SGI, others embracing Linux 88
TitanII writes "ZDNet News has an article about SGI switching to Linux. " The article itself talks about the switchover going on in many of the major tech firms-SGI isn't actually replacing Irix, but is making Linux a major offering across their platforms.
Re:I really want Irix filesystem (Score:1)
(I dunno but I been told)
XFS before we're old
(XFS before we're old)
Portin' is in progress now
(Portin' is in progress now)
Gonna kill Billy's cash cow
(Gonna kill Billy's cash cow)
Hey, this AC thing can be useful on occassion...
I really want Irix filesystem (Score:1)
If there is one piece of code :-)
I would like integrated back it's their
file system. No more 1 hour long fsck on large
RAIDs, this is critical to me. Giving a bit of
competition to Ext3 would probably motivate the
developpers to ship
Daniel.Veillard@w3.org
Re: Is the death of choice a good thing? (Score:1)
Consolidation and standardization is far preferable to too much "diversity". Finally the Unix field is being unified under the Linux banner. The marketplace has decided, not some pointy headed ISO committee meeting in secret. One of the first points Unix detractors have always made is that there is "too much diversity" in the Unix field. No single entity has been strong enough to offer real competition.
Let the weak and dying odd ball variants of Unix be culled. And let us continue to consolidate so that Unix as a whole remains competitive well into the next century.
And the comparisons to Stalin and Communism are idiotic. Is it time to invoke the corollary to Goodwin's Law? Stalin, Lenin, Hitler. The Thread is officially dead.
Linux users are happy to pay for good software (Score:1)
How do suppose VA Research is growing so fast? They sell preconfigured Linux servers, workstation and laptops - and they are not giving them away, by any means!
NO, you're quite mistaken - Linux users are happy to pay for good software - however they do like a bargain, and are generally too smart to pay inflated prices for inferior products.
Re:Linux users are happy to pay for good software (Score:1)
applications. Most of the "commercial" users of
Linux are using it for what it's best as. A low
end general purpose server platform. And since
most of the server-oriented apps that it excels
at are free, there isn't much for them to need to
purchase.
I suspect before too much longer there will be a
stronger market for commercial applications to
run on the BeOS, which isn't even trying to be
more than a niche Operating System (I like it, in
fact I bought a copy). That isn't saying much
for Linux.
Except that it's free. In the sense of Free
Beer.
I heard Something about this at Comdex (Score:1)
I think this is great, I'd like to see some 3d hardware/apps developed for it, or atleast a nifty line of SGI Linux workstations *grin*.
SGI, IBM, HP, others too (Score:1)
Re:Why do you think this affects NT? (Score:1)
Remember Right now you have more than 5 seperate trees of UNIX development. They are very competitive with lots of current development. Imagine if there was a common goal and they started focusing on what they did best.
wow
but SUN still does not get it and I fear they never will.
Re:Is the death of choice a good thing? (Score:1)
I look at as giving me more options and furthering true competition.
One day Linux will die but we all will learn valuable lessons from it and the next revolution will benefit from the years and years of colaborative experience.(decades?)
Remember the real goal of linux is not to take over the world but to satify the needs of the community.
When people get excited they talk of world domination and that is healthy.
Re:Why do you think this affects NT? (Score:1)
newest boxes, their Visual Workstations, right now
only run NT. Regardless of what the ZD article
said, they were never going to run Irix, it was
going to be NT and NT only. So, this is a clear
win for Unix and a loss for NT.
Couldn't happen to a nicer OS.
Re:Why do you think this affects NT? (Score:1)
Unix is fragmented for a long time and NT server's success is partly due to this. So when Unix vendors standardize on Linux,they're removing one major weakness NT is praying on. Consider
So now for the first time Unix app has a real chance of being united (write once available/run every where). Isn't this a blow to NT?
Re:Visual Workstations? (Score:1)
Reboot? (Score:1)
Re:Why do you think this affects NT? (Score:1)
Re:Is the death of choice a good thing? (Score:1)
If all the proprietary OS vendors switch to Open Source I think this will be a good thing. If there is only one Open Source OS left standing this will be a bad thing. But I see no evidence that this will happen.
