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Linux Business

Red Hat, IBM Expand Linux Deal 140

Posted by Hemos from the growing-out-the-bidness dept.
jukal writes "From ZDNet "Red Hat and IBM have expanded a partnership, with Red Hat bringing its top-end version of Linux to all four of IBM's server lines and with IBM's services and software divisions supporting Red Hat's software. "" The NYTimes also has a version of the story, as does the News-Observer.
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Red Hat, IBM Expand Linux Deal More

Red Hat, IBM Expand Linux Deal

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  • [...]Lotus e-mail and calendar software works on Advanced Server[...]This is a very good thing!!

  • Quite pleased! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Jeppe Salvesen ( 101622 ) on Monday September 16, 2002 @08:08AM (#4264758)
    I am quite pleased. As more and more open source project become so mature they can be run in a large corporation, the need to run on big iron emerges. This is the kind of deal that will enable Linux to nicely scale further into the corporate everyday life.
    • As more and more open source project become so mature they can be run in a large corporation, the need to run on big iron emerges.

      Advanced Server isn't open source. This deal marks Red Hat's continued transition away from the open source business model.
      • Advanced Server isn't open source? I thought that Red Hat just weren't offering it for free download. That doesn't mean it's not all open source.

      • Advanced Server isn't open source. This deal marks Red Hat's continued transition away from the open source business model.

        ***

        Yes it is. I don't see what's so hard about this for people. They just don't provide it freely on their web servers, and most people who have forked out the $800 don't want to just give it away either.
      • Pure anti-Red Hat FUD!

        What part of these SRPMS aren't Open Source?

        ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/linux/enterprise /2 .1AS/en/os/i386/SRPMS/

        If you read here [redhat.com] , most of RHAS is Open Source...and everything Red Hat wrote is GPL'ed.
        • The operative word being "most," brother. As your link [redhat.com] says, The majority of it is open source. If it has non-open components, then it's neither free software nor open source, even though parts of it are.
          • But _none_ of the non-open-source parts are written by RedHat. What this means is simply that Red Hat is an open-source company, but has customers who use non-open-source tools and thus must integrate with those people (i.e. - install those connection libraries, etc.). Almost all distributions do this already, anyway. Did you complain when distros were including Netscape before Mozilla came along?
            • Whether the whole thing is written by Red Hat or not is not at issue. The fact is it's not an open source product; it's a product with open source portions.

              As for "complaining," I'm not complaining at all -- I'm pointing out a fact. If anything it's good news for Red Hat, since they've been unprofitable trying to sell what anyone can give away for free. Their new business model may give them hope for a future.
              • The fact is it's not an open source product; it's a product with open source portions.

                ***

                Most of which are open-source. If something is 99% open-source and 1% not, I don't call it a product with "open source portions". I call it an open-source product that has a minor set of proprietary portions. To say it only has open source portions is quite misleading - especially since all parts that make it "Red Hat" are open-source.
                • I will concede the issue that a product might still deserve the label open source even if it contains non-open-source components under certain circumstances. The presence of Netscape 4.x in Red Hat distributions is a good example.

                  I think the issue of whether such a product deserves to be called open source or not has nothing to do with who wrote the modules, and not a lot to do with whether the majority of code is open source. I think the questions are whether the non-open parts provide core or optional functionality, and how much they have to do with customer interest in the product.

                  Unfortunately, without a list of the modules in Advanced Server and their licenses, it's not possible for anyone who doesn't own the product to determine whether the non-open modules are core or optional, or whether they provide major differentiating features.
                  • Although I don't own the product, I _believe_ the major differentiating features are:

                    1) long-term RedHat support (rather than the "every-6-month-release of regular RedHat)

                    2) Asynchronous I/O as a supported part of the kernel

                    3) Clustering as a supported part of the kernel

                    4) Patches to the kernel to provide extra scalability

                    And all of these are open-source (except #1, which is a business model). There could be other things, but I think these are the biggies.
  • Id love to run linux on these IBM Monsters ...

    as someone said,I dont trust a computer that I can lift ... and now it can run linux! ... perfect!!!
  • Will this deal mean that in the process, RH will produce a better version of their distribution for PC's, which still represent the bulk of their earnings?

