Re: Old IBM Mainframe - Still Useful?
Andrew Wiley wrote: On Tue, Mar 24, 2009 at 8:23 PM, John Summerfield deb...@herakles.homelinux.org wrote: What kind of terminal equipment will they be using? Students would access their VM's through SSH. 3. What would they be doing? Each VM will probably have a webserver hosting SVN and Trac, there will probably be some sort of build system as well, and students will be periodically running network server code to test stability and allow a centralized testing location for wider scale applications. Have you explored the use of virtual servers in Apache? It's possible to host many websites on a single copy of a single OS on a single computer using a single IP address. This is true, but I'm really wanting to have students' code isolated so if a prankster runs a forkbomb or some malicious code, everything else keeps working. There's also more educational value in giving each project a VM; hopefully it would at least teach basic linux shell commands. It's still debatable whether I should have multiple webservers or one though... I'll have to think about that. Why is S/390 the right tool for the job? Mostly the price, although I admit it's a poor justification. I'm also hoping that using it would bring more stability than our current solution. It would also (hopefully) scale better as the program grows, which is definitely happening. We need to upgrade somehow, and this offer came at the right time. There's also the benefit of exposing students to the idea that mainframes are still alive and useful (most textbooks these days cite mainframes as an example of obselete technology that existed before PC's, unfortunately), and, if possible, it would let me offer mainframe programming as an independent study course. Okay, here is what I think. Count the cost. Do you get a full, working system? If not, there are extra costs for the bits that are missing. Depending on the capabilities of your particular machine, you will have some number of essentially discrete systems (your LPARs). I gather any hardware reconfiguration you do involves pinching a bit off one machine to give it to another. Whether it's enough is for you to judge. Who is going to do the reconfiguration management? Does this system have special power requirements? What about environmentals? What will be the cost of transporting the system and doing the initial installation? What have I forgotten? There is a case for a central server to coordinate students' work. I am not convinced that a mainframe, even a free one, is the best tool for the job. For any programming students might do, it makes not a jot of difference whether they do it on a PC running Linux or a mainframe running Linux, the tools are the same. Since you said the students would be connecting via ssh, I expect they already have PCs. The only Windows ssh client I have used is putty, and while I will continue to use it, I don't like it that well. To do the job properly, one needs Linux (or, I expect one of the BSDs or a real Unix). If installing Linux on the student PCs' hardware is frowned on, how about Linux inside VirtualBox (my current favourite) or one of the MS free offerings. This might give the students the same kind of setup so many free software hackers have, their own PC and a central repository. This does not preclude students from using virtual mainframes (hercules) and checking out Linux on that. It seems to me that, if you want the students to learn to appreciate the benefits of a mainframe, you really need a full set of software too, including representatives of the VM, OS and DOS families. While there are free versions (I think I found VM on three 3330 images somewhere, and I have MVS 3.08 around here someplace), they're pretty archaic. If all you have is Linux running on the bare metal on a mainframe, there's little to distinguish it favourably from a PC. -- Cheers John -- spambait 1...@coco.merseine.nu z1...@coco.merseine.nu -- Advice http://webfoot.com/advice/email.top.php http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375 You cannot reply off-list:-) -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@vm.marist.edu with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
Re: Old IBM Mainframe - Still Useful?
I've been following this thread with interest. Having done a couple of CBA's for similar ideas, its unlikely that the old mainframe, regardless of what it is, including the 7060's, competes with a VMWARE like configuration running on commodity hardware like an Intel box. I know of several production SAAS (Software as a service) offerings relying on this type technology. The 7060 just has not got the gas to do what you want. The cost drivers that determine the outcome are hardware maintenance, CKD versus FBA dasd, power, and system programming complexity. IBM's university initiative might be a better, i.e. less expensive, path if you want to introduce IOCP to teenagers. There is a reason old mainframes have low resale values; they are financial boat anchors. Good luck. Edward Long --- On Wed, 3/25/09, John Summerfield deb...@herakles.homelinux.org wrote: From: John Summerfield deb...@herakles.homelinux.org Subject: Re: Old IBM Mainframe - Still Useful? To: LINUX-390@VM.MARIST.EDU Date: Wednesday, March 25, 2009, 6:44 AM Andrew Wiley wrote: On Tue, Mar 24, 2009 at 8:23 PM, John Summerfield deb...