The *BSD folks are doing excellent work and aren't going to stop anytime soon. There are a number of "alternative" OS projects that are moving slowly. They'll continue to exist as long as there are hackers keen on doing something different. Choice seems to be alive and well.
Yes they do!!! (Score:1)
During the past year I've purchased boxed sets of OpenLinux 1.3, 2.2, Red Hat 5.2, 6.0, and SuSE 6.0, 6.1. If there were any Linux applications that I could by at CompUSA, I'd be dangerous.
TedC
Re:Yes they do!!! (Score:1)
That's what I meant when I said _if_ there were any Linux applications that I could buy, I would. The only things that I've seen on the shelf are Aplixware (sp?) and Code Warrier. I'll probably buy code warrier and Civilization 3, and Quake 3 when it comes out. Not many choices, but you have to start somewhere!
TedC
Re:advanced architecture (Score:1)
It would be especially nice to get away from that broken cascade on IRQ2->IRQ9 16-bit interrupt scheme. That thing sucked in 1985!
There's a lot of cruft in the BIOS that could be axed as well.
TedC
Oh ye of short memories (Score:1)
TedC
IRIX? (Score:1)
Re:Who knows Irix? (Score:1)
You don't actually think that SGI would be stupid enough put any of this code under a BSD-style licence do you? It most likey be either GPL or some variation of it in order to make sure that it won't be "borrowed" by certain people....
Re:Why do you think this affects NT? (Score:1)
Re:advanced architecture (Score:1)
Most of HP's low end consumer machines do that.
Computers with a better unified memory architecture are going to probably be the next big change in PCs. At some point legacy busses, and separate busses for video (AGP) and peripherals (PCI) are going to have to go away.
SGI's got the right idea with the way the O2's are put together, and the NUMA architecture used in the O200's and up.
Even an x86 version of the O2 would be cool.
Re:Because Linux and SGI don't compete. (Score:1)
> only reason they've not (and probably will not)
> go under is all the legacy telephony SCO
> software.
Unfortunately SCO has a much larger legacy market than just telephony.
I support Openserver and Unixware professionally (feel my pain, brothers!
Probably the quickest death to most of SCO's customer base would be Linux support of applications like MAS/90 or Realworld.
Re:SGI, IBM, HP, others too (Score:1)
And about "World domination", always found that kind of... well, why not "World liberation?" A "monopoly" of freedom is qualitatively different from any other monopoly. A commonwealth is not an empire.
Re:Why do you think this affects NT? (Score:1)
Linux will be folding in features of Irix. This is good news for Linux.
This also means more seats for Linux, since it's a direct option against NT.
I guess we'll have to wait till we see how sales of the Linux machines compare against sales with NT installed.. Obviously, they think they'll make more money using Linux versus Irix.
Ben
Re:Linux users never pay for anything!!! (Score:1)
I'm sure plenty of people pay for games and software for corporate use, otherwise these companies wouldn't be making products for Linux.
Ben
R.I.P IRIX (Score:1)
Re:Linux users never pay for anything!!! (Score:1)
Here, you can breathe for free, or I can charge you $0.05 per breath... and then you can only only use our proprietary air for your own personal breathing-- bottling it up for a gas tank, filling up your tires with it, or using it to inflate a raft is expressly forbidden. For that you must buy our $15,000 air breathing license, and then sign an NDA to not tell anyone that it's really the exact same product.
Visual Workstations? (Score:1)
IRIX vs. Linux Round 1 (Score:1)
Re:is actually replacing? (Score:1)
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is actually replacing? (Score:1)
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Glowing mice (Score:1)
Cheers,
Alex
Re:Why do you think this affects NT? (Score:1)
Re:Linux users never pay for anything!!! (Score:1)
Linux enhances SGI's product offerings (Score:1)
I see a great deal of discussion on what Linux does, what IRIX does, and competition between them. I would ask that this be looked on somewhat differently. Linux on the SGI product line not only enhances the breadth of the product line, but it vastly increases the size of the market in which they will play.
There are some places where Linux cannot play today, and IRIX does a great job. There are places where IRIX is not as cost effective as Linux, and thus Linux is the appropriate platform. Where they overlap is not competition, but user choice. It is a function of application requirements, and end user preferences.
