[gentoo-dev] Gentoo could become certified for IBM Server Hardware

[gentoo-dev] Gentoo could become certified for IBM Server Hardware

[daniel.kerwin]

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Hello,

i just returned from a meeting with IBM which was about getting
support for Gentoo Linux (hardware and software). The people from IBM
told me that it's possible for Gentoo to become officially supported
on IBM server hardware (xSeries, pSeries and zSeries).

They told me about their hardware offerings to the Debian Project so
that they could certify their distribution. I think this is a great
chance for gentoo to become more common for productive use.

Is there a general interrest in doing this and how can this start?



bye

Daniel

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo could become certified for IBM Server Hardware

[Donnie Berkholz]

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daniel.kerwin@allianz.de wrote:
> i just returned from a meeting with IBM which was about getting support
> for Gentoo Linux (hardware and software). The people from IBM told me
> that it's possible for Gentoo to become officially supported on IBM
> server hardware (xSeries, pSeries and zSeries).

Sounds interesting.

What does official support mean, in this context?

Thanks,
Donnie
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Antwort: Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo could become certified for IBM Server Hardware

[daniel.kerwin]

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This means it would be officially supported to run Gentoo on IBM
Hardware. This would give Gentoo a status like SUSE, Redhat or
Debian.
This could be the first step to become a supported plattform for IBM
software products.



Donnie Berkholz <spyderous@gentoo.org> schrieb am 04/05/2005 11:09:39
AM:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> daniel.kerwin@allianz.de wrote:
> > i just returned from a meeting with IBM which was about getting
support
> > for Gentoo Linux (hardware and software). The people from IBM
told me
> > that it's possible for Gentoo to become officially supported on
IBM
> > server hardware (xSeries, pSeries and zSeries).
>
> Sounds interesting.
>
> What does official support mean, in this context?
>
> Thanks,
> Donnie
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> =yp6O
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> --
> gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
>

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo could become certified for IBM Server Hardware

[Michael Cummings]

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Let me just diplomatically: cool :)

On Wednesday 04 May 2005 05:03 am, daniel.kerwin@allianz.de wrote:
> Hello,
>
> i just returned from a meeting with IBM which was about getting
> support for Gentoo Linux (hardware and software). The people from IBM
> told me that it's possible for Gentoo to become officially supported
> on IBM server hardware (xSeries, pSeries and zSeries).
>
> They told me about their hardware offerings to the Debian Project so
> that they could certify their distribution. I think this is a great
> chance for gentoo to become more common for productive use.
>
> Is there a general interrest in doing this and how can this start?
>
>
>
> bye
>
> Daniel

-- 

-----o()o---------------------------------------------
Michael Cummings   |    #gentoo-dev, #gentoo-perl
Gentoo Perl Dev    |    on irc.freenode.net 
-----o()o---------------------------------------------

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Re: Antwort: Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo could become certified for IBM Server Hardware

[José Alberto Suárez López]

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really interesting :)

how can i help?

El mié, 04-05-2005 a las 11:17 +0200, daniel.kerwin@allianz.de escribió:
> This means it would be officially supported to run Gentoo on IBM
> Hardware. This would give Gentoo a status like SUSE, Redhat or
> Debian. 
> This could be the first step to become a supported plattform for IBM
> software products.
> 
> 
> 
> Donnie Berkholz <spyderous@gentoo.org> schrieb am 04/05/2005 11:09:39
> AM:
> 
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> > Hash: SHA1
> > 
> > daniel.kerwin@allianz.de wrote:
> > > i just returned from a meeting with IBM which was about getting
> support
> > > for Gentoo Linux (hardware and software). The people from IBM told
> me
> > > that it's possible for Gentoo to become officially supported on
> IBM
> > > server hardware (xSeries, pSeries and zSeries).
> > 
> > Sounds interesting.
> > 
> > What does official support mean, in this context?
> > 
> > Thanks,
> > Donnie
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> > Neu49vt4i/raW1GAaQ0sz/Q=
> > =yp6O
> > -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
> > -- 
> > gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
> > 
> 
> 

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo could become certified for IBM Server Hardware

[Fernando J. Pereda]

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On Wed, May 04, 2005 at 06:15:28AM -0400, Michael Cummings wrote:
> Let me just diplomatically: cool :)

Agreed ! :P

-- 
      \\|// . . .  o  o o  o  O  O   (   Born to be   )
       o o                           (      FREE      )
+--ooO--O--Ooo-----------------------------------------------+
| Fernando José Pereda Garcimartín - http://www.ferdyx.org   |
| Gentoo Linux Developer - http://dev.gentoo.org/~ferdy      |
| [ ferdy AT ferdyx DOT org ] && [ ferdy AT gentoo DOT org ] |
|     20BB BDC3 761A 4781 E6ED  ED0B 0A48 5B0C 60BD 28D4     |
+------------------------------------------------------------+

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Antwort: Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo could become certified for IBM Server Hardware

[daniel.kerwin]

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First of all there are a lot of questions to answer:

- Who can do the certification?
- What must be done to become certified?
- What hardwaretypes will IBM offer?
- Will the hardware stay at IBM or somewhere else?

Aside all IBM customers should request support for Gentoo from IBM
because they'll only take this serious if many customers request
support.