@herakles.homelinux.org wrote: What kind of terminal equipment will they be using? Students would access their VM's through SSH. 3. What would they be doing? Each VM will probably have a webserver hosting SVN and Trac, there will probably be some sort of build system as well, and students will be periodically running network server code to test stability and allow a centralized testing location for wider scale applications. Have you explored the use of virtual servers in Apache? It's possible to host many websites on a single copy of a single OS on a single computer using a single IP address. This is true, but I'm really wanting to have students' code isolated so if a prankster runs a forkbomb or some malicious code, everything else keeps working. There's also more educational value in giving each project a VM; hopefully it would at least teach basic linux shell commands. It's still debatable whether I should have multiple webservers or one though... I'll have to think about that. Why is S/390 the right tool for the job? Mostly the price, although I admit it's a poor justification. I'm also hoping that using it would bring more stability than our current solution. It would also (hopefully) scale better as the program grows, which is definitely happening. We need to upgrade somehow, and this offer came at the right time. There's also the benefit of exposing students to the idea that mainframes are still alive and useful (most textbooks these days cite mainframes as an example of obselete technology that existed before PC's, unfortunately), and, if possible, it would let me offer mainframe programming as an independent study course. Okay, here is what I think. Count the cost. Do you get a full, working system? If not, there are extra costs for the bits that are missing. Depending on the capabilities of your particular machine, you will have some number of essentially discrete systems (your LPARs). I gather any hardware reconfiguration you do involves pinching a bit off one machine to give it to another. Whether it's enough is for you to judge. Who is going to do the reconfiguration management? Does this system have special power requirements? What about environmentals? What will be the cost of transporting the system and doing the initial installation? What have I forgotten? There is a case for a central server to coordinate students' work. I am not convinced that a mainframe, even a free one, is the best tool for the job. For any programming students might do, it makes not a jot of difference whether they do it on a PC running Linux or a mainframe running Linux, the tools are the same. Since you said the students would be connecting via ssh, I expect they already have PCs. The only Windows ssh client I have used is putty, and while I will continue to use it, I don't like it that well. To do the job properly, one needs Linux (or, I expect one of the BSDs or a real Unix). If installing Linux on the student PCs' hardware is frowned on, how about Linux inside VirtualBox (my current favourite) or one of the MS free offerings. This might give the students the same kind of setup so many free software hackers have, their own PC and a central repository. This does not preclude students from using virtual mainframes (hercules) and checking out Linux on that. It seems to me that, if you want the students to learn to appreciate the benefits of a mainframe, you really need a full set of software too, including representatives of the VM, OS and DOS families. While there are free versions (I think I found VM on three 3330 images somewhere, and I have MVS 3.08 around here someplace), they're pretty archaic. If all you have is Linux
Re: Windows an linux under z/VM
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 John Summerfield wrote: This isn't really the place to discuss these diffulties, it's sufficient to say that virtualisation on Linux isn't ready yet. Not with XEN, not work KVM and not using the vir* tools. Mhh ... I'd say this depends to extent on your distribution and it's support resources. I was able to get a couple of Xen virts running services on redhat enterprise 5 fairly easily. On the other hand, I wasn't able to get Xen on Ubuntu 8.04 LTS on an AMD system working at all. - -- Pat -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (Darwin) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAknKQIoACgkQNObCqA8uBsxnoACfYJymCt1mbp5DuXDYkwAH7132 qeoAmgLj5S3EX7S6lAHDbk15q5Ybuefa =Yxyq -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@vm.marist.edu with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
Re: Solaris v. Linux
On 3/23/09 4:46 PM, Erik N Johnson e...@uptownmilitia.com wrote: By the same token, although Sun will insist that Solaris is 'open source' and will show the same types of development speed up that people have so often cited Linux for, it's barely open source. I can certainly attest to this statement from personal experience. It is impossible to build a working OpenSolaris on any platform without some closed-source code, some of which (amusingly enough) is owned by IBM. There are other parts of OpenSolars which Sun does not distribute source code, but provides precompiled binaries, which clearly cannot be ported anywhere. In their defense, much of this is not technical in origin, but in licensing agreements. The reason there is no OpenSolaris for SPARC is that Sun is not permitted to distribute some of the closed-source pieces on any other platform than Intel. There are pieces where only they can be the distributor, and only in a commercial product. That's the main reason for Opensolaris distributions from Sun -- they can't legally distribute some things if they are not the actual distributor and they charge