is distributed
free, with its underlying source code openly published, and is developed,
debugged and improved by an international community of programmers.
============================================================================
----
Related Article
I.B.M. to Use Linux System in Internet Software
(January 10, 2000)
============================================================================
----
"It's the Web phenomenon coming to software development that is intriguing,"
said Larry Smarr, director of the National Center for Supercomputing
Applications in Urbana-Champaign, Ill. "We now have the potential for
collaborative, decentralized software authorship on large complex systems."
Still, it is unclear whether the open-source approach can solve the kind of
complex software problems that have consumed countless programming hours and
billions of dollars at Sun and Microsoft. And for IBM, there is a question
of whether the Linux community, which works mostly on personal computers,
will have much to contribute to the company's Linux efforts on mainframes
and minicomputers.
"Linux on non-PC platforms is a nonstarter," said Greg Papadopoulos, chief
technology officer for Sun Microsystems. "The ecosystem of open source is
not going to be working for IBM on other platforms."
But Wladawsky-Berger says he will side with the recommendations of IBM's
best technical minds. "Not only did they say, 'Irving, this is doable,"' he
observed. "They said, 'Irving, do it."'
Certainly, veterans of the open-source counterculture seemed to have
welcomed Big Blue into the fold. "It should accelerate the pace of adoption
of Linux," said Eric Raymond, an evangelist of the open-source movement.
"Sure, there's some irony here, since IBM used to be the enemy," Raymond
said. "But everybody in the community is happy about IBM wanting to play
with us."
------------------------------
From: "Dr. Martin Schreck" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Trouble with libcdf.so
Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 21:07:55 +0900
Hello
I downloaded a binary for Linux of the OpenDX from IBM. It is installed
but it says:
error in loading shared libraries: libcdf.so: cannot open shared object
file: No such file or directory
Where does this library come from. I try to find it but I couldn't.
Which packes am I missing?
Martin
------------------------------
From: "Neal G." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: NY Times Article
Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 12:35:10 GMT
Buck Turgidson wrote:
> March 20, 2000
>
> I.B.M. Goes Countercultural With Linux
> By STEVE LOHR
>
"The meek shall inherit the Earth".
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 07:33:36 -0500
From: Tom Pfeifer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: How do I get rid of LILO?
Crossposted-To: microsoft.public.win2000.beta.file_system,microsoft.public.win98.fat32
Fdisk /mbr would work if you applied it to the correct drive. That
command only rewrites the MBR on the master drive. There is switch to
use a similar command on other drives, but I don't remember the syntax
off hand, and have never tried it myself. Also, if you're switching boot
drives in the BIOS, the drive that is considered by fdisk /mbr to be the
'master' drive will change when you do that.
One program that should work is MBRWork, which can do the equivalent of
fdisk /mbr, but it can operate on whichever drive you select from it's
menu. You can find here:
http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/FREESTUF.HTM
Put the program on a floppy disk and run it from DOS Mode. The first
thing to do is to select which disk you're working on, which is one of
its menu options. Then use the 'Install Standard MBR' option to erase
Lilo. This will not erase the partition table (if there is one on that
drive to begin with).
If you want a safety net before changing the MBR, use the menu option to
backup the first track (track zero) on the drive you're working on.
Track zero includes the MBR sector. That way you can restore it later if
you want to backtrack.
Tom
Jon Davis wrote:
>
> I did fdisk /mbr on the win98 drive, like I said. I won't (read: can't) do
> it to the Win2k drive because it's a dynamic NTFS5 drive.
>
> Jon
>
> "Jim McIntyre" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > Hi Jon
> > Lilo might be installed on the other drive where Win 2k is installed.
> > Run fdisk /mbr on that drive also.
> > It sounds like MS format did a good format on the drive, but some users
> have
> > had to go through the Linux install program, up to the point where they
> are
> > prompted to install Linus partitions, then remove all partitions.
> > The PC is then rebooted without these partitions, and Win 9x is installed.
> > This is pretty drastic, so it really should be your last resort. Try fdisk
> /mbr
> > on the other drive first.
> >
> > IHTH
> > Jim
> >
------------------------------
From: Ken Moffat <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.setup,alt.os.linux,alt.os.linux.dial-up
Subject: Re: Problems logging in at ISP
Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 04:25:31 -0800
"Bill L." wrote:
>
> Use freei.
>
> www.freei.net
>
> No scripts, no hassle...