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[gentoo-dev] Re: Antwort: Re: Gentoo could become certified for IBM Server Hardware

[Duncan]

daniel.kerwin posted
<OF55FC767F.9EF9B47E-ONC1256FF7.0032ADAD-42256FF7.00328CBE@inside.allianz.de>,
excerpted below,  on Wed, 04 May 2005 11:17:14 +0200:

> <tt>Donnie Berkholz &lt;spyderous@gentoo.org&gt; schrieb am 04/05/2005
> 11:09:39 AM:<br> <br>
> &gt; -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----<br> &gt; Hash: SHA1<br>
> &gt; <br>
> &gt; daniel.kerwin@allianz.de wrote:<br>

OK, like the idea, but could you please kill the HTML?  This isn't a web
forum, and some in the audience either use a non-HTML enabled client, so
your message looks bad, or choose to filter it entirely, so they don't
even see it, due to the high correlation between spam and malware infested
mail, and the use of HTML.  If the content is worth reading, it remains
worth reading without the HTML.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman in
http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2004/12/22/rms_interview.html


-- 
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Re: Antwort: Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo could become certified for IBM Server Hardware

[Omkhar Arasaratnam]

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daniel.kerwin@allianz.de wrote:

> First of all there are a lot of questions to answer:
>
> - Who can do the certification?
> - What must be done to become certified?
> - What hardwaretypes will IBM offer?
> - Will the hardware stay at IBM or somewhere else?
>
> Aside all IBM customers should request support for Gentoo from IBM
> because they'll only take this serious if many customers request
> support.
>
Being an IBM employee in my day job I can provide some insight here.

NO

;-)

I have an extremely hard time believing that IBM would endorse a
community supported distro. The only distros that IBM supports are
corporate backed (RedHat, Suse, Turbo). So unless Gentoo is under
going a major change in the near future.
That said - I'm frequently wrong ;-) But hey, let us know what you
find out

- --
Omkhar Arasaratnam - Gentoo PPC64 Developer
omkhar@gentoo.org - http://dev.gentoo.org/~omkhar
Gentoo Linux / PPC64 Linux: http://ppc64.gentoo.org
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Re: Antwort: Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo could become certified for IBM Server Hardware

[Daniel Ostrow]

IBM has already been kind enough to donate some hardware to us. It has
yet to arrive at our hosting facility at OSU but I imagine that is only
a matter of time. Once the hardware is in place the ppc64 team (which is
mostly made up of IBM employees btw) will look into this further.

Thanks for the heads up.

Daniel Ostrow
Gentoo/{PPC,PPC64,DevRel}
dostrow@gentoo.org

On 12:36 Wed 04 May     , daniel.kerwin@allianz.de wrote:
> 
> First of all there are a lot of questions to answer:
> 
> - Who can do the certification?
> - What must be done to become certified?
> - What hardwaretypes will IBM offer?
> - Will the hardware stay at IBM or somewhere else?
> 
> Aside all IBM customers should request support for Gentoo from IBM
> because they'll only take this serious if many customers request
> support.
-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: Antwort: Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo could become certified for IBM Server Hardware

[M. Edward (Ed) Borasky]

I was just going to say something similar, although I'm not an employee
of IBM. Gentoo's parent organization is non-profit, and IBM is a
for-profit international corporation. That means, at least in the USA,
that any such agreement would need to be negotiated and approved by what
Stan Freberg referred to as "a battery of white-lipped attorneys". I was
surprised to see Debian on the original list for the same reason. Can
someone confirm there is actually an IBM certification for Debian?

BTW, here in the USA, for all practical purposes, if you want a
corporate blessing for Linux on a particular hardware platform, your
choices are pretty much constrained to Red Hat Enterprise Linux. IBM, HP
and Dell I believe all have corporate agreements with Red Hat, and I
wasn't even aware of SUSE being present in the approved list. The only
other "corporate blessed Linux" I know of is the Wal-Mart low end PC
that comes with Linspire loaded on it.

Omkhar Arasaratnam wrote:

> daniel.kerwin@allianz.de wrote:
>
> >First of all there are a lot of questions to answer:
>
> >- Who can do the certification?
> >- What must be done to become certified?
> >- What hardwaretypes will IBM offer?
> >- Will the hardware stay at IBM or somewhere else?
>
> >Aside all IBM customers should request support for Gentoo from IBM
> >because they'll only take this serious if many customers request
> >support.
>
> Being an IBM employee in my day job I can provide some insight here.
>
> NO
>
> ;-)
>
> I have an extremely hard time believing that IBM would endorse a
> community supported distro. The only distros that IBM supports are
> corporate backed (RedHat, Suse, Turbo). So unless Gentoo is under
> going a major change in the near future.
> That said - I'm frequently wrong ;-) But hey, let us know what you
> find out
>
> --
> Omkhar Arasaratnam - Gentoo PPC64 Developer
> omkhar@gentoo.org - http://dev.gentoo.org/~omkhar
> Gentoo Linux / PPC64 Linux: http://ppc64.gentoo.org

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Re: Antwort: Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo could become certified for IBM Server Hardware

[Omkhar Arasaratnam]

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Hash: SHA1
 
M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:

