Posted on 02/10/2009 11:29:23 AM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Canonical, Ubuntu's commercial sponsor, has agreed to re-distribute IBM's Lotus Symphony productivity suite with its public Linux repositories. More details are expected later today.
The news follows IBM's decision earlier this year to offer a version of its Open Collaboration Client Solution (OCCS) for Ubuntu.
Ubuntu is, according to the suits at IBM, "a Linux operating system that scores high marks on usability and 'the cool factor.'"
The deal is expected to be announced by IBM at the same time it announces agreements with Ubuntu, Red Hat and SuSE to work with local hardware partners to build and distribute "Microsoft-free" PCs. Systems will feature the Linux distros running IBM's OCCS and other open-source applications.
IBM said products would be tailored to vertical sectors and be branded by the local IT partners.
IBM added that shifting market forces, slow adoption of Windows Vista, and growing demand for alternatives to "costly" Windows and Office-based machines: "Offer a glimpse of the ripe market opportunity for Linux-based desktops to proliferate."
The company will also announce Novell's Linux Enterprise Server 10 as the first Linux distro to be shipped with a new line of self-managing server appliances targeting small businesses. The appliances, Linux Foundations, are designed to promote uptake of IBM's Domino email and collaboration software in SMBs.
Accompanying the news, IBM announced the Lotus Foundations ISV Developer Toolkit, which it said would simplify packaging of Domino applications for appliances.®
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By Gavin Clarke in San Francisco •
5th August 2008 21:08 GMT
LinuxWorld Ubuntu is the latest Linux distro to fall under the loving gaze of systems giant IBM, in its endless march to unseat Microsoft from business desktops and servers.
Canonical, the commercial sponsor of the people-friendly Ubuntu, has done a deal with IBM that'll serve Ubuntu well in the enterprise - running business applications.
As reported, Canonical will re-distribute IBM's Lotus Symphony, based on OpenOffice.org, with its Ubuntu repositories. Deconstructing the twisted language IBM used to make this announcement, Canonical told The Reg it would have Lotus Notes install with Symphony using the Ubuntu two-click process.
Canonical expects testing to be done in September and general availability with the release by IBM of a Lotus Notes client for Debian this autumn.
The question is whether Canonical will also provide support for Symphony, a free product from IBM that the systems giant supports. Canonical is likely to turn to a third-party to provide this although it's likely to resell Symphony support, the company said.
Canonical and Ubuntu are finding growing favor with IBM, which wants its applications running on Linux distros against Microsoft's Windows and business applications. So far, for example, IBM's DB2 has been certified on Ubuntu.
IBM's endorsement is great for Ubuntu, which - with Red Hat and Novell both conspicuous by their absence - was the Linux distro that owned this year's LinuxWorld. It re-enforces Canonical's long-term objective of running more business-critical applications.
For IBM, it was the same old story: a search for a new source to power its never-ending battle to unseat Microsoft from the enterprise. No consumer will ever use the Ubuntu work on Notes.
IBM's deal with Canonical, along with Red Hat and Novell, is to partner with local hardware providers - as yet there are none to announce, IBM told press at LinuxWorld - for a "Microsoft-free" PC. The deal is therefore, so far, on software - Open Collaboration Client Solution (OCCS) and Symphony.
We've been here before with IBM partnering around, and talking up, the possibilities of the Linux desktop. Yet it's never really caught on.
This time, though, the director of cross-IBM Linux strategy Inna Kuzetsova believes things are different. Linux on the desktop is "much more user friendly, plus there's the ability to exchange documents and messages," she said.
Related thread...
I have a new quad 6700 with Windows 7 64 beta and Ubuntu 64 that I am testing out for future installs for clients. Ubuntu is just as slick, performs better and costs less. Going to be a steep hill from here for MS.
In both cases, I think the 32 bit versions run better though. 64 bitters can use more refinement.
IBM is a faithless partner.
I know. I have a small company which was an IBM OS/2 Developer Partner.
IBM abandoned us. They surrendered to Microsoft leaving all us OS/2 developers high and dry.
F*ck IBM. I hope their executives rot in hell.
I've been running Ubuntu 64-bit on my desktop for about a year now with few problems.