>
> Or, if you dont trust the freebies, get Mindspring.
>
Another freebie is www.freewwweb.com
------------------------------
From: Brad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Win2000 trashed Lilo, of course. I GIVE UP!!!
Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 23:17:38 +1100
I have tried and tried. WHY IS THIS SO HARD???? I have spent hours and hours on
this and i can't get lilo installed.
Can anyone help me with this? It is getting very dull.
Brad
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Win2000 trashed Lilo, of course. I GIVE UP!!!
From: Bernhard Mogens Ege <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 14:26:06 GMT
>>>>> "Brad" == Brad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> I have tried and tried. WHY IS THIS SO HARD???? I have spent hours and hours on
> this and i can't get lilo installed.
> Can anyone help me with this? It is getting very dull.
> Brad
Well, you could try loadlin.exe from DOS. This is what I always boot
my RedHat installation with.
I issue this command:
loadlin lz2-2-14 mem=128M root=/dev/hda6
lz2-2-14 is the kernel (must be on the fat drive somewhere), mem=128M
is neede because of a slight bug in the BIOS, root=/dev/hda6 is my
root partition.
So three things are needed:
1. loadlin.exe (download from ftp site)
2. a kernel that can boot on your system (perhaps download a
distribution kernel)
3. knowledge about where your root partition is.
When you successfully boot your linux installation, run the lilo
command to install lilo and then reboot.
I hope this helps.
regards,
Bernhard Ege
------------------------------
From: "dccscott" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: linux.redhat.install,linux.redhat.misc,alt.os.linux.redhat
Subject: Re: Boot-up error and mouse problems
Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 14:26:10 GMT
Your board is not seeing Linux as a virus, but Lilo. I recently bought a
Microstar Slot A board with an Award bios and when the anti virus feature is
turned on, it alerts right before the Lilo prompt. If you can disable this
feature, this problem will disappear. You can also remove Lilo in Linux and
use another boot loader, but good luck. Boot Magic (the one that comes with
Partition Magic) doesn't always work 100%. I have also heard of people
using System Commander. I have never seen it, but have heard nothing but
good things about it.
John Riehl wrote in message ...
>
>Nikko Odiseos wrote in message ...
>>I installed RH 6.1 and now whenever it or my win98 boots up, there is an
>>error message with a red screen (after Lilo) saying something like: "there
>>is a virus. Does not support OS. Chip Away Virus. Continue boot?" And
>iif
>>I select yes, it boot5s away no problems. Whats that?
>>>
------------------------------
From: =?iso-8859-2?Q?Pawe=B3_Kot?= <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.hardware
Subject: Partition problems
Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 16:18:52 +0100
Hi,
I had some Linux patritions on my hard drive (primary and logical as well).
I have overritten the partiotion table using DOS fdisk. Now, Linux can boot
from the first partition but the other are not visible. And I need some data
from a logical partition. Can I recover the old partition table? Or can I
recover some data from some place on the disk to the first partition? Maybe
DOS fdisk make backup of the partition table and I can recover it? And the
last question: can I use Linux fdisk to set up the partitions without
loosing stored data?
Thanks in advance for help
regards
peKOT
--
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.gsmonline.pl/
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Bob Tennent)
Subject: Re: Win2000 trashed Lilo, of course.
Date: 20 Mar 2000 14:28:52 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Mon, 20 Mar 2000 20:35:33 +1100, Brad wrote:
>
>
>I had win98 on the first hard drive and linux (redhat 6.0) sitting
>happily on the second of my PII300. Lilo would do it's thing during
>bootup and default me to Linux. This was good as I am trying to spend
>more and more time there.
>
>However, work commitments meant me getting my head around Win2000, so i
>dumped Win98 and install the behemoth 2000. Of course, it trashed Lilo.
>
>I made a boot disk and a rescue disk (rescue.img) and started up the
>machine. I thought i was pretty good getting to that point, but alas, it
>was not to be.
>
>I was presented with a # prompt. I could not find Lilo. I got the
>feeling that what I was looking at was the contents of a ramdisk that
>had been loaded from the floppies. (Am i close to the mark here?)
>
>Please tell me how do i reinstall Lilo? I do not want to have to
>reinstall Linux, again!
>
First, try booting from the boot disk by entering
linux single root=/dev/hdXXX initrd=
(where XXX should be replaced by whichever partition you have / on)
Bob T.
------------------------------
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End of Linux-Misc Digest
******************************