> I was just going to say something similar, although I'm not an
> employee of IBM. Gentoo's parent organization is non-profit, and
> IBM is a for-profit international corporation. That means, at least
> in the USA, that any such agreement would need to be negotiated and
> approved by what Stan Freberg referred to as "a battery of
> white-lipped attorneys". I was surprised to see Debian on the
> original list for the same reason. Can someone confirm there is
> actually an IBM certification for Debian?
>
> BTW, here in the USA, for all practical purposes, if you want a
> corporate blessing for Linux on a particular hardware platform,
> your choices are pretty much constrained to Red Hat Enterprise
> Linux. IBM, HP and Dell I believe all have corporate agreements
> with Red Hat, and I wasn't even aware of SUSE being present in the
> approved list. The only other "corporate blessed Linux" I know of
> is the Wal-Mart low end PC that comes with Linspire loaded on it.
>
> Omkhar Arasaratnam wrote:
>
>> daniel.kerwin@allianz.de wrote:
>>
>>> First of all there are a lot of questions to answer:
>>
>>> - Who can do the certification? - What must be done to become
>>> certified? - What hardwaretypes will IBM offer? - Will the
>>> hardware stay at IBM or somewhere else?
>>
>>> Aside all IBM customers should request support for Gentoo from
>>> IBM because they'll only take this serious if many customers
>>> request support.
>>
>> Being an IBM employee in my day job I can provide some insight
>> here.
>>
>> NO
>>
>> ;-)
>>
>> I have an extremely hard time believing that IBM would endorse a
>> community supported distro. The only distros that IBM supports
>> are corporate backed (RedHat, Suse, Turbo). So unless Gentoo is
>> under going a major change in the near future. That said - I'm
>> frequently wrong ;-) But hey, let us know what you find out
>>
>> -- Omkhar Arasaratnam - Gentoo PPC64 Developer omkhar@gentoo.org
>> - http://dev.gentoo.org/~omkhar Gentoo Linux / PPC64 Linux:
>> http://ppc64.gentoo.org
>
>
It's definately possible that we're comparing apples to oranges here.

What *EXACTLY* is meant by support?
1. Will IBM throw some h/w to Gentoo for free - yes.
2. Will IBM assist with packaging some utilities if we raise enough of
a stink - maybe
3. Will IBM assist a customer with break/fix, SLA'ed support or
preload Gentoo on any server - hell no

What do we mean by "support". Please bear in mind IBM DOES NOT support
Debian in this fashion AFAIK. IBM may assist with development to some
small extent but if a customer calls in and ask for support - they're
up a creek.

So what are we looking for ? Like I stated before, IBM only officially
supports RHEL, SLES, Turbo Linux.


- --
Omkhar Arasaratnam - Gentoo PPC64 Developer
omkhar@gentoo.org - http://dev.gentoo.org/~omkhar
Gentoo Linux / PPC64 Linux: http://ppc64.gentoo.org
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Re: Antwort: Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo could become certified for IBM Server Hardware

[Mike Frysinger]

On Wednesday 04 May 2005 09:47 am, Daniel Ostrow wrote:
> IBM has already been kind enough to donate some hardware to us. It has
> yet to arrive at our hosting facility at OSU but I imagine that is only
> a matter of time. Once the hardware is in place the ppc64 team (which is
> mostly made up of IBM employees btw) will look into this further.

man i cant wait to get my ppc64 groove on
-mike
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Antwort: Re: Antwort: Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo could become certified for IBM Server Hardware

[daniel.kerwin]

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Well i also was very surprised to become this offering from IBM. I
tried this for a long time with very less success :(

All i can say is that i talked to IBM's Senior IT Architct for
Principal Linux Services and he told me that theres a chance to do
this. Of cause he didn't said something about a gurantee that IBM
really would do so. But anyway i think it's definitively worth
trying.


Omkhar Arasaratnam <omkhar@gentoo.org> schrieb am 04/05/2005 03:32:19
PM:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> daniel.kerwin@allianz.de wrote:
>
> > First of all there are a lot of questions to answer:
> >
> > - Who can do the certification?
> > - What must be done to become certified?
> > - What hardwaretypes will IBM offer?
> > - Will the hardware stay at IBM or somewhere else?
> >
> > Aside all IBM customers should request support for Gentoo from
IBM
> > because they'll only take this serious if many customers request
> > support.
> >
> Being an IBM employee in my day job I can provide some insight
here.
>
> NO
>
> ;-)
>
> I have an extremely hard time believing that IBM would endorse a
> community supported distro. The only distros that IBM supports are
> corporate backed (RedHat, Suse, Turbo). So unless Gentoo is under
> going a major change in the near future.
> That said - I'm frequently wrong ;-) But hey, let us know what you
> find out
>
> - --
> Omkhar Arasaratnam - Gentoo PPC64 Developer
> omkhar@gentoo.org - http://dev.gentoo.org/~omkhar
> Gentoo Linux / PPC64 Linux: http://ppc64.gentoo.org
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> Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (MingW32)
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> =c5/1
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
>
>
> --
> gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
>

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Re: Antwort: Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo could become certified for IBM Server Hardware

[Brett Curtis]

This sounds great, I run six different types of xseries at work all
with gentoo. Never had any issues besides lm_sensors threatening  to
cook my mobos ;)

What exactly would this do for me as a ibm-gentoo user?  Is this more
or less I can, if this goes through, buy a ibm with gentoo pre-loaded?