something for it. They have been trying rather diligently to clean up the mess around these issues, but basically the incentive to do the clean up necessary to make this open-source-clean is not something they are prioritizing if they're struggling to survive. I can't really argue with that, much as I would like them to get on with it so I can do more to help them. But if you contribute your code to Sun or Apple, now they own it. If you ever try to use it in anything but their product they can (and WILL) sue you. They will make you regret ever downloading and viewing their code, let alone contributing your own. Erik's first law of F/OSS: A project with a Free license will have N volunteer developers, where a non-Free 'open source' project will have M volunteer developers where N = 50 * M. Don't forget IP lawyers. This is very fertile ground for them. I would tend to think that until somebody who gets it takes Sun over, or Sun gets their heads out their butts, we won't see the 'benefits of open source' coming to Open Solaris (or the newly 'open sourced' Sun JDK, also a joke by comparison with truly Free software.) Here I would disagree. To some extent, the OpenSolaris for System z port has forced them to reconsider how the opensolaris project works. We actually *did* it, which I think they never actually expected, and we simply refused to do some of their standard practices that don't fit in the Z community. That has caused them to rethink what was needed to have a successful project and change some things about how projects participate and interact with the commercial Solaris developers. So what do you listers think? Are the technical merits of Open Solaris great enough that the half-assed open source release won't be enough to stop them? Or perhaps the technical problems in the Linux internals are great enough that the benefit of Free Software won't be able to carry the day? Well, clearly I do think that Solaris has some things to offer. The question is one of maturity. Solaris has been through the process of transformation that Unix needed to be a reliable enterprise OS, and has come through pretty well. Linux is still passing through that process in terms of documentation, release management, interface stability, etc, etc. I am not saying that it won't get there, it's just that Sun had a lot of money at one point to throw at the problem, and did so. Linux can match that, but it's a matter of time. Or is Linux going to leave Solaris in the dust? Maybe. But I wouldn't bet money on it until someone fixes the flaws in RPM and in other configuration management schemes in Linux, and we get a working dtrace analogue in Linux. Dtrace is just too cool to be without -- I hope that if IBM does buy Sun that they contribute the dtrace code to open-source. It'd save a lot of time. ZFS, too. -- db -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@vm.marist.edu with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
Re: Solaris v. Linux
dtrace analogue in Linux. Dtrace is just too cool to be without -- I hope that if IBM does buy Sun that they contribute the dtrace code to open-source. It'd save a lot of time. ZFS, too. I've yet to come across something that I couldn't do with systemtap (on x86 at least that dtrace could have done but a best of both worlds would work and indeed perhaps moving to GPLv2 so code can be shared). As to ZFS - until the patent war is over its basically untouchable. Now it is possible that if IBM bought Sun it might get resolved PDQ depending upon what agreements exist back and for between NetApp and IBM ;) There are still some things Solaris does way better than Linux - certain flush heavy I/O patterns and some complex memory management games a few obscure apps use come out way better on Solaris. Alan -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@vm.marist.edu with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
SUSE on Native LPAR
I am very new to Linux and am trying to install Linux on an LAPR on a z9BC. I can load the initial Kernel by putting the CD (CD1) into the CD-ROM drive on the HMC and perform a Lad from CD. After setting up the network the Linux kernel wants to read the rest of CD1. If I tell him to use the HMC CD-ROM the response is Unable to load (not an exact quote). I have tried to use NFS on a desktop which has SUSE 10 installed (about a year ago). I get a error saying the request was rejected error = -1. I have also tried using SMB to point to the CD reader on my Windows desktop and get the same response as above (both of these take a few minutes to return). Can someone who has done this give me an idea as to what I am doing wrong? Thanks, .Larry Ps. Small shop - no money - VM not an option. Larry D. Martin Mainframe Systems Support Office of Information Technology and Communications 301.883.7335 .. This E-mail and any of its attachments may contain Prince George’s County Government or Prince George's County 7th Judicial Circuit Court proprietary information, which is privileged and confidential. This E-mail is intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to which it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient of this E-mail, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, copying, or action taken in relation to the contents of and attachments to this E-mail is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful. If you have received this E-mail in error, please notify the sender immediately and permanently delete the original and any copy of this E-mail and any printout.