    I guess I could rephrase the question into what's in it for me?

  • They might not be the fastest, the most secure, , but they have the best chance (to me) of being successful.

    Many of the other Linux companies seem like garage-based outfits, and some of them are. Not to leave the little guy out, but personally I think RedHat has the best shot out of any Linux vendor. Besides, it's probably worse to have 5-6 distributions duking it out with each other.
    • RedHat has pretty much become the de facto standard for Linux because of the fact this is pretty much the standard Linux distro found on many desktop computers. After all, a lot of Dell server racks run RH Linux nowadays.

      It'll be interesting to see what Red Hat Linux will be like when the 2.6.x kernel appears.
      • It'll be interesting to see what Red Hat Linux will be like when the 2.6.x kernel appears.

        I guess Red Hat Linux 9.0 will be their first release with a 2.6 kernel.
  • I think I'll be buying their Intel servers in place of Compaq in future.

    Speak with your wallets, people.

  • the trickle effect of anti-trust? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by cenonce ( 597067 ) <{anthony_t} {at} {mac.com}> on Monday September 16, 2002 @08:41AM (#4264903)
    Is this the trickle effect of anti-trust?

    Seems to me I've seen a bunch of articles on companies opting away from MS products. Dell offer Linux, IBM offering Linux, Dell (and other companies?) offering Word Perfect instead of some variation of Office.

    In my opinion, this looks like the start of a stance by companies against MS. Time more than ever for ALL Linux distros to be more user friendly. Don't get more wrong, I think Linux is a great thing, but I still use OS X because I get a stable OS, PLUS the ability to futz with *nix.

    The Linux "collective" needs to start making Linux less configurable (yes I said LESS) for the average user. The average user just doesn't care about all the configurability of Linux... heck, I'm a slightly above average user and I don't care!!! When the learning curve is less steep for Linux, or when somebody offers a distro (Lycoris?) that has less of a learning curve (a sort of Linux Home edition), then Linux will make some major inroads into the home.

    That would be great to see... because everybody should have access to the world of computers and everybody shouldn't have to buy a new one ever 2 years to keep up with the low quality stuff MS puts out.

    -A
    • > The Linux "collective" needs to start making Linux less configurable (yes I said LESS) for the average user. The average user just doesn't care about all the configurability of Linux... heck, I'm a slightly above average user and I don't care!!! When the learning curve is less steep for Linux, or when somebody offers a distro (Lycoris?) that has less of a learning curve (a sort of Linux Home edition), then Linux will make some major inroads into the home.

      Hell no! :-)

      Let me tell you, there's an older lady at my company who'll be retiring in a couple of days. I once mentioned Linux while I was working on her computer and she bubbled right up. Seems that she once used KDE at another company... and loved it.

      Now, she doesn't know the first thing about her computer. She's one of those users that needs help to install a comet cursor, but she did love Linux because she could change everything about it. (She happens to be quite fond of changing themes and backgrounds.)

      • The problem is that your example is purely anecdotal. The majority of people don't even need near the customizability that Linux offers, which is why everybody pays for MS's garbage.

        Second, the fact that this "older lady" likes to customize desktops and backgrounds in KDE does not mean that she can handle an installation in Linux. You can customize backgrounds and desktops in Winders and the installs are point and click.

        Without an O'Reilly book and some gumption, I can't get Linux to install right all the time, even in a nice distro format like Yellow Dog! One wrong click and I have to start all over! And not to mention that somtimes, nice features such as the GUI login just stop working (which is where I am at right now with it!)

        To me, that will always be the big problem with Linux: the techies don't want to take ANY option away from the average user, so they make Linux usable only to the technically inclined.

        I liken it to my insistence on constantly showing my Mom options on MacOS, constantly giving her the "more configurrable" set-up... all I got was phone call after phone call to get help! I don't do that anymore... I just install it, set-up the minimum and let her go. Now, she's got OS X and I have Mail, Word and IE on her dock and that's it! She has one big partition, no swap space or Users paritions, harddrive and other icons are hidden on the desktop, I tell her to save everything in Home so she doesn't lose it and everything works just fine.

        Linux won't ever do that, and that's why I sadly think it will never get to the average user machine.