Thanks


On 5/4/05, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky <znmeb@cesmail.net> wrote:
> I was just going to say something similar, although I'm not an employee
> of IBM. Gentoo's parent organization is non-profit, and IBM is a
> for-profit international corporation. That means, at least in the USA,
> that any such agreement would need to be negotiated and approved by what
> Stan Freberg referred to as "a battery of white-lipped attorneys". I was
> surprised to see Debian on the original list for the same reason. Can
> someone confirm there is actually an IBM certification for Debian?
> 
> BTW, here in the USA, for all practical purposes, if you want a
> corporate blessing for Linux on a particular hardware platform, your
> choices are pretty much constrained to Red Hat Enterprise Linux. IBM, HP
> and Dell I believe all have corporate agreements with Red Hat, and I
> wasn't even aware of SUSE being present in the approved list. The only
> other "corporate blessed Linux" I know of is the Wal-Mart low end PC
> that comes with Linspire loaded on it.
> 
> Omkhar Arasaratnam wrote:
> 
> > daniel.kerwin@allianz.de wrote:
> >
> > >First of all there are a lot of questions to answer:
> >
> > >- Who can do the certification?
> > >- What must be done to become certified?
> > >- What hardwaretypes will IBM offer?
> > >- Will the hardware stay at IBM or somewhere else?
> >
> > >Aside all IBM customers should request support for Gentoo from IBM
> > >because they'll only take this serious if many customers request
> > >support.
> >
> > Being an IBM employee in my day job I can provide some insight here.
> >
> > NO
> >
> > ;-)
> >
> > I have an extremely hard time believing that IBM would endorse a
> > community supported distro. The only distros that IBM supports are
> > corporate backed (RedHat, Suse, Turbo). So unless Gentoo is under
> > going a major change in the near future.
> > That said - I'm frequently wrong ;-) But hey, let us know what you
> > find out
> >
> > --
> > Omkhar Arasaratnam - Gentoo PPC64 Developer
> > omkhar@gentoo.org - http://dev.gentoo.org/~omkhar
> > Gentoo Linux / PPC64 Linux: http://ppc64.gentoo.org
> 
> --
> gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
> 
>

-- 
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Re: Antwort: Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo could become certified for IBM Server Hardware

[Michael Cummings]

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On Wednesday 04 May 2005 10:08 am, Omkhar Arasaratnam wrote:
> What do we mean by "support". Please bear in mind IBM DOES NOT support
> Debian in this fashion AFAIK. IBM may assist with development to some
> small extent but if a customer calls in and ask for support - they're
> up a creek.

My interpretation of "support" was that if a customer of IBM installed Gentoo, 
they would still have support for strictly hardware related issues 
(motherboard; memory; processor; etc.). I know from frightful experience that 
some hardware mass-vendors will not provide hardware support if you are not 
running the OS that they installed for you at the factory. Is this a fair 
assumption of the IBM possibility?

-- 

-----o()o---------------------------------------------
Michael Cummings   |    #gentoo-dev, #gentoo-perl
Gentoo Perl Dev    |    on irc.freenode.net 
-----o()o---------------------------------------------

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Re: Antwort: Re: Antwort: Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo could become certified for IBM Server Hardware

[Omkhar Arasaratnam]

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Hash: SHA1
 
daniel.kerwin@allianz.de wrote:

> Well i also was very surprised to become this offering from IBM. I
> tried this for a long time with very less success :(
>
> All i can say is that i talked to IBM's Senior IT Architct for
> Principal Linux Services and he told me that theres a chance to do
> this. Of cause he didn't said something about a gurantee that IBM
> really would do so. But anyway i think it's definitively worth
> trying.
>
Ah now I understand. You've been speaking to the Global Services
(consulting side) people. I don't doubt that IBM would love to engage
with Gentoo for SERVICES (ie manage your server, or develop a protien
folding cluster and install it for you). However, you will not see IBM
preloading, or releasing kernel modules for gentoo-sources.

I'm not trying to be a roadblock here, infact I know many of the
people in the Open Source Community of Practice at IBM, so please let
me know where you would like this to go.

- --
Omkhar Arasaratnam - Gentoo PPC64 Developer
omkhar@gentoo.org - http://dev.gentoo.org/~omkhar
Gentoo Linux / PPC64 Linux: http://ppc64.gentoo.org
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Re: Antwort: Re: Antwort: Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo could become certified for IBM Server Hardware

[M. Edward (Ed) Borasky]

I'm not a lawyer, even in the USA. Maybe it's different in Germany, but
here in the USA, the relationships between for-profit and not-for-profit
organizations are highly regulated. IBM can (and has) given hardware or
sold hardware at lower prices to educational institutions. IBM has made
major contributions to the Open Source movement, in some cases even
releasing IBM intellectual property to the community with very few
restrictions. I live in Oregon, just a few miles from OSDL and a major
IBM installation. They are very good neighbors indeed. :) So yes, it is
definitely worth the time of at least the Gentoo Foundation getting
involved with IBM.


daniel.kerwin@allianz.de wrote:

> Well i also was very surprised to become this offering from IBM. I
tried this for a long time with very less success :(
>
> All i can say is that i talked to IBM's Senior IT Architct for
Principal Linux Services and he told me that theres a chance to do this.
Of cause he didn't said something about a gurantee that IBM really would
do so. But anyway i think it's definitively worth trying.
>
>
> Omkhar Arasaratnam <omkhar@gentoo.org> schrieb am 04/05/2005 03:32:19 PM:
>
> >
> >
> > --
> > gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
> >
>

-- 
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Re: Antwort: Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo could become certified for IBM Server Hardware

[M. Edward (Ed) Borasky]

Gentoo pre-loaded? Isn't that a contradiction in terms?

