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Reply-To: "fred bartoli"
From: "fred bartoli"
Newsgroups: sci.electronics.design
References: <3D6E8E0E.2020800@sandia.gov> <3D6FDA8F.50903@sandia.gov> <3D7185FA.7060408@BOGUS.earthlink.net> <3D729879.87AE09FB@bellatlantic.net>
Subject: Re: IBM chip fab will use Linux
Date: Mon, 2 Sep 2002 19:28:33 +0200
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Donald Shepherd a écrit dans le message :
3D729879.87AE09FB@bellatlantic.net...
>
>
> Eric Bohlman wrote:
>
> > Chris Carlen wrote in
> > news:3D7185FA.7060408@BOGUS.earthlink.net:
> >
> > > Mike wrote:
> > >> This is a multi-billion dollar fab. You can bet that the OS cost was
> > >> not a significant consideration.
> > >>
> > >
> > > The OS cost isn't the point. The cost of control system failures in a
> > > multibillion $$$ fab would be huge. Thus, it is likely that the test
> > > of control platforms was done very carefully. Repeat: The cost I'm
> > > talking about is the cost of the control system failing. Very high,
> > > therefore reasonable to conclude that the test-beds were optimized,
> > > thus failure points to OS platform. Result not inconsistent with well
> > > established industry experience. Not a religious argument by a long
> > > shot.
> >
> > Note also that OS cost != license fee; in any setup with more than a few
> > machines, license fees are probably the smallest factor in OS cost.
Cost
> > of downtime, as you point out, is one of the bigger factors.
Administrative
> > requirements are another: if OS A requires significantly fewer admins
per
> > 1000 machines than OS B, that will likely swamp out any difference in
> > license fees.
> >
> > The fact that Windows requires payment of a license fee whereas Linux
> > doesn't is almost always a red herring.
>
> Here's my take on all this: IBM wants to be King of Corporate Computing
again.
> Since they can't do that with Microsoft, they are betting on Linux. They
are
> probably polishing their version of Linux right now. Right now, Corporate
> America sees Linux as a geek toy. IBM needs to change this image to
succeed.
> Being able to say "We're running our chip fab with Linux." is part of
that.
> In-house beta testing is also a plus.
Well, given the cost of off time in a $billions factory, I really don't
think that IBM will play that game just to "buy" a good new image to their
piece of software. The point is undoubtly reliability.
About the same point a friend of mine that is currently administrating a
2000+ machines parc tells me that windows servers *have* to be restarted at
least once a week. Unix/linux ones they have are *never* restarted.
Also run on the same hardware windows serves less clients than linux. Sure
this again is not the reason for IBM choice, but this might be a good
additionnal reason for personnal use (of course provided SW is available).
Fred.
>
> I have an old 5 slot IBM PC gathering dust. I got it with the optional
> documentation that included schematics, BIOS listings, and a manual for
> cassette basic. It was built by grownups for grownups. None of my later
> machines ever had documentation that even came close. I don't think Big
Blue
> Linux would be a bad thing.
>
> Don
>
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