        -A
        • Without an O'Reilly book and some gumption, I can't get Linux to install right all the time, even in a nice distro format like Yellow Dog!

          How sad :)
        • "The problem is that your example is purely anecdotal."

          I don't have access to a large pool of users to survey. :-)

          "Without an O'Reilly book and some gumption, I can't get Linux to install right all the time, even in a nice distro format like Yellow Dog! One wrong click and I have to start all over! And not to mention that somtimes, nice features such as the GUI login just stop working (which is where I am at right now with it!)"

          Like the other poster said, that's just sad. I'm sorry, but how do you get through any installs?

          Look, I was talking about a corporate user, one of those fabled "enterprise" desktops we hear so much about. She would never have to ever install... anything. Her drive would be one big partition, the OS something dd'ed from a generic install box. Because you can't get through a Linux install only means I'd never hire you, not that Linux can't be a success on the coporate desktop. :-)

          My users have all been trained to find things on their desktop. (In fact, if a program's not there, they call the helpdesk guy to "install" it...) All I do is get their software together and put a link on the desktop.

          But to get back to the point, configurability is important to me so I can customise everything on the box for my users. On the desktop, configurability is important for the all-so-important, breathless call "I don't like how X works!"

          • I perhaps overstate my ineptitude, but you would be smart in never hiring me to do an install! :) Yellow Dog installs just fine, but there are numerous spots that can be hang-ups and makes Linux unusable for the average person.

            For example, if I partition the drive wrong, then have to restart, I can't use that partition... that info was hidden in the little "pamphlet" I got with the distro. And had I downloaded it, I might have never seen that issue.

            If I mistakenly say NO to whether I have OS X also on the drive, it never comes up as an option to boot into X during the bootloader. Now, I'm sure there is a way to re-configure it, but again, this goes back to the average home user: they don't want to be traipsing around the command line trying to figure out the odd-language of the shell AND they don't have you or another support person to fix it. That leads to frustration and that leads to Linux being know as a "Geek OS". I agree with you about corporate users, but they have you and other Support people to help them through.

            Now, we get into using the OS. Right now, the GUI interface I installed in the YDL distro no longer works. All I get is the machine constantly flashing the text loging inteface, but I can't login because it keeps "resetting". I've fsck'ed it and all that, but it still doesn't work and I have no idea how to fix it. I booted from the rescue CD, but that only gets me to the command line. I don't know what to run, or what to edit. So I'll spend a few hours trying to figure it out, because I am interested in learning more about Linux. I'll post on the YDL forums and wait for some help, but the average user won't. Most of my friends, my girlfriend, my Mom... they just want to install it and have it work. No troubleshooting, no waiting, just work... even if it is a crappy OS like Windows! And I can't blame them... they aren't remotely geeky (yeah, I guess like you and me!) :)

            To tie this into a point (I hope!), that is where the configurability of Linux, to me, it is a disadvantage and why you get a lot of breathless calls saying "I don't know how X works". With Windows, you get "my machine crashed, please fix it". So it is a choice between thousands of little calls or dozens of big calls.

            I don't know which is better, but being able to blame somebody (i.e., Microsoft) may be what people are willing to pay for.
            -A
            • "I perhaps overstate my ineptitude, but you would be smart in never hiring me to do an install! :) Yellow Dog installs just fine, but there are numerous spots that can be hang-ups and makes Linux unusable for the average person."

              No arguement here. And your point about custom options causes some of this mess. But that's why you have uber geeks like me fix it for the users. What blissful nirvana their lives must be. :-)

              "All I get is the machine constantly flashing the text loging inteface, but I can't login because it keeps "resetting". I've fsck'ed it and all that, but it still doesn't work and I have no idea how to fix it."

              Well, this isn't usually a forum for tech support, but I'd be glad to help if I can. X is failing to start, so you are going to need to login as root (the flashing will stop after a couple of tries to start X).

              If you execute `tail /var/log/XFree86.0.log` it'll most likely tell you why it can't start. Probably a video card or font problem. If it says something like "Can't find fixed font," then try `/etc/init.d/xfs start`.

              You may think this is horrible that you have to do this to fix your box, but I've seen the Windows safe mode more times than I care to recall. :-) It's a nice point-and-click interface that's supposed to help you fix things, but it usually fails to do anything powerful enough to be very useful.

