[rescue] New acquisition... (AIX)

[Jonathan C. Patschke]

On Thu, 1 Apr 2004, Patrick Finnegan wrote:

> > On Thu, 1 Apr 2004, Patrick Finnegan wrote:
> > > And, the only POWER machine that'll run Linux.  AIX is 'fun', but
> > > gets in the way of doing 'useful' stuff with it.
>
> I didn't say you can't do useful things with AIX, just I can't do what I
> want to do with AIX.

Sorry, I misunderstood.

> > You can use any-old PCI adapter you have a device driver for.  I have
> > Sun SCSI cards in some of my RS/6000s.
>
> Sun != PC hardware..

Why would you want to toss cheapie PC hardware in a high-quality
machine?  Doesn't that defeat the purpose of terrific hardware?

> Still, that doesn't mean that I find proprietary software licenses
> acceptable for anything I "care about."

Oh, okay.  See, I don't see a difference between that and the fact that
I can't get gate-level specs on the chips in my computers.  At a layer
of abstraction, it's all the same thing.  So, I hadn't even thought
about that angle, then.

> I'm not as skewed left as RMS, but I'm not using software for my
> business that isn't "OpenSource," unless there's absolutely no
> alternative, like trying to read VMS disks or something.

Whatever makes you happy.  My life's too busy for those sorts of
politics.  I use what gets my job done the fastest, the most
consistently, and with the least amount of hassle.  Unsurprisingly, this
typically means using the vendor's OS, or occasionally one of the BSDs.

Disclaimer:  I do have one Linux box I use occasionally, and I've used
Linux since 1995 or 1996, so I'm not a closed-minded bigot; it just
doesn't do for me what I or my bosses (or clients) need.  I also run
Windows, too, but just for sundry amusements or to keep brushed-up on
AutoCAD.

> Sure, but what's the fun in that?

Here's a little story.

I was installing a fibre-channel controller in an RS/6000.  I plugged
the card in crooked (stupid me), so there were cross-connected pins on
the PCI slot.

I powered the system up.  It ran some tests and immediately shut down.

So, I removed the card and started the system again.  When AIX came up,
it EMAILED ME and told me that I plugged in the card incorrectly or that
the card I plugged into slot #foo was damaged.

I replaced the card (correctly this time), and all was well.

That level of OS/Hardwre integration is something I've never found on
anything other than the vendor's OS.  Not even the BSD on PCs have that
sort of support.  Linux only does in the case that the hardware
manufacturers have chosen to cash in on the Linux craze.

> Hey I've got an idea... I could use the hardware to help with supporting
> Linux on this stuff.

*puke*

Personally, I'd love to see Linux gone.  I've happily cleaned it out of
the last three computer rooms I've worked in and replaced it with stuff
that's a lot better-suited for the job, much to the pleasure of those in
charge.  Having an OS that groks simple things like "dump" is a wonderful
thing.

> [0] High quality hardware *does* exist, I've used it.  Walmart and Best
> Buy don't sell it, but it is out there, and not just from people like
> Dell.

Dell sells high quality hardware?  You mean, something without a
processor with 4 general-purpose registers and a bag-on-the-side hack to
make it act like it has more than 8 IRQ lines?  They make decent PCs,
but there are other companies that make ServerWorks-based PCs for much
less, and, at the end of the day, they're still PCs, still crippled with
all those holdovers from 1978.

-- 
Jonathan Patschke  ) "Being on the Internet is not the same as being
Elgin, TX         (   famous.  That's like calling Cheetos 'dinner'."
USA                )                                    --Metal Steve