Re: SUSE on Native LPAR
I copied the install files to my PC and ran an ftp server on my PC to complete the install. I used a freebe ftp server called FileZilla. Russell Jones ANPAC System Programmer -Original Message- From: Linux on 390 Port [mailto:linux-...@vm.marist.edu] On Behalf Of Martin, Larry D Sent: Wednesday, March 25, 2009 1:53 PM To: LINUX-390@VM.MARIST.EDU Subject: SUSE on Native LPAR I am very new to Linux and am trying to install Linux on an LAPR on a z9BC. I can load the initial Kernel by putting the CD (CD1) into the CD-ROM drive on the HMC and perform a Lad from CD. After setting up the network the Linux kernel wants to read the rest of CD1. If I tell him to use the HMC CD-ROM the response is Unable to load (not an exact quote). I have tried to use NFS on a desktop which has SUSE 10 installed (about a year ago). I get a error saying the request was rejected error = -1. I have also tried using SMB to point to the CD reader on my Windows desktop and get the same response as above (both of these take a few minutes to return). Can someone who has done this give me an idea as to what I am doing wrong? Thanks, .Larry Ps. Small shop - no money - VM not an option. Larry D. Martin Mainframe Systems Support Office of Information Technology and Communications 301.883.7335 .. This E-mail and any of its attachments may contain Prince George's County Government or Prince George's County 7th Judicial Circuit Court proprietary information, which is privileged and confidential. This E-mail is intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to which it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient of this E-mail, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, copying, or action taken in relation to the contents of and attachments to this E-mail is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful. If you have received this E-mail in error, please notify the sender immediately and permanently delete the original and any copy of this E-mail and any printout. -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@vm.marist.edu with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
Re: Solaris v. Linux
IIRC, when Linux390 first came out, parts of it were object only, closed source. Has this changed? If not maybe complaints about closed source in Solaris are not so reasonable. David Boyes wrote: On 3/23/09 4:46 PM, Erik N Johnson e...@uptownmilitia.com wrote: I can certainly attest to this statement from personal experience. It is impossible to build a working OpenSolaris on any platform without some closed-source code, some of which (amusingly enough) is owned by IBM. There are other parts of OpenSolars which Sun does not distribute source code, but provides precompiled binaries, which clearly cannot be ported anywhere. -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@vm.marist.edu with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
Re: Solaris v. Linux
2009/3/26 Carey Tyler Schug sqrfolk...@comcast.net: IIRC, when Linux390 first came out, parts of it were object only, closed source. Has this changed? If not maybe complaints about closed source in Solaris are not so reasonable. Makes you wonder why how RedHat, Novell, Slackware and Debian co-operated on this, doesn't it :} Cheers, Andrej -- Please don't top post, and don't use HTML e-Mail :} Make your quotes concise. http://www.american.edu/econ/notes/htmlmail.htm -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@vm.marist.edu with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
Re: Solaris v. Linux
On 3/25/2009 at 3:27 PM, Carey Tyler Schug sqrfolk...@comcast.net wrote: IIRC, when Linux390 first came out, parts of it were object only, closed source. Has this changed? That has not been the case for a good number of years now. Mark Post -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@vm.marist.edu with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
Re: Solaris v. Linux
qdio and the 3590 drivers *used* to be closed source. On 3/25/09 3:27 PM, Carey Tyler Schug sqrfolk...@comcast.net wrote: IIRC, when Linux390 first came out, parts of it were object only, closed source. Has this changed? If not maybe complaints about closed source in Solaris are not so reasonable. -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@vm.marist.edu with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
Re: Solaris v. Linux
On 3/25/09 2:45 PM, Alan Cox a...@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk wrote: a best of both worlds would work and indeed perhaps moving to GPLv2 so code can be shared). Amen to that. As cool as it is, dtrace syntax is fugly. That is one advantage for systemtap. I've had a lot of stability problems with systemtap on non-Intel systems, though. Usual didn't think about how that would work on POWER or ARM or Z or ... problem. Fixable with clue bat. As to ZFS - until the patent war is over its basically untouchable. Now it is possible that if IBM bought Sun it might get resolved PDQ depending upon what agreements exist back and for between NetApp and IBM ;) Exactly my point. There are a lot of things like this (like libi18n) that could get fixed in OpenSolaris if the CDDL were to quietly (or not so quietly) go away. There are still some things Solaris does way better than Linux - certain flush heavy I/O patterns and some complex memory management games a few obscure apps use come out way better on Solaris. And we could finally upgrade the Solaris userspace apps to something resembling usefulness, and flush the whole IPS packaging system, and maybe get rid of RPM too...8-) (The Nexenta guys did a super job with adapting APT to Solaris.) Or not. -- db -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@vm.marist.edu with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
Re: SUSE on Native LPAR
You can only do the initial boot from the HMC. All the rest of the code installation has to be done from a remote workstation. The error -1 is likely to be either a bad exports file or no name resolution. Wrt to getting VM, talk to your IBM rep. It is very easy to get z/VM as a trial system for a period of time for zero money, and you'll have a lot more success getting things to work. Ps. Small shop - no money - VM not an option. Come to Hillgang. We're friendly and helpful. 8-) -- db -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@vm.marist.edu with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
Re: SUSE on Native LPAR
