RE: as/400 / linux / lpar

["Andy Nolen-Parkhouse" <aparkhouse@xxxxxxxxx>]

Leif,

Generally, when trying to differentiate technical accuracy from
marketing double-speak, it is helpful to understand the advantage the
vendor obtains from the effort.  In the case of "interactive features",
I can clearly understand IBM's effort.  They wish to make more money
from the 5250 data stream and thus engaged in some less-than-forthright
discussions of "hardware" implementations and the like.  This didn't
really work because there was really no sound technical basis; just a
marketing decision to charge more for 5250.

In the case of fractional LPAR's, I believe IBM.  To my mind, a
processor is software written into silicon (or whatever they're using
these days) and I see no advantage to IBM in not providing this
functionality to pre-SStar processors.  Yes, if someone desperately
needed this function, they would need to upgrade their machine.  I don't
see that much desperation out there for Linux in a partial partition and
IBM is so intent on pushing Linux that I think if they could have easily
made it available on older processors, they would have.

Those are my thoughts.  Aside from a basic distrust of large
corporations, why do you think that IBM would intentionally disable
support for Linux on partial processors in older machines?

Regards,
Andy Nolen-Parkhouse

> Subject: Re: as/400 / linux / lpar
>
> Seriously, none of this, not faster floating point Vern, are needed
> for fractional LPARs. But, as long as nobody will tell us the real
> truth behind this, this whole discussion is at best amusing.
> Where did I hear years ago, that "interactive feature" was
> hardware? even came on or needed a special "decelerator"
> hardware card...  :-)