              I do have an OS X iBook. After trying to get Debian installed, and failing (funny enough) because there's no XFree driver for my radeon mobility card, I actually had to boot into OS 9's install disk to repartition the drive. Had it been a Linux box it would have been nothing to drop to a terminal and fix things for myself... OS X just died during that process.... But it did look good sitting there doing nothing. :-)

              Anyway, my point: the terminal and configurability may scare users but it's still important...
        • >>>does not mean that she can handle an installation in Linux
          She'd probably lose her mind in a Windows install then ;-)

          Most folks have never installed Windows. It came on the PC. This is a perception issue that we need to overcome, one phase is making the install more user friendly, another would be to lean on your favorite IHV to pre-load.
    • This is a job for the distros. Lindows is having some success by bundling Wine and giving you a windows look & feel. RedHat is moving more towards an "official RedHat default desktop", while preserving your choice, if you want to do the expert installation.

      Debian, Gentoo, and the other "hard-core" distros, I imagine, will never do this, because that's not the what their users want.

      This is an excellent illustration of how you make money off free software. You put in the effort of selecting a single CD player, a single web browser, a single email client and so on, lay it down on the users hard disk with a minimum of flashy install screens. Then people buy it more than they buy those other distros that didn't want to make a decision.
    • IBM has been biding their time and not too happily about the whole Windows thing. MS is a HUGE threat and has cost IBM many fortunes through reduced sales of midrange and mainframe products and by taking a cut out of IBM for PC hardware and for killing IBM's own x86 OS. Not to mention that they compete on almost all layered applications (databases, development apps, etc). So I am sure that IBM would LOVE to free themselves more from MS and stop feeding their competitor. The reality is that they need to maintain a good relationship for now, but I bet IBM would drop MS in a heartbeat if they really could.
    • The Linux "collective" needs to start making Linux less configurable (yes I said LESS) for the average user. The average user just doesn't care about all the configurability of Linux... heck, I'm a slightly above average user and I don't care!!! When the learning curve is less steep for Linux, or when somebody offers a distro (Lycoris?) that has less of a learning curve (a sort of Linux Home edition), then Linux will make some major inroads into the home.

      A few points.

      a) There is no Linux "collective". There are distros, there are projects. Some are making things more configurable, some less.

      b) There is indeed a recognition that too many prefs make bad GUIs (which is what you're actually referring to I think). For instance, GNOME2 has far simpler configuration and in some cases fewer features than GNOME 1.4 - this was painful for some but deliberate. Often, you can access prefs via the GConf system anyway like in the Windows registry if you must change settings that don't have GUIs.

      c) There are lots of reasons Linux has yet to make big inroads onto the desktop. Too much configurability is only a very minor one when compared to the just general lack of polish it has. For instance, it's too hard to install software often.

      Finally, although it's a common truism that Joe User does not want complexity or configurability, my own experience with non-geeks are that they often love the higher flexibility of Linux. "You can have multiple user interfaces, cool!", "You can change the window borders - sweet!", "You can make an auto updated web cam link on your desktop - amazing!". Yes, of course there are some people who cannot stand choice, probably because they are not used to it, but many many others like it. What can you do?

      • Yes, I realize now that it really is the responsibility of the distro to make it more or less configurable, more or less difficult to install. As an aside, I believe that may be a problem for Linux. I don't think the average user understands that Linux is the underlying "kernel" driving KDE or Gnome or whatever, that Linux is the underlying kernel in a RH, SuSe or Yellow Dog distro. Thus, Linux is interoperable no matter what platform you are on. People are accustomed to Microsoft: one company for the distro and nothing else generally works very well with it. Of course, that is anti-trust as we have finally seen! :)

        I think I am referring to too many prefs in the GUIs, but that is where 99% of the home market wants to do their configuration. Very few of those users want to go back to the DOS command line days. Heck, my girlfriend tells me that Windows had been out a few years before she could actually LEAVE DOS, but now she would never want to go back to all that command line and function key stuff. While I'm more inclined to peer into the command line, I'd rather configure with a GUI.