On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 2:53 PM, Martin, Larry D ldmar...@co.pg.md.us wrote: I am very new to Linux and am trying to install Linux on an LAPR on a z9BC. I can load the initial Kernel by putting the CD (CD1) into the CD-ROM drive on the HMC and perform a Lad from CD. After setting up the network the Linux kernel wants to read the rest of CD1. If I tell him to use the HMC CD-ROM the response is Unable to load (not an exact quote). snip Did you use the Enable FTP Access to Mass Storage Media function of the HMC? Is your HMC on the same network as the OSA port that you're trying to use? Or is your HMC isolated or protected with a firewall? The HMC has to be told what host IP will be accessing the disk or it will not work. -- Bruce Hayden Linux on System z Advanced Technical Support IBM, Endicott, NY -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@vm.marist.edu with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
Re: Solaris v. Linux
On 3/25/2009 at 3:36 PM, Andrej andrej.gro...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/3/26 Carey Tyler Schug sqrfolk...@comcast.net: -snip- Makes you wonder why how RedHat, Novell, Slackware and Debian co-operated on this, doesn't it :} Why? Almost every Linux distribution has made exceptions to their own rules. Just look at Java. Up until recently, it was not open source, but it gets included anyway. As far as Slack/390 goes, that was my project, and although I didn't like the situation at the time, I wasn't going to have a philosophical meltdown over it. If it hadn't been for the cooperation IBM received, the open source proponents inside of IBM would never have gotten the code released. Sometimes compromise and patience win in the end. It certainly did this time. Mark Post -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@vm.marist.edu with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
Re: Solaris v. Linux
AFAIK (and with a lot of help from various organizations), all the IBM closed source bits are now gone from Linux (or have open source alternatives). The source may not be very readable/usable (cf the QDIO driver code for a prime example), but it is there. The other distinction is that you could build the core system without it and still have something that would boot; OpenSolaris cannot be built at all without the closed source code. -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@vm.marist.edu with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
Re: Solaris v. Linux
On Mar 25, 2009, at 2:43 PM, Mark Post wrote: Why? Almost every Linux distribution has made exceptions to their own rules. Just look at Java. Up until recently, it was not open source, but it gets included anyway. As far as Slack/390 goes, that was my project, and although I didn't like the situation at the time, I wasn't going to have a philosophical meltdown over it. If it hadn't been for the cooperation IBM received, the open source proponents inside of IBM would never have gotten the code released. Sometimes compromise and patience win in the end. It certainly did this time. Almost. I find Debian's insistence on license purity admirable from one standpoint, but irritating from several others. Adam -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@vm.marist.edu with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
Re: Solaris v. Linux
On 3/25/09 3:43 PM, Mark Post mp...@novell.com wrote: If it hadn't been for the cooperation IBM received, the open source proponents inside of IBM would never have gotten the code released. Sometimes compromise and patience win in the end. It certainly did this time. Along with a number of customer-written white papers that explained how they were going to lose big time money and street credit if they didn't. Call me a cynic, but there's not a whole lot of good will 'tward all mankind involved here. It took people that knew how to manipulate the IBM system and worldview to get their ends accomplished. Some of those people were inside, many more were not. Some one had to show them how it affected their bottom line before anyone had a chance to get that stuff open sourced. Guess I'm just in a bad mood, but there's no good will involved here. As the Book of Chuckie 5:23 tells us, it's a business decision that moves IBM. Nothing personal. -- db -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@vm.marist.edu with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
Re: Solaris v. Linux
Debian doesn't exist to provide a commercial operating system. Debian has only one purpose, to provide a fully free operating system, which is why no other GNU/Linux distribution has such a strong relationship with the FSF or the GNU project. Complaining that Debian does waht it is their mission to do is as silly as complaining that IBM makes and sells coputer hardware or software, it is the purpose of the organization. There was community interest WELL before IBM became involved and there still remains an almost complete (fully free, community-based) port to the System/370. It is likely that without the strong pressure from organizations like Debian to get things made Free IBM would not have had much incentive to do it. I rather suspect there is a chicken and egg problem at Sun. They don't believe that going with a GPL-compatible license would benefit them because they havn't seen what it would do. And the open source community at large won't come to the table on OpenSolaris until Sun rectifies this. All in all I am seeing that people generally share my frustration: If Solaris were Free we'd all love to work on it which, combined with proper support (from Sun or IBM or whoever ends up with it,) would probably propel it to the top. Of course the BSD family of operating systems boasts much of the same functionality and stability as Solaris (including dtrace, and those NetBSD people are also responsible for almost every entry on the list of GCC supported architectures) but lacks any major players in the support market, so it is pretty evident how important support is. But nobody is gonna walk away from all the existing and very lucrative Solaris support contracts so that's not going anywhere. I think licensing is going to become an increasingly important factor. Erik Johnson On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 3:11 PM, Adam Thornton athorn...@sinenomine.net wrote: On Mar 25, 2009, at 2:43 PM, Mark Post wrote: Why? Almost every Linux distribution has made exceptions to their own rules. Just look at Java. Up until recently, it was not open source, but it gets included anyway. As far as Slack/390 goes, that was my project, and although I didn't like the situation at the time, I wasn't going to have a philosophical meltdown over it. If it hadn't been for the cooperation IBM received, the open source proponents inside of IBM would never have gotten the code released. Sometimes compromise and patience win in the end. It certainly did this time. Almost. I find Debian's insistence on license purity admirable from one standpoint, but irritating from several others. Adam -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@vm.marist.edu with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390 -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@vm.marist.edu with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