I am obviously biased as far as this goes, but I see this offering as a positive step for the market, it opens up many new choices that others previously had wished to remain closed.
Re:Who knows Irix? (Score:1)
'What advanced features of Irix is SGI willing to give away for free?' Remember, when something is open-sourced anybody can run with the algorhythms. SGI certainly knows this.
Until that question is answered (and yes, the answer may be "all of them"- but I have my doubts) it is hard to see Irix disappearing.
Re:Who knows Irix? (Score:1)
Algorhythms are not.
In cases where it's fancy math (i.e. graphics rendering) being done, the GPL can be easily defeated by anybody who studies the algorhythms behind the code and does a re-implementation after studying the GPL'd code. That's why "trade secret" protection (not releasing the source code) has been so popular for so long. It's why some interests are so much into Software Patents (which WOULD protect a disclosed algorhythm). It's why you don't find much GPL'd DSP code.
Re: Is the death of choice a good thing? (Score:1)
To get things back on track, Mr. "Invoke Hitler" championed "consolidation and standards" and then trashed the ISO in the next sentence. And referred to Irix as a "weak oddball variant of Unix."
Seems pretty dumb to me.
Re:advanced architecture (Score:1)
Re: Is the death of choice a good thing? (Score:1)
So you must just love Microsoft's "Windows Everywhere" vision
Let the weak
Oh, you mean variants like Linux? Linux may have quickly achieved "coolest thing since sliced bread" status, but compared to the commercial *nixs it's still a toy - there's a lot of work still to do.
At the risk of offence (none intended, of course!), the only compelling feature Linux offers over commercial *nix implementations is its low absolute price. On virtually every other level - filesystems, security, accounting, stability, compatibility - it lags behind.
Let's work together to catch up.
Cheers
Alastair
Yes it is... but arent they... (Score:1)
They're selling NT graphics workstations cuz they fear that NT will take over... now they fear (rightfully) that Linux will kill NT
Meanwhile SGI's going down the tubes. From a corportate standpoint, they haven't been doing so well.
Why do you think this affects NT? (Score:1)
Irix the father and Linux the son. (Score:2)
An operating system that works closely with custom and specialist hardware (eg high end Irix) is worlds
away from low-mid end systems serving generic functions over a heterogenous hardware mix (ie Linux).
SGI is being clever, and Sun and IBM should follow suite. They make their money on hardware and Unix
tuned for fighting at the high end..they don't want to fight with NT for the low end. On the other
hand linux wants to be hot on the desktop and right in Microsofts face!
No one operating system can span both systems. It isn't worth writing linux for a 1024 CPU SGI monster
or a horror Sun or IBM mainframe...they are too rare. On the other hand they should encourage
Linux, running on their hardware, to become a desktop workstation powerhouse and halt the
encroachment of NT.
Long live AIX, Solaris, Irix and the lean and mean windows killer Linux. On the other hand SCO competes
directly in the same marketplace and should bend over for a good kicking
No, you're confusing Linux users with hobbiests. (Score:2)
Lots of Windows users I know don't pay for anything either. That has less to do with the operating system than the financial ability of the individual.
Companies (like the Canadian National Railway) that deploy Linux DO pay for stuff. Certainly the people who would be buying expensive SGI boxes pay for stuff.
advanced architecture (Score:2)
The visual workstations are a good first step.
Of course SGI beat Apple to making trendy looking computers by ten years too.
On a side note, did anyone else see the story on here a half hour ago about the glowing mice? Where'd it go?
Re:Who knows Irix? (Score:2)
In other words, SGI has a lot of experience in large systems, and this is what Linux needs to get into the coporate market.
Beside that, supporting Linux would mean that they port OpenGL, OpenInventor and all the other nice graphic APIs to Linux. And as SGI owns Alias|Wavefront, Linux would probably get high-end rendering and design software as well.
Another interresting thing to note is that AFAIK some time ago SGI announced to abandon the MIPS cpus in the long term (they already sold MIPS) and to switch to intel's IA-64 architecture. The article said that Linux would become their only Unix-like OS on intels, so this would mean that Linux would be their primary operating system, unless they really want to use NT on their high-end servers. Whoa..
