You too can own your own Mainframe with Linux running on it...

IBM has announce that you can get a Mainframe capable of running Linux for a mere $200,000.  That's right you can get all the stability, reliability, and green screens you have grown up with or at least heard about and Linux.  This story from Network World does a nice job of explaining what they are trying to do.  You still need some Mainframe expertise and skills though.  This is because it's running on an Integrated Facility for Linux (IFL) processor.  These are managed by z/VM as is most if not all of the management of the hardware on the machine.  So to make them work you will need at least one Mainframe Admin and one Linux Admin.  Then there is the quoted numbers of VM's you can run on this $200,000 beauty.  That's right you can run up to 50 Virtual Machines on a single machine.  If you are coming from a hardware world this might sound cost effective.  Against normal hardware you might make the justification.  Compare this with almost any X-Series Visualization solution that would support 50 VM's will come in at a price around $30,000 to $50,000.  Make that completely redundant, to make what you would get with X-Series match Z-Series hardware, and you have a cost of about one third to one half of this new Mainframe.  From the tests I have been a part of the performance was really not all that different.  There is a lot of variability with any Virtualization Technology so your mileage may vary.  Unless it is considerably fast I am not sure how you are going to justify the costs and would need to make the sale on the stability of the platform.  Even that, in my opinion, is going to be extremely difficult.

So do you see your company buying a Mainframe strictly to run Linux on?

Dell offering Chrome on Netbook

Since it seems that Chrome is a big topic of discussion, I found another interesting article that appears to have been covered on several sites today.  Dell was successfully able to get Chrome running on one of their netbooks.  Check out one of the stories below:

http://bit.ly/7KIZ11

Guess it's just a Chrome kind of day.

How to setup Wireless on Chrome OS

Since we have been speaking about the Chrome OS now, and will continue to cover this OS, I figured I would post a link to a story I found about setting up wireless on Chrome.

http://bit.ly/7kaWeL

Hope this helps anyone who has been having any troubles with wireless on Chrome.

Episode 13 - Linuxinstall.net Podcast - Chrome OS, More on Wave and Web Development environments

Episode running time: 0:52:31  Click here to get to the podcast

1) Introduction

We talked about our latest impressions of Google Wave which we used to create and edit How to setup Web Development Environments

The link we talked about to in our Wave discussion:

http://completewaveguide.com/guide/Wave_Gadgets#A_Few_Great_Gadgets

Brian and Bill tried out Chrome OS and we talk about our impressions and where we see it getting used.(The Quick Review found here)

2) News

10 Lessons Google needs to learn about being an OS company

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Security/10-Lessons-Google-Must-Learn-About-OS-Security-343151/

Linux Consultants are like Matag repair people...

http://linuxinstall.net/linux_news/2009/11/19/linux-consultants-maytag-repair-people.html

3) Web Dev Environments

Heard several different comments on Linked in that we didn't give any real examples.  In our discussion we talk in depth about the what and why of the points we put into the article.  Let us know what you think should be in a development environment.

4) Conclusion

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Chrome OS quick review...

Chrome OS is Google's attempt to put Linux on net books in a way that anyone can use it. Google has stated that they will only be supporting specific hardware. For instance, the hard drive will have to be a solid state drive to keep the machine booting at the 7 second mark. The interface is really simplified. It's pretty much just a browser with some links disguised as a buttons.  The folks over at GDGT created a VMWare image of the new OS.  I downloaded it and tested it out using Sun's Virtual Box.  Here are my first thoughts about the new OS.

The less that perfect parts of Chrome OS:

You must be able to connect to the internet to be able to use it. This may change but seems to be a strong positive in Google's goal. The theory is that you can or will be able to do everything you need with Web based apps. When I am at home or in an area with Cell Signal this would be fine. Geton an airplane that doesn't have Wifi and the machine is going to be useless.

They don't want you to have to worry about drivers. So it's really unclear about how they plan on doing things like printing and other device connections. If they are planning on using CUPS(the open source print queue manager for Linux) they need to figure out or help the project work with cheaper printers. So how are we gonna get things that don't have drivers built in to work?

It may actually be too simple. The limitations are supposed to be beneficial but they may turn out to be too limited for even the most basic user. This is like reversing the trend from smart or app phones back to simple phones that just make calls. Not sure that it's a trend that will work. Only time will tell of course.

The good parts of Chrome OS:

It's simple. Really this is the perfect for my 80+ year old Grandfather. He wants to do E-Mail and look at our pictures and this is really the easiest OS to do it with. The OS could be nice for that purpose.

It boots really quickly. It connects easily to the network. It just works. Don't be undersold by those factors.

Conclusion:

All in all it's a wait and see moment for the new Google project. It may work but the discussion of merging it with Android seems to make more sense in the long term.  The real ultimate endgame though should probably be separate OSes with the ability to share apps.  That would provide the best of both worlds.