        Lack of polish is a problem. If you followed my post with my locked-up GUI, the solution was simply plugging my mouse back into my laptop. That's the kind of stuff that infuriates the average user and keeps them away from Linux. While I appreciate that the way a distro essentially makes money is by making you pay for support, it seems that a little ridiculous to have to call tech support for every little hiccup. Maybe I'll feel differently when I have a better handle on Linux, but right now, I truly am a Linux newbie.

        I think where MacOS and, yeah, even Windows, has Linux beat is in stability of install and ease of configuration. Linux definiately wins on being able to tear the entire system apart to find a problem and make however you want. But then again, as I mentioned, that is why I think, for now, the best of both worlds is OS X.


        -A
        • I don't think the average user understands that Linux is the underlying "kernel" driving KDE or Gnome or whatever, that Linux is the underlying kernel in a RH, SuSe or Yellow Dog distro. Thus, Linux is interoperable no matter what platform you are on.

          Tru dat. But Linux is largely interoperable between distros. As much as cars are interoperable with each other, for instance.

          I think I am referring to too many prefs in the GUIs, but that is where 99% of the home market wants to do their configuration.

          Ah, I think perhaps you misunderstand. It's better to have prefs stored in some kind of database (text files in /etc, gconf registry) as then GUIs can be layered over them. If you use OS X you must know how many small utilities there are that simply adjust settings that Apple (deliberately) do not provide GUIs for - primarily reducing graphics overhead so it can run on lower spec machines. There are lots of TweakUI style programs around, that are basically just front ends to registry keys.

          Heck, my girlfriend tells me that Windows had been out a few years before she could actually LEAVE DOS, but now she would never want to go back to all that command line and function key stuff.

          That is not evidence that the GUI is superior to the command line. Considering that DOS had no support even for basic command line stuff like tab completion, I'm not surprised she doesn't want to go back. Yet here we are, most Linux users are of course ex-Windows users, but the cli is still a very popular interface. Why? Because the Linux CLI doesn't suck.

          She's also probably confusing the fact that most DOS programs were text based, rather than GUI based. So to her, DOS doesn't mean "cd", "dir" etc, it means text mode word processors. It works quite well on Linux, really. And no, it's not the same as in OS X, which doesn't really provide much power via the command line, it inherited one from unix but never really made it a central feature.

          Lack of polish is a problem. If you followed my post with my locked-up GUI, the solution was simply plugging my mouse back into my laptop. That's the kind of stuff that infuriates the average user and keeps them away from Linux.

          I didn't see that post, but I've seen enough to know that you consider Yellow Dog to be an easy to use Linux distro. Sorry, but Mac support for Linux has never been a high priority for the dev teams, and using on a Mac is a second rate experience compared to an Intel PC. The reasons for this should be pretty clear, PCs are open, Macs are not, and PCs are vastly more popular, so they get priority. I dunno what caused that mouse problem, but I've never heard of anything like that on the PC. Even the PPC versions of mainstream distros (of which YellowDog is not one) are usually harder to setup and are buggier than the PC ones. It should be noted that installing SuSE 8 is easier than installing Windows (98). It detects all my hardware and installs the drivers for it perfectly, and it installs and configures all my software. It'll even resize partitions and auto-detect networks. Setting up Windows with all the drivers and apps takes a day. Linux takes a few hours. Installation is no longer a problem mate. I suggest you find a modern PC and try the latest Intel distros (suse ppc is not the same btw).

          While I appreciate that the way a distro essentially makes money is by making you pay for support, it seems that a little ridiculous to have to call tech support for every little hiccup. Maybe I'll feel differently when I have a better handle on Linux, but right now, I truly am a Linux newbie.

          Don't worry, we all were once. This is another misconception, that companies like RedHat/SuSE make money out of private individuals phoning up to ask how to install their CD burner. When we say "support" in reference to distros, we mean corporate level support. This isn't for fixing the odd problem, it's for having 24/7 engineers on callout, consulting etc. You might want to check out the #linuxhelp channel on FreeNode IRC. It's where I got all my tech support, didn't have to ring SuSE once.

          Linux definiately wins on being able to tear the entire system apart to find a problem and make however you want. But then again, as I mentioned, that is why I think, for now, the best of both worlds is OS X.