Re: Solaris v. Linux
Yeah but.. that's where distros based on Debian come in. Personally, I like the idea of an open source only distro that you expound upon with closed AND open source packages to focus on a particular need/audience (e.g. Ubuntu and desktop) Scott On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 2:11 PM, Adam Thornton athorn...@sinenomine.netwrote: On Mar 25, 2009, at 2:43 PM, Mark Post wrote: Why? Almost every Linux distribution has made exceptions to their own rules. Just look at Java. Up until recently, it was not open source, but it gets included anyway. As far as Slack/390 goes, that was my project, and although I didn't like the situation at the time, I wasn't going to have a philosophical meltdown over it. If it hadn't been for the cooperation IBM received, the open source proponents inside of IBM would never have gotten the code released. Sometimes compromise and patience win in the end. It certainly did this time. Almost. I find Debian's insistence on license purity admirable from one standpoint, but irritating from several others. Adam -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@vm.marist.edu with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390 -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@vm.marist.edu with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
Re: Solaris v. Linux
Of course. Debian is only practical in the real world for a handful of things. But there is nobody in all of GNU/Linux who doesn't benefit from the work done by these people. The majority of kernel code comes from paid developers it's true, but the Debian project submits plenty of patches. The same goes for Gentoo. This is the whole point of the open source movement. This is why and how the organizations Andrej mentions were able to collaborate on bringing Linux/390 and z/Linux to the market. They have had a working business relationship for their entire respective existences, despite the fact they are in direct competition with one another. It's really brilliant, they get tremendous benefits in terms of stability, release cycle, features, and standardization for their customers and it allows them to focus their competitive energies on bringing the best possible service and support to their particular type of customer. It hasn't got anything to do with doing good for the sake of doing good. It's just doing what makes sense. Erik Johnson On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 3:29 PM, Scott Rohling scott.rohl...@gmail.com wrote: Yeah but.. that's where distros based on Debian come in. Personally, I like the idea of an open source only distro that you expound upon with closed AND open source packages to focus on a particular need/audience (e.g. Ubuntu and desktop) Scott On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 2:11 PM, Adam Thornton athorn...@sinenomine.netwrote: On Mar 25, 2009, at 2:43 PM, Mark Post wrote: Why? Almost every Linux distribution has made exceptions to their own rules. Just look at Java. Up until recently, it was not open source, but it gets included anyway. As far as Slack/390 goes, that was my project, and although I didn't like the situation at the time, I wasn't going to have a philosophical meltdown over it. If it hadn't been for the cooperation IBM received, the open source proponents inside of IBM would never have gotten the code released. Sometimes compromise and patience win in the end. It certainly did this time. Almost. I find Debian's insistence on license purity admirable from one standpoint, but irritating from several others. Adam -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@vm.marist.edu with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390 -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@vm.marist.edu with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390 -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@vm.marist.edu with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
Re: Solaris v. Linux
On 3/25/09 4:26 PM, Erik N Johnson e...@uptownmilitia.com wrote: There was community interest WELL before IBM became involved and there still remains an almost complete (fully free, community-based) port to the System/370. Thank you. It's nice to see that someone still remembers our early work and hasn't swallowed the corporate revisionism. I rather suspect there is a chicken and egg problem at Sun. They don't believe that going with a GPL-compatible license would benefit them because they havn't seen what it would do. And the open source community at large won't come to the table on OpenSolaris until Sun rectifies this. I think it has more to do with a sense of survival. IBM often suffers this problem too -- any change to the status quo where revenue on OS or hardware is concerned -- is automatically a critical situation. Talk to any of the z/OS planners if you want to see a live example of someone who gets really paranoid when you start talking about other systems on System z, or insist that System z is NOT equal to z/OS. You can easily explain Sun's behavior by that model: if Sun loses control, then they can no longer supply guarantees of reliability, and they risk possible revenue loss and collapse of market share, eventually leading to corporate suicide. When you're losing tens of millions a quarter, that starts to be a very real fear. All in all I am seeing that people generally share my frustration: If Solaris were Free we'd all love to work on it Binary-only licenses ARE free with hardware. Ditto OpenSolaris for Intel. And OpenSolaris for Z. But you meen Free as in GPL sense of free. Of course the BSD family of operating systems boasts much of the same functionality and stability as Solaris But then you're back to ISV support. Sun spent a lot of money getting that problem solved. I think licensing is going to become an increasingly important factor. I'm more concerned about anti-trust. If the IBM/Sun merger is blocked on anti-trust grounds, and Sun cannot locate another angel investor, my analysis would indicate that they're not long for this world. I don't believe HP has sufficient free cash to buy Sun (and would face the same anti-trust problems), and HP's history with strategic acquisitions is disastrous (the DEC/Compaq merger almost destroyed the company as a whole). -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@vm.marist.edu with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