Who knows Irix? (Score:2)
Now the question is: what advanced features does Irix have that Linux could benefit from? What might Linux gain from this? How's the filesystem? The NFS implementation?
I work with Linux and Solaris, so I can't comment on specifics. Who out there is familiar with Irix?
--Lenny
One straw, two straws. (Score:2)
Between the Department of Justice well... bringing down Justice and the growth of the Everyone But Microsoft movement, it seems that the horn of armageddon has already come for Microsoft. There's simply too much clout behind the opposition for a company of 15,000 people to deal with-- even one with inflated stock prices and bottom lines.
While their death is far from assured, they have already lost the war: an inferior product can stay ahead in the market only as long as no alternatives are realistic. In the operating system business, this means a lack of applications. If you think apps are starting to come now that we're at the 10-15 million user base, just wait until we're at the 100 million point... Where you go to the computer store and see the "Linux games" and "Linux applications" sections in the front, and all of the legacy Windows apps in bargain baskets and huddled off in the corner with the Mac section.
On another note, it'll be nice to have better 3D support under Linux. And it'll be nice to watch the proprietary unices pour their features into the Linux kernel. It'll be even nicer if they keep a decent-sized number of full-time Linux hackers out there in the name of "furthering company interest" in the operating system (read: Support for better 3d acceleration, etc).
The future is bright indeed.
Keep hacking.
Re:Why do you think this affects NT? (Score:2)
Too simple. SGI is in the process of moving their low-end boxes to x86. The original plan was to replace Irix with NT on these boxes.
Some customers want Unix, however, so they are going to offer Linux as an option (not a replacement for NT) on these boxes.
Which OS a SGI customer chooses probably depends more on which applications they need to run rather than their particular ideology. Right now, the engineering and 3D apps are more prevelent on NT than Linux. So you'd expect most of the boxes to have NT.
But even optimistically assuming the boxes go out 50% NT and 50% Linux, it's still a smaller marketshare for Unix relative to last year when they were 100% Irix.
--
Re:Why do you think this affects NT? (Score:2)
Yes, but even if SGI starts selling more workstations, they would need to double the growth of the entire market for their Unix marketshare to grow. (Assuming again 50/50 Windows/Unix split.)
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I don't think so . . . (Score:2)
Think about it: SGI have put ten years (or however long it is) into IRIX, and they have made it into one of the best Unices around, particularly in some particular areas. Those areas are where SGI has been targeting their sales. They have far too much committed to IRIX now for them to just give up on it and move to Linux, particularly when they know that Linux in no way compares in the really high end, where they have been targeting alot of their stuff.
What we probably will see is SGI taking the stuff that they want from IRIX and putting it in Linux, things like (hopefully) good smp, improved graphics, etc. But that will take several years, most likely, and at the end of it they will still have lots of stuff that they either didn't or couldn't, for one reason or another, include in Linux. That stuff will be where IRIX comes in, probably on the really high end hardware, and in really specialised applications where they have been developing IRIX for years. They will want to leverage their current technologies in their Linux strategy, but the fact that Linux is Open Source means that there will be some things that they won't want to give away.
I imagine that all the current proprietary Unices will go that way, marginalised by Linux but still worth enough to their creators to keep around. The only problem with that is that I can see Linux heading towards an incredible amount of "creeping featurism" down that road, as all the Unix vendors try to make use of Linux for their own things, by shifting their technologies from their own Unices to Linux.
How well all this comes out in the end will depend entirely on how well the Linux Kernel developers can maintain control, and how well Linus can filter out the best bits of the proprietary technologies and integrate them into Linux. If he can do a really good job, I reckon Linux will end up being the yardstick by which every other OS in existence is measured. If Linux absorbs the best of everything, then we'll have an incredible base to start with when it's time to develop the next great OS (Unix is great, but will it cope with things like quantum computing, say? Probably not, so we _will_ need a new type of OS in the future).
May Linus, and Linux, Live Long and Prosper!
. . . just the ramblings of a sick mind at two thirty in the morning . . .
himi
Re:Because Linux and SGI don't compete. (Score:2)
Linux (a low end UNIX) doesn't compete with SGI (producer of a high end UNIX). In fact, Linux is a nice cheap development platform, and a nice client for IRIX based larger systems.