          If you believe that you can tear apart and change OS X in the same way as Linux then you need to think again. Even Windows is vastly more configurable than OS X, you can alter almost any setting, it's themable, it can also have multiple user interfaces (check out talisman). OS X is a dog when it comes to customization, you need to buy 3rd party programs just to turn off graphics effects you don't want by and large.

          Finally, it should be noted that the biggest strength Linux has is of course it's licensing. It's a gift to society, not a mechanism for extracting money from locked-in customers (that applies to apple too). Enough said. Seeing why Linux is the way forward despite appearances takes time, but many do get there, hence the number of people working on improving it.

          • I appreciate your comments. Excellent points that have made me think differently regarding open source and the differences (and similarities) between it and closed OSes such as MacOS and Windows.

            Also much appreciated the info on the ease of installing and configuring Linux (specif., SuSe) on PC boxes. One of my projects in the upcoming year or two is to build my own PC... and I certainly wasn't planning on putting Windows on it! :)


            -A
            • No problem friend, I hope building your own box goes well. It's something of an art, I've done it twice now and although quite good fun, when it doesn't start or whatever your heart tends to skip a beat (unless you're filthy rich of course). Anyway, have fun!

  • The Upside and Downside of the IBM Deal (Score:4, Interesting)

    by hillct ( 230132 ) on Monday September 16, 2002 @08:47AM (#4264924) Homepage Journal
    It has always seemed to me that there is more money to be made in services than RedHat has ever been able to squeeze out of them. Every hardware manufacturer of any significant size derives large percentages of their revenues from their Global Services (enterprise consulting) divisions so why couldn't Redhat manage it? IBM seems to think they can do it bu supporting and integrating the same products redhat was.

    Perhaps the key is that the hardware manufacturers are offering the services as a value added feature of their core products. This raises the question, why did VA Systems abandon Linux based PC hardware in favor of becoming a software shop, and at that, not even one that provides Linux software integration consulting? Well, in the case of VA it was probably due to their content [slashdot.org] holdings, but again, if the combination of hardware sales and software integration services can work for IBM, why wouldn't it work for Redhat or (in the past) VA? It just seems to me that, while having IBM enter what is esentially a reseller agreement, is not the most lucrative means for generating a revenue stream from Redhat's distribution; although it does have vary low overhead, which is parhaps a key for redhat at this point.

    --CTH
    • RH are already activly involved in the migration to Linux market, hence Amazon, AOL deals, for the most publicized of them. I bet they will extend slowly their offring to the pure development and integration market, like IBM Global Service, HP Service division (don't remember the name) etc.

      This is were the real OS/FS business will be.

    • Re:The Upside and Downside of the IBM Deal (Score:4, Interesting)

      by duffbeer703 ( 177751 ) on Monday September 16, 2002 @10:19AM (#4265485)
      IBM Global Services does "Best of Breed" consulting. They push whatever will do the job (and get comissions for the salesmen). If you want Sun, IBM will sell you Sun. If you think RS/6000's and DB2 are shit, they'll sell you Windows 2000 and Oracle.

      Red Hat and VA is/was a Linux-focused company. Nobody is interested in having an evangelist/salesman push Linux as a solution to all problems. With the IBM deal, RedHat gets to sell services to a more diversified group of companies.

      Also consider that it is time-consuming and difficult to get on government acquisition contracts. IBM is on all state contracts and most federal agency contracts. So through IBM, RedHat can access the massive gov't IT market without getting on contract!
      • Which is why I think that Apple may be trying to get IBM to roll Mac OS X into the mix. For some jobs (content work, mainly) Mac OS X is a very strong candidate, and if Apple and IBM are in fact closing ranks on a new PPC implementation for both parties to use, it makes even more sense.

        In other areas, OS X may be strong as well - such as when you need Office and unix on one box.
      • My experience with IBM Global Services is they say they push "Best of Breed", but then will look to switch everything they possibly can to IBM. We got badly burned by this when they talked management into tossing out a competitor's servers and replaced with IBM ones that had serious problems with their dual-headed NICs.

        One thing, unlike you say, IGS will never sell you Oracle over their own DB2.
  • thats the "News and Observer", the Raleigh, NC newspaper. whose url is "news-observer.com" Its no wonder Red Hat and IBM are collaborating this way, with their home offices "just down 40" from eachother.