<ducking>

Seriously though, I too work with xSeries, as well as IBM desktops, and
I've loaded Debian, Gentoo and half a dozen other distros on them
without incident, as well as pre-Fedora Red Hat and RHEL clones. Left to
my own devices (pun intended) I run Gentoo.

Brett Curtis wrote:

>This sounds great, I run six different types of xseries at work all
>with gentoo. Never had any issues besides lm_sensors threatening  to
>cook my mobos ;)
>
>What exactly would this do for me as a ibm-gentoo user?  Is this more
>or less I can, if this goes through, buy a ibm with gentoo pre-loaded?
>
>Thanks
>  
>
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Re: Antwort: Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo could become certified for IBM Server Hardware

[Brett Curtis]

In a sense why i ask, gentoo preloaded would not intrest me.  

I would like to see things like IBM supports / recommends gentoo-sources-2.6.x.
or tested with these CFLAGS  with this processor.

Or emerge ibm-pixy-dust that would magically 'heal' my server... 

I have only been at my job / working with gentoo for just under a year
and have never felt the need to contact support. An option to do so if
needed would be nice.

Time will tell. Till then I wait.  

On 5/4/05, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky <znmeb@cesmail.net> wrote:
> Gentoo pre-loaded? Isn't that a contradiction in terms?
> 
> <ducking>
> 
> Seriously though, I too work with xSeries, as well as IBM desktops, and
> I've loaded Debian, Gentoo and half a dozen other distros on them
> without incident, as well as pre-Fedora Red Hat and RHEL clones. Left to
> my own devices (pun intended) I run Gentoo.
> 
> Brett Curtis wrote:
> 
> >This sounds great, I run six different types of xseries at work all
> >with gentoo. Never had any issues besides lm_sensors threatening  to
> >cook my mobos ;)
> >
> >What exactly would this do for me as a ibm-gentoo user?  Is this more
> >or less I can, if this goes through, buy a ibm with gentoo pre-loaded?
> >
> >Thanks
> >
> >
> --
> gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
> 
>

-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo could become certified for IBM Server Hardware

[Michiel de Bruijne]

On Wednesday 04 May 2005 11:03, daniel.kerwin@allianz.de wrote:
> Hello,
>
> i just returned from a meeting with IBM which was about getting
> support for Gentoo Linux (hardware and software). The people from IBM
> told me that it's possible for Gentoo to become officially supported
> on IBM server hardware (xSeries, pSeries and zSeries).
>
> They told me about their hardware offerings to the Debian Project so
> that they could certify their distribution. I think this is a great
> chance for gentoo to become more common for productive use.
>
> Is there a general interrest in doing this and how can this start?

Interest; yes, believe that it will happen in the (forseeable) future; 
absolutely not.

The biggest showstopper is that needs to be fixed first is lack of 
predictability:
- Gentoo is extremely customizable (USE-flags, compiler settings, etc.). To 
achieve predictability all those customizable options need to be locked.
- moving Portage-tree; if I install a system today, it wont be the same as a 
system I installed one month ago.
- no standard method of installation; supported OS's are basically clicking 
next, next, finish. Installation is done, system is identical. With Gentoo 
you get a lot of choices for a single component (e.g. vanilla-sources vs. 
gentoo-sources, vixie-cron vs. dcron, etc.). A default needs to be defined.

Second showstopper is lack of (LSB-)certification;
Like it or not, the typical managers in this world say if product x isn't 
y-certified we wont use/support it. Gentoo needs a profile for a 
LSB-compliant system.

There are more items that needs to be resolved before it's even possible to 
talk about official support. Good news is that with the current 
"Gentoo-framework" it's possible to fix both problems for example by creating 
a profile, lock everything in this profile and make sure old ebuilds are not 
removed during a sync. Other options are also possible (e.g. creating a 
separate tree). See GLEP 19 for more details. The only problem is lack of 
interest/time/priority from the developers/community.

If you want support from a company as big as IBM, you need to start smaller 
(e.g. NX, MySQL, Open-Xchange). If these companies are willing to support 
their products on Gentoo, then maybe bigger companies will follow.
-- 
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo could become certified for IBM Server Hardware

[Ciaran McCreesh]

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On Wed, 4 May 2005 18:17:53 +0200 Michiel de Bruijne
<m.debruijne@hccnet.nl> wrote:
| Second showstopper is lack of (LSB-)certification;
| Like it or not, the typical managers in this world say if product x
| isn't  y-certified we wont use/support it. Gentoo needs a profile for
| a  LSB-compliant system.

Don't be silly.