By incorporating Linux as their low end offering, SGI can flatten the development model and produce a more seamless interface for integrating features into their higher end offerings. Plus, they can sell more cheap Intel hardware without having to give money to Redmond by bundling NT on it.
Linux and Irix don't compete, any more than Ford trucks and Ferrari's compete.
Linux software was simply better (Score:3)
Uhh, yeah. That's why I don't have a fleet of old macintoshes dating from 1984 to 1994. Wnd why I don't have multiple purchased copies of word, excel, foxpro, billing software, bankruptcy software, and gaggles more that I can't think of. All told, several hundred to a couple of thousand dollars a year on software.
I stuck with mac's to continue using word 5.1, as 6+ femoved features that I depended upon (reasonable equation editing, usable mailmerge). Then I stumbled across Lyx, and it's equation facitilies.
While I would probably have purchased an X86 with windows by then if word hadn't changed from an excellent program to a disaster, price and ideology had *nothing* to do with my switching to linux. I bought the linux box because what lyx could do was flatly better then what was available for mac or windows. The part about never crashing (a year and a half on this machine, and another year or two on another cobbled from spare parts before that, though macbsd did kernel-panic once in the several months I used it) is a *bonus*.
I am not anti-microsoft. As an anti-trust attorney, I think they're in deep trouble, but that's a legal issue. I'm not even averse to buying their software. But the last software I saw from them that was worth paying for was word5.1 and excel 4. Nothing I've seen from them since has been worthwhile, even if it were free.
Is the death of choice a good thing? (Score:3)
Is it ever a good thing when there are fewer choices in the world? If SGI eventually throws in the towel with Irix, it just means that Linux is doing what Microsoft hopes it will do:
Killing off all the commercial Unices.
I have grown beyond an "anti-Microsoft" stance to the point where I feel that it's just silly to base your core philosopy on 'anti-' anything as the starting point. Diversity is good. That means it's bad whenever any OS is driven from the marketplace. Including OSes you can't buy from Cheapbytes for $1.99.
The "Open Source" movement isn't fascist, unless it starts claim it is the ONLY model for software development. Then it gets frighteningly similar to one-party Communism (some theorize that the only way Communism can ever succeed is if it takes over the whole world, and that this fact leads to it's defeat) I'm not trying to slam "open source" initiatives, because it can be and is a good thing at present. It's NOT EVER going to take over the entire market. Watch out for people who claim it is. They're the Lenin/Stalin types humanity always has to watch out for.
SGI smart move! (Score:4)
SGI really understands Linux and OpenSource and is one of the Greatest Things to happen to linux.
With all that said do you still wonder why Micros~1 is getting scared.
Let me break this down.
Many years ago UNIX started fragmenting. Vender's started maintaining there own versions of UNIX. Do you realize how much this costs? big bucks. Imagine spending some money and porting some inhouse (proven and feature rich) to an OpenSource platform with most basic (if not all) system tools. This can really help SGI focus on what they do best. Incredible hardware.
But it may take a while.
Inorder for them to relase alot of thier code it has to cleaned up (remove parts licensed by other companys... if nes.). I heard this is moving right along.
I don't know that is just my opinion i could be wrong.
Because Linux and SGI don't compete. (Score:4)
Linux (a piece of software) doesn't compete with SGI (a hardware manufacturer that happens to write software). Continued development of Irix just eats at SGI's bottom line. If they can get a high performance OS more cheaply by contributing to Linux, then it makes good business sense to do so. I know they're not abandoning Irix at this point, but they will when Linux offers everthing Irix does (say three years?).
By adopting Linux, SGI is 1/strengthening Linux on high-end hardware, 2/adding to the momentum of the Linux bandwagon, 3/providing more installed seats for Linux which means more applications will be ported 4/making expensive SGI boxes a natural migration path for cheap Intel boxes.
The only major Unix vendor that doesn't stand to benefit from the broad acceptance of Linux is SCO. And, surprise, they are the only major Unix vendor that hasn't come out in support of Linux. I have no idea how they think they're going to compete in the long term.