  • IBM and Lexmark (Score:3, Interesting)

    by oddbudman ( 599695 ) on Monday September 16, 2002 @09:12AM (#4265072) Journal
    Lexmark is a somewhat owned by IBM. I still can't get my printer to go under Gentoo as the only drivers that come for the printer are RPM based binaries (rely on LPD not CUPS). My point is that we don't want a situation where many manufactures claim linux support when they only really provide RPM based distro support- I never knew a tgz and a detailed readme were so hard to organise! Clearly from my interactions with Lexmark they seem to not take RPM based distros very seriously, and, as lexmark has close ties with IBM, could this be a sign of things to come with other hardware manufacturers? Is the CUPS standard really all that hard to keep up with?
    • I just did this (took me a while) with a Z32, and you need to go over to foomatic.com and search their database. Install the rpm, run their cupsing script, and whammo, you're in. Sorry for OT, but the Lexmark provided driver is actually pretty good, while the printer itself is a $20 piece of trach.
    • You could always install RPM for Gentoo.
  • Whilst I welcome this as both a RedHat and IBM user I wonder what is happening with SuSE.

    SuSE is the current "preferered" distribution for both PPC iSeries & pSeries [suse.com] platforms in addition to the mainframe zSeries [suse.com]. With the imminent release of UnitedLinux at the same kind of cost [infoworld.com] the SLES version distribution seems to be competing with the consortium.

  • deal for profit (Score:2, Informative)

    by jsse ( 254124 )
    It's not surprising. the $1 billion spent on Linux last year has been entirely recouped at the beginning of this year. This is a big deal in this economy.
    • the $1 billion spent on Linux last year has been entirely recouped at the beginning of this year.

      I saw an IBM spokesperson say that. I didn't see any numbers to back up it up. Got any?

      I mean, what do you expect a company spokesperson to say? "Sorry, guys, this Linux thing really isn't working out?"

  • From the article:

    ...Lotus e-mail and calendar software works on Advanced Server...

    I guess I have to concede that my suggestion is somewhat offtopic, but this is an opportunity to drop a hint for Lotus/IBM to produce a native Linux Smartsuite.

    If this is considered too much effort [meaning too expensive] how about at least releasing an opensource filter for .lwp so those documents could import cleanly into Star/Open Office?

    The partnership as announced though is great news, and seems to be going over well and generating a lot of market enthusiasm.

  • ..Scott McNealy is updating his resume.

    I love SUN and Solaris, but this is yet more really bad news for them..
    • It's only bad news to them if they can't adapt to changing market conditions.

      If I have my history right, SUN really ate into IBM's dominance by being a fleet-footed young company that was able to deliver "Open Systems" while the Goliath IBM was still convinced that everything other than mainframes was a fad.

      You could cut the irony with a knife.

      -Peter
  • I fail to understand how IBM continually can just think about penguins and get such great press. Especially when Dell has already certified [redhat.com] all of their appropriate hardware on RH Advanced Server.
  • Using anything but Red Hat will become harder and harder, and when the Boss says "Install Redhat or IBM won't give us support" you will do it or train your "do you want fries with that?". Just because the source might be free (mostly) doesn't mean there is a free spirit going on (or ease of use for that matter. I can recognise the reason why GNU came to be).

    Why just today I looked at drivers for one of HPs RAID cards. Whoppie, they had drivers for Red Hat 7.1. Thank you very much...

    There need to be a standard so that anyone can make a distribution that is supported, or Red Hat will 0wn Linux soon enough.
  • Allright, so this music is protected from copyright violation by glue. Does this mean that solvents are now illegal? Start stockpiling acetone now.
  • One thing that I noticed hadn't been discussed is security. If you go to http://www.linuxsecurity.com/advisories and look at each distro you will notice that by far Redhat has had the largest number of advisories. I haven't done any research to see if the distro's that go to companies like IBM and Dell for servers are more secure, but I would certainly hope so. Redhat, although not quite as bad as Microsoft, seems to have advisories ALL the time, as apposed to Slackware or freeBSD, which can go for months at a time without a single advisory. IMHO, I would never run a Redhat server because the chance of it being compromised is a lot greater.

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