-- 
Ciaran McCreesh : Gentoo Developer (Vim, Shell tools, Fluxbox, Cron)
Mail            : ciaranm at gentoo.org
Web             : http://dev.gentoo.org/~ciaranm


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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo could become certified for IBM Server Hardware

[Lance Albertson]

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Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> On Wed, 4 May 2005 18:17:53 +0200 Michiel de Bruijne
> <m.debruijne@hccnet.nl> wrote:
> | Second showstopper is lack of (LSB-)certification;
> | Like it or not, the typical managers in this world say if product x
> | isn't  y-certified we wont use/support it. Gentoo needs a profile for
> | a  LSB-compliant system.
> 
> Don't be silly.

Actually, he does have a point. I know a lot of folks gripe that linux doesn't
have any standard FS layout of where files are etc. If something like this could
be implemented, it would make those people a lot happier.

-- 
Lance Albertson <ramereth@gentoo.org>
Gentoo Infrastructure | Operational Manager

---
Public GPG key:  <http://www.ramereth.net/lance.asc>
Key fingerprint: 0423 92F3 544A 1282 5AB1  4D07 416F A15D 27F4 B742

ramereth/irc.freenode.net

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo could become certified for IBM Server Hardware

[Ciaran McCreesh]

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On Wed, 04 May 2005 11:46:28 -0500 Lance Albertson <ramereth@gentoo.org>
wrote:
| Actually, he does have a point. I know a lot of folks gripe that linux
| doesn't have any standard FS layout of where files are etc. If
| something like this could be implemented, it would make those people a
| lot happier.

Well, there's FHS, which we don't follow because it is severely broken
in various places. Or we could create our own "Standardised Linux
Platform" specification and try to persuade the other distributions to
sign up for it. Of course, we'd mandate portage as the package manager.

Thing is, it really isn't a problem. Data files go in $(datadir),
configuration files go in $(sysconfdir) and so on, and the build system
handles the rest. It doesn't matter what $(datadir) is actually defined
to be (unless your code really really sucks).

-- 
Ciaran McCreesh : Gentoo Developer (Vim, Shell tools, Fluxbox, Cron)
Mail            : ciaranm at gentoo.org
Web             : http://dev.gentoo.org/~ciaranm


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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo could become certified for IBM Server Hardware

[Ryan]

I must say that I agree with Ciaran on this particular point.  The
current standards that tell you where to put things is lucicrous.  A
file system is NO different than a piece of code.  The whole thing
should be manageable by standardized VARIABLES not hard coded
standards.  Could you imagine how horrible the kernel would be if you
could only use a function in a certain way simply because you couldnt
use variables in it?  rand(1,10) as opposed to
rand(something,something).  That just wouldnt make any sense now would
it?  The same principle can be applied to FS structures.

Apache is one such project that doesnt care where you put it's files. 
You just define the variables as to where everything goes at compile
time, and there you have it.   That's probably the correct way to go
about defining where system/data files go. 

There is no current Linux FS standard that does this yet but having
Gentoo be the first would be something interesting.  The only problem is
that there ARE some applications that would/may not work with a FS like
this.  They would need to be modified at compile time in order to work. 
These are usually binary only installs such as VMWare.  They would work,
but they would break the FS standard because their system files would
not be in a standardized location.  This may be fine for some, but
others that want a very clean FS would not be satisfied with this.  Thus
you would have to get companies such as VMWare onboard with the FS
standard which isnt likely to happen.  If you want some sort of FS
standard, I dont think Gentoo will be the distro for you for quite some
time to come unless something dramatic changes and in a hurry.  There
seems to be an unwritten guideline as to where things *should* be, but
not everything follows that unwritten rule.

Ciaran McCreesh wrote:

>On Wed, 04 May 2005 11:46:28 -0500 Lance Albertson <ramereth@gentoo.org>
>wrote:
>| Actually, he does have a point. I know a lot of folks gripe that linux
>| doesn't have any standard FS layout of where files are etc. If
>| something like this could be implemented, it would make those people a
>| lot happier.
>
>Well, there's FHS, which we don't follow because it is severely broken
>in various places. Or we could create our own "Standardised Linux
>Platform" specification and try to persuade the other distributions to
>sign up for it. Of course, we'd mandate portage as the package manager.
>
>Thing is, it really isn't a problem. Data files go in $(datadir),
>configuration files go in $(sysconfdir) and so on, and the build system
>handles the rest. It doesn't matter what $(datadir) is actually defined
>to be (unless your code really really sucks).
>
>  
>

-- 
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo could become certified for IBM Server Hardware

[David Krider]

On Wed, 2005-05-04 at 17:26 +0100, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> On Wed, 4 May 2005 18:17:53 +0200 Michiel de Bruijne
> <m.debruijne@hccnet.nl> wrote:
> | Second showstopper is lack of (LSB-)certification;
> | Like it or not, the typical managers in this world say if product x
> | isn't  y-certified we wont use/support it. Gentoo needs a profile for
> | a  LSB-compliant system.
> 
> Don't be silly.
> 

Forgive me to come into a list where I should probably just be lurking,
but this is really what I subscribed to the list for: why is this idea
silly?

Let me give you some background. I used Red Hat for years without fuss,
until they pulled their "stunt" around 8.0. (The quality obviously took
a hit, and I could tell for sure by 9 what they were planning on doing,
even before they announced Fedora.) I threw everything up in the air and
landed on SuSE, and have been happy there for a few years. I love the
direction Novell seems to be going, but I keep finding show-stopping
bugs in their stuff. The latest problem is a hard lock when syncing my
new Treo. So I'm trying Gentoo, and really liking it.

