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By Zack Brown
Developer Services Editor, Linuxcare, Inc.

According to Alan Cox's 2.2.14pre14 patch, Linux now has at least preliminary support for running on the IBM S/390 Mainframe. Rumors that IBM has been engaged in a port have been circulating for some time, but this is the first concrete code that has surfaced to date. Back in October of this year, a Danish Computerworld article broke the story that work was in progress. IBM confirmed the story, and then on Dec 4, a cryptic statement from IBM announced that the S/390 could act as a server for Linux clients. It said nothing about an actual port, however.

Yesterday, Alan Cox announced his latest pre-patch, including "Most of the IBM S/390 port merge," though apparently not everything IBM submitted to him. In a later post to the linux-kernel mailing list he added, "It seems to be a full SMP port with disk, networking and consoles." In the same post, he pointed out that the port only applied to the 2.2.x series, and that IBM had not yet submitted any patches for 2.3.x.

In the patch, the principle architects of the port appear to include:

• Denis Joseph Barrow (djbarrow@de.ibm.com,barrow_dj@yahoo.com)
• Dieter Wellerdiek (wel@de.ibm.com)
• Hartmut Penner (hp@de.ibm.com)
• Holger Smolinski (Holger.Smolinski@de.ibm.com)
• Ingo Adlung (adlung@de.ibm.com)
• Martin Peschke (peschke@fh-brandenburg.de)
• Martin Schwidefsky (schwidefsky@de.ibm.com)
• Stefan Hegewald (hegewald@de.ibm.com)

An email sent to each of these developers requesting more information, got only the following reply from one of them: "I'm very sorry, I am not authorized to give you any information now. We have noticed your interest, and probably come back to you soon."

So IBM may not be talking yet, but I'm sure we can expect to hear a lot more about this from them, once they clear their collective throat.

Index Mode   |   Flat Mode   |   Thread Mode   |   Thread Flat     Talkback(s) Name  and Date   Is this the big time??????    Dec 18, 1999, 04:40:47     Probably a port to VM    Matteo Ianeselli Dec 18, 1999, 08:01:30     When it will be out...    Alessandro Coppo Dec 18, 1999, 08:16:10     IBM S/390 and Linux    Ken Cormack Dec 18, 1999, 14:30:49     IBM needs a Linux port    John Sowa Dec 18, 1999, 14:49:17     Native on /390    Fred Mobach Dec 18, 1999, 15:53:04     as/400 Port?    mike Dec 18, 1999, 16:20:00     Re: Probably a port to VM    Moshe Bar Dec 18, 1999, 16:54:48     Re: Probably a port to VM    Stuart Brady Dec 18, 1999, 19:55:00     The IBM java-linux e-platform    Eoin Dec 18, 1999, 21:54:46     Important question    Frank Ranner Dec 19, 1999, 01:04:17     Another rational Lotus Notes    David Walter Dec 19, 1999, 05:39:31     Re: Probably a port to VM    Peter Vander Woude Dec 19, 1999, 06:26:53     Re: as/400 Port?    Peter Vander Woude Dec 19, 1999, 06:28:12     AS/400 and Siemens    Richard Donkin Dec 19, 1999, 12:54:20     Re: The IBM java-linux e-platform    BlueBoy Dec 19, 1999, 16:09:43     Re: Probably a port to VM    Ross Patterson Dec 19, 1999, 23:34:31     OS/390 is a UNIX Certified OS    Bill Smith Dec 21, 1999, 19:53:48     linux/390 - v.interesting, but why?    Roger Bowler Dec 28, 1999, 15:26:12     Re: Native on /390    Stephen Bovy Jan 17, 2000, 19:39:54     Home | Search Talkbacks | Customize View    Top of Page   Enter your comments below: Your Name: Your Email Address: Subject: CC: [will also send this talkback to an E-Mail address] Comments: Tags allowed:<I>,<B> and <U>. See our talkback-policy for more about talkback content.