Re: Solaris v. Linux
On 3/25/2009 at 4:26 PM, David Boyes dbo...@sinenomine.net wrote: -snip- Guess I'm just in a bad mood, but there's no good will involved here. As the Book of Chuckie 5:23 tells us, it's a business decision that moves IBM. Nothing personal. Who said anything about good will? If the Linux distributions hadn't cooperated, there wouldn't have been a market for IBM in the first place. No market, no brainer business decision, no open source code. Mark Post -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@vm.marist.edu with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
Re: Solaris v. Linux
On Wed, 25 Mar 2009 14:27:00 -0500 Carey Tyler Schug sqrfolk...@comcast.net wrote: IIRC, when Linux390 first came out, parts of it were object only, closed source. Has this changed? If not maybe complaints about closed source in Solaris are not so reasonable. Oh it changed - a mix of arm twists, threatening, and business case. Plus I suspect as IBM better got to grips with the GPL and Linux it no doubt grew more sure and confident of what it did. In the original days IBM was very paranoid - they almost didn't release their S/390 port and they finally put it out about two days before I merged the rival non IBM controlled 370 port into the -ac tree. I know not whether that was co-incidence. To give you an idea of how paranoid it was initially I got some driver code from IBM for review/merging in the first merge up of the 390 tree. It had various blank spaces where comments had been removed by legal. When I asked the IBM guy to at least remove the gaps he asked me to do it as if he deleted the blank lines he'd have to go back through legal again ... So IBM's willingness to get involved and degree of involvement has changed quite dramatically since the 390 port first emerged. Alan -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@vm.marist.edu with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
Re: Solaris v. Linux
I may have been misunderstood. It peeves me that my web browser has to be called Iceweasel, but almost all of my internal infrastructure is running Debian. That's because maintenance and updates and local configuration-without-having- it-clobbered-by-an-upgrade all works *so* much more easily there than under the, ah, more-accepted-as-Enterprise Linuxes. Adam -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@vm.marist.edu with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
Re: Solaris v. Linux
Which is why they, and many other large corporations have PR departments. They understand how 'the perception of' goodwill towards man affects their sales AND stock. Erik Johnson On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 3:26 PM, David Boyes dbo...@sinenomine.net wrote: On 3/25/09 3:43 PM, Mark Post mp...@novell.com wrote: If it hadn't been for the cooperation IBM received, the open source proponents inside of IBM would never have gotten the code released. Sometimes compromise and patience win in the end. It certainly did this time. Along with a number of customer-written white papers that explained how they were going to lose big time money and street credit if they didn't. Call me a cynic, but there's not a whole lot of good will 'tward all mankind involved here. It took people that knew how to manipulate the IBM system and worldview to get their ends accomplished. Some of those people were inside, many more were not. Some one had to show them how it affected their bottom line before anyone had a chance to get that stuff open sourced. Guess I'm just in a bad mood, but there's no good will involved here. As the Book of Chuckie 5:23 tells us, it's a business decision that moves IBM. Nothing personal. -- db -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@vm.marist.edu with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390 -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@vm.marist.edu with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
Re: Old IBM Mainframe - Still Useful?
On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 5:44 AM, John Summerfield deb...@herakles.homelinux.org wrote: Okay, here is what I think. Count the cost. Do you get a full, working system? If not, there are extra costs for the bits that are missing. We're still trying to figure this out, hopefully we'll get a response soon. Depending on the capabilities of your particular machine, you will have some number of essentially discrete systems (your LPARs). I gather any hardware reconfiguration you do involves pinching a bit off one machine to give it to another. Whether it's enough is for you to judge. Who is going to do the reconfiguration management? I'm not sure what you mean. As for setting up LPAR's, I expect that at some point during the summer, myself and a few advanced students that are interested would spend as much as a week going through manuals, figuring out how to get everything set up, and actually setting it up. That would cover the software side. As for the hardware, I'm going to have to make sure we have everything we need either when we receive the system or shortly after. Does this system have special power requirements? What about environmentals? We have a room (really a large, climate controlled closed) that houses some servers (not many though), and we expect that we could probably put it in there. We'll have to get some specifications on power draw and heat output and run them past the maintenance department though. What will be the cost of transporting the system and doing the initial installation? We're not entirely sure how this will work at the moment. It would depend on how much care transporting a mainframe requires, which I haven't read about (so far). What have I forgotten? Well, from