The problem I'm having with Gentoo is the whole "build" thing. I know, I
know. That's the whole point. But I'm trying to bring this thing up on
an old PIII laptop with 256 MB of RAM. Even though this is a "nice" old
laptop, it still took 2 hours to do a genkernel. All I want it for is to
run various networking utils on customer sites, like an mgetty over
serial or tcpdump. What bugs me is the thought of lugging this thing
somewhere, and finding out that I need to do a 6-hour emerge to get
something I need really quickly. Perhaps this is a contrived example,
but it shows my point perfectly.

Why can't we get some sort of baseline install for generic machines. On
this laptop, I don't care to have any optimizations. I was just trying
to bring up the base install, use the included portage snapshot, and use
all the packages from the GRP that I could. Anything else I could
emerge. However, when I saw the 2-hour kernel build, I got scared off.

The same thing holds true for my dual-Athlon file server. I don't care
about optimizations. Even though it builds a kernel in 20 minutes, I
don't want to manage a bunch of USE flags. I also don't want to get it
all setup and running, and find that I need to take 3 days to compile
the whole system because I found something I wanted that I didn't
forsee.

I like the customizations of Gentoo on my main machine, where I have the
energy to hold the system's hand through all of the fine tuning. But on
servers and utlity laptops, I don't care. My point is this: why isn't a
"bigger GRP" a goal of the Gentoo project.

If the idea of the GRP were expanded, we could get a lot more usuable
system without having to compile anything. I think it would be awesome
to take a snapshot of a standard-USE-flag, standard-optimization, i686
system, and produce a "distro" in the normal sense. That way a person
can tweak out the system he wants, and run vanilla stuff on ones he
doesn't care about. It would be the best of both worlds, and keep a
person from needing to split their administrative skills between
distros.

PLEASE do not get me wrong. I'm not trying to start a flamewar. I'm just
trying to figure out how I can make gentoo work for me on something
other than a nice machine that I care to tweak out. I can see what the
baseline compiler flags ought to be, but keeping up with the USE flags
is wearing me out. I wouldn't know where to start to generate a list of
the "big" ones that determine how a system really behaves overall.

The biggest pain I see in this setup is the fact that I want security
updates. In my own use, I was thinking about bringing up a vanilla
system on my dual athlon, and building security updates with it to
distribute as binaries to the laptop.

I don't have any figures on this, but someone does. I'll bet 90% of the
use of Gentoo is on i686 machines. Why wouldn't making such a snapshot
or distro be appropriate?

Thanks for listening,
dk


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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo could become certified for IBM Server Hardware

[Ciaran McCreesh]

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On Wed, 04 May 2005 17:31:44 -0500 David Krider <david@davidkrider.com>
wrote:
| On Wed, 2005-05-04 at 17:26 +0100, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
| > On Wed, 4 May 2005 18:17:53 +0200 Michiel de Bruijne
| > <m.debruijne@hccnet.nl> wrote:
| > | Second showstopper is lack of (LSB-)certification;
| > | Like it or not, the typical managers in this world say if product
| > | x isn't  y-certified we wont use/support it. Gentoo needs a
| > | profile for a  LSB-compliant system.
| > 
| > Don't be silly.
| 
| Forgive me to come into a list where I should probably just be
| lurking, but this is really what I subscribed to the list for: why is
| this idea silly?

For us to support LSB:

* We'd have to use RPM instead of portage
* We'd have to support all the daft FHS ideas like /media, /srv and
/wedonotunderstandtheunixfs
* We'd have to make X support mandatory
* We'd have to ship ancient versions of core libraries

In fact, basically, we'd have to become RedHat.

-- 
Ciaran McCreesh : Gentoo Developer (Vim, Shell tools, Fluxbox, Cron)
Mail            : ciaranm at gentoo.org
Web             : http://dev.gentoo.org/~ciaranm


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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo could become certified for IBM Server Hardware

[Michiel de Bruijne]

On Thursday 05 May 2005 01:14, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> For us to support LSB:
>
> * We'd have to use RPM instead of portage

That's not correct, quote from LSB:
"The distribution itself may use a different packaging format for its own 
packages, and of course it may use any available mechanism for installing the 
LSB-conformant packages." 

So basically we can continue to do rpm2targz like we do now and still be 
LSB-compliant.

> * We'd have to support all the daft FHS ideas like /media, /srv and
> /wedonotunderstandtheunixfs

Like you said before:
"Thing is, it really isn't a problem. Data files go in $(datadir),
configuration files go in $(sysconfdir) and so on, and the build system
handles the rest. It doesn't matter what $(datadir) is actually defined
to be (unless your code really really sucks)."

With a proper build system you can install the same package in the current 
Gentoo FHS or the LSB FHS.

> * We'd have to make X support mandatory

Only in the LSB-profile, the normal profile doesn't need to have X-libs 
installed.

> * We'd have to ship ancient versions of core libraries

There is some interest in that already, see GLEP19

> In fact, basically, we'd have to become RedHat.

I don't agree. I think the Gentoo-framework is flexible enough to give us an 
_optional_ LSB-compliant system (e.g. by selecting a profile) without making 
any consessions on the current Gentoo-structure.
-- 
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo could become certified for IBM Server Hardware

[Chris Gianelloni]

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On Wed, 2005-05-04 at 17:31 -0500, David Krider wrote:
> I like the customizations of Gentoo on my main machine, where I have the
> energy to hold the system's hand through all of the fine tuning. But on
> servers and utlity laptops, I don't care. My point is this: why isn't a
> "bigger GRP" a goal of the Gentoo project.

Well, for one, we're (Release Engineering) trying to move away from GRP.
We will still have a binary reference platform, but it won't be so
prevalent as it is today.

> If the idea of the GRP were expanded, we could get a lot more usuable
> system without having to compile anything. I think it would be awesome
> to take a snapshot of a standard-USE-flag, standard-optimization, i686
> system, and produce a "distro" in the normal sense. That way a person
> can tweak out the system he wants, and run vanilla stuff on ones he
> doesn't care about. It would be the best of both worlds, and keep a
> person from needing to split their administrative skills between
> distros.

Here's the deal.  Gentoo is a "metadistribution".  It is designed with
the idea of being able to fill many roles.  We simply couldn't manage to
do this, while still providing massive amounts of binaries.  If we did
produce a larger GRP, then the packages would be even more out of date
from the "current" stuff in the tree, simply because of the expanded QA
scope and the possibility of hitting even more problems.

Now, that being said, there is nothing stopping someone from producing a
binary distribution based off Gentoo for this express purpose, but don't
expect to see it become official any time soon.  We simply don't have
the resources for it.

> I don't have any figures on this, but someone does. I'll bet 90% of the
> use of Gentoo is on i686 machines. Why wouldn't making such a snapshot
> or distro be appropriate?

For one, I would bet 90% of those people also want to optimize their
machines, or at least have more control over what gets installed via USE
flags.  In fact, I would say that is the primary thing that keeps people
with Gentoo.

Second, we just don't have the resources.  We pushed back the 2005.0
release a full two months because of issues with getting things built,
and that was just with the current GRP.  Could you imagine if we started
adding even more packages?  We would end up with packages that are 6
months stale just so we can have time to iron out all the bugs.
Personally, I have much better things to do than spend 6 months building
a single release.  It already takes a hefty amount of time to build the
release.  I couldn't imagine expanding it further.

Honestly, if you think there's a place in the world for an expanded GRP
set, then I would say go ahead and build one.  We are talking about open
source here... ;]

-- 
Chris Gianelloni
Release Engineering - Strategic Lead/QA Manager
Games - Developer
Gentoo Linux

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo could become certified for IBM Server Hardware

[Ciaran McCreesh]

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On Thu, 5 May 2005 03:28:06 +0200 Michiel de Bruijne
<m.debruijne@hccnet.nl> wrote:
| On Thursday 05 May 2005 01:14, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
| > For us to support LSB:
| >
| > * We'd have to use RPM instead of portage
| 
| That's not correct, quote from LSB:
| "The distribution itself may use a different packaging format for its
| own  packages, and of course it may use any available mechanism for
| installing the  LSB-conformant packages." 
| 
| So basically we can continue to do rpm2targz like we do now and still
| be  LSB-compliant.

Except that we'd have to handle arbitrary rpm deps properly.

| > * We'd have to support all the daft FHS ideas like /media, /srv and
| > /wedonotunderstandtheunixfs
| 
| Like you said before:
| "Thing is, it really isn't a problem. Data files go in $(datadir),
| configuration files go in $(sysconfdir) and so on, and the build
| system handles the rest. It doesn't matter what $(datadir) is actually
| defined to be (unless your code really really sucks)."
| 
| With a proper build system you can install the same package in the
| current  Gentoo FHS or the LSB FHS.

Except that FHS is just plain wrong.

| > * We'd have to make X support mandatory
| 
| Only in the LSB-profile, the normal profile doesn't need to have
| X-libs  installed.

So, we'd have to make X support mandatory. Yeah, greaaaat server
platform that would make.

| > * We'd have to ship ancient versions of core libraries
| 
| There is some interest in that already, see GLEP19

No, ancient. Not old, ancient. And GLEP 19 doesn't involve any
backporting of patches to said ancient versions.

-- 
Ciaran McCreesh : Gentoo Developer (Vim, Shell tools, Fluxbox, Cron)
Mail            : ciaranm at gentoo.org
Web             : http://dev.gentoo.org/~ciaranm


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Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo could become certified for IBM Server Hardware

[Paul de Vrieze]

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On Thursday 05 May 2005 03:28, Michiel de Bruijne wrote:
> On Thursday 05 May 2005 01:14, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> > For us to support LSB:
> >
> > * We'd have to use RPM instead of portage
>
> That's not correct, quote from LSB:
> "The distribution itself may use a different packaging format for its own
> packages, and of course it may use any available mechanism for installing
> the LSB-conformant packages."
>
> So basically we can continue to do rpm2targz like we do now and still be
> LSB-compliant.

Only if it's wrapped up automatically. At the minimum it would require a 
mapping from lsb dependencies to gentoo dependencies. But yes, we wouldn't 
need to throw portage out. It just needs rpm file support.

Paul

-- 
Paul de Vrieze
Gentoo Developer
Mail: pauldv@gentoo.org
Homepage: http://www.devrieze.net

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