the one datasheet I managed to find on the IBM website about this machine, the hardware specs a company could buy vary (by today's standards) from useless to excellent. If the company purchased a lower end version, it wouldn't be worth the effort to get it transported and running. There is a case for a central server to coordinate students' work. I am not convinced that a mainframe, even a free one, is the best tool for the job. My contention is that if it's available, I can run linux on it, and it has the capacity for what I need, it's the best tool for the job. As I explained earlier, there are also some educational benefits to having a mainframe rather than another system. The only concern that I don't think I've voiced so far is maintenance. I know it was mentioned that this machine would be close to the end of its lifespan, and when maintenance costs become too high, I would have to find another solution elsewhere. If this machine is already nearing the end of its lifespan, I'll have to decide whether the effort of moving it and setting it up is worth the estimated service life. For any programming students might do, it makes not a jot of difference whether they do it on a PC running Linux or a mainframe running Linux, the tools are the same. Since you said the students would be connecting via ssh, I expect they already have PCs. The only Windows ssh client I have used is putty, and while I will continue to use it, I don't like it that well. To do the job properly, one needs Linux (or, I expect one of the BSDs or a real Unix). If installing Linux on the student PCs' hardware is frowned on, how about Linux inside VirtualBox (my current favourite) or one of the MS free offerings. What I'm looking at is using our existing Windows lab (the client computers all run Eclipse and a few other IDEs) but storing code (SVN), providing project management software, and allowing for a centralized testing location for server software on a centralized server. I've never had a problem with Putty, and some of the students use it. Connecting can be clumsy, but beyond there, I haven't had any complaints. I like it more than I like the DOS prompt. This might give the students the same kind of setup so many free software hackers have, their own PC and a central repository. This does not preclude students from using virtual mainframes (hercules) and checking out Linux on that. It seems to me that, if you want the students to learn to appreciate the benefits of a mainframe, you really need a full set of software too, including representatives of the VM, OS and DOS families. While there are free versions (I think I found VM on three 3330 images somewhere, and I have MVS 3.08 around here someplace), they're pretty archaic. This all comes down to what I can get my hands on. At this point, I don't know what I would wind up having. If all you have is Linux running on the bare metal on a mainframe, there's little to distinguish it favourably from a PC. Well, even in it's old age, this machine, if it had higher end specifications at purchase time, looks like it could outperform pretty much all the servers we run right now. Hopefully that's not a false impression I
Re: Solaris v. Linux
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 David Boyes wrote: and maybe get rid of RPM too...8-) (The Nexenta guys did a super job with adapting APT to Solaris.) I consistently see this complaint, and it really rubs me wrong. Why does everyone compare rpm to apt? Wouldn't rpm to deb be the correct comparison, and then compare yum to apt? If you want to ask why the floop it took as long as it did for redhat to adopt yum, that's valid, or if you want to compare yum and apt, that's valid, or comparing deb to rpm, okay; but comparing rpm to apt just doesn't fly. - -- Pat -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (Darwin) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAknK9ikACgkQNObCqA8uBswhyACfQDsvXsMaymvJj1rzBb5+BLID RnIAnRQFb84FkUWjqH142fRLl+HPliuv =dDGe -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@vm.marist.edu with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
Re: Solaris v. Linux
Patrick Spinler wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 David Boyes wrote: and maybe get rid of RPM too...8-) (The Nexenta guys did a super job with adapting APT to Solaris.) I consistently see this complaint, and it really rubs me wrong. Why does everyone compare rpm to apt? Wouldn't rpm to deb be the correct comparison, and then compare yum to apt? More accurately, rpm to dpkg. I don't think the package format is that important, though there might be room for discussion about the metadata stored therein. I haven't yet figured out what's wrong with up2date. -- Cheers John -- spambait 1...@coco.merseine.nu z1...@coco.merseine.nu -- Advice http://webfoot.com/advice/email.top.php http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375 You cannot reply off-list:-) -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@vm.marist.edu with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
Re: Solaris v. Linux
Adam Thornton wrote: On Mar 25, 2009, at 2:43 PM, Mark Post wrote: Why? Almost every Linux distribution has made exceptions to their own rules. Just look at Java. Up until recently, it was not open source, but it gets included anyway. As far as Slack/390 goes, that was my project, and although I didn't like the situation at the time, I wasn't going to have a philosophical meltdown over it. If it hadn't been for the cooperation IBM received, the open source proponents inside of IBM would never have gotten the code released. Sometimes compromise and patience win in the end. It certainly did this time. Almost. I find Debian's insistence on license purity admirable from one standpoint, but irritating from several others. As I recall, RH doesn't ship OCO stuff either. Some closed-source stuff it does include (and Java has been one) is only in the paid-for versions. Users of Fedora and RHEL clones continue to have problems with blobs of firmware (wireless cards for example). I'm sure I read here, Get that from IBM. Hopefully, Java is more-or-less solved about now. -- Cheers John -- spambait 1...@coco.merseine.nu z1...@coco.merseine.nu -- Advice http://webfoot.com/advice/email.top.php http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375 You cannot reply off-list:-) -- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@vm.marist.edu with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