But then I chose my hardware carefully. If you build a box using hardware that relies on manufacturers to provide your drivers then you can have issues with 64-bit. People with wireless cards with the Atheros chips have had lots of problems. I use cards with the fully documented RALink chips and haven't had any problem at all.
The last stumbling blocks were 64-bit flash and a 64-bit java plugin for Firefox. Both of those finally showed up late last year.
OpenSolaris is MUCH COOLER than Ubuntu.
I had only my REXX test left to take before I got my OS/2CE. I had an interview scheduled in Boca Raton when they pulled the plug. I'm still miffed about that.
IBM is a big company. And big companies, like countries, don't have friends. They have interests. Fortunately IBM is just another company in the Linux market. They don't dominate it so they don't get to pull stupid stunts. Users know they have other choices and will bail in a heartbeat.
I remember those days...IBM was cutting everything...for quite awhile...
KEWL!
I just built this 6700 as a test box to see how a faster machine worked out. Wanted to test out VMs and RAID to see if there was any real advantage to the user. So far, inconclusive.
Yes, flash is the big problem right now, but using the wrapper works acceptably.
I have stuck with wired cards for now, but you are right about tested wireless cards and driver problems have been dogging the 64 bit switch.
I still see 64 bits as not ready ‘yet’ for prime time, and for most people, probably not needed either.
I have put Ubuntu on many systems and so far, no security problems at all. I recommend people do their banking online with a separate Ubuntu account they use only for banking and other security site issues, to keep down the possible problems that may develop with daily use.
F*ck IBM. I hope their executives rot in hell.
You still living in the past? Those exec's are long since gone.
The reality is that the only reason you need 64-bits is if you actually need more than 4GB of RAM.
32-bit computing can address up to 4GB. Anything more than that requires some kernel tricks or a move to 64-bit.
64-bit uses more memory than 32-bit. The trade off is that you can stuff a lot more memory in a 64-bit machine and use it.
So, bottom line, if you don't have an application requirement for more than 4GB of RAM, you don't need a 64-bit OS.
Yep, that’s my conclusion as well. I was hoping for some 64 bit speed up, but nope. If software folks don’t get this squared away, they could queer the market for 64 bit.
I was trying to explore the security implications of VMs used as banking, stocks and other online stuff that is secure. I just started oput with a couple of GB, so I will order up 4 more.
That’s what testing is for.
You using Windows 7 beta?
64-bit was never about more speed. It's a new architecture to deal with greater amounts of memory.
If software folks don’t get this squared away, they could queer the market for 64 bit.
With applications getting larger all the time eventually 64-bit will be the default because accessing more than 4GB of RAM on 32-bit is just too costly. (Processorily speaking)
You using Windows 7 beta?
Didya read my tagline? ;)
Heh. I guess you didn't. FR ate my tagline.
All fixed now.
Do you know which manufacturers us the RALink chips?
The intel-based wireless in my dell work laptop also works pretty good.
Ralink chipsets based wireless devices
The intel-based wireless in my dell work laptop also works pretty good.
Yep. Intel and nVidia have some of the best device support for Linux.
The 7128 cards have worked great with Ubuntu. Plug and play.
Well theoretically you should gain some with the full 64 bit memory paths in the processor ... But it looks like whatever gain there might be is lost with poor software design. Multithreading also needs some real attention before multiple processor chips is going to mean much to average users. Now they just seem to idle along.
I have been using UNIX since well since, OK, I forgot ... I did meet with Dennis Ritchie back in the old days at AT&T trying to convince him and others to let UNIX go, but AT&T was determined to try and make money off it. Bad move ...
Tagline works ... LOL.
Well, with 64-bit the pointers are twice as large so there is a decrease in performance right there.
64-bit means that you can move twice as much data across the core in the same amount of time but unless your applications are IO or memory bound you won't see a significant increase above a 32-bit system.
Once you move above 4GB of RAM 64-bit really takes off, mainly because using BigMem or HugeMem pages on a 32-bit system induces a significant performance hit due to the way that a 32-bit system has to page RAM (much like the old EMS memory management under DOS.)
If you have a 32-bit system with 32GB of memory, like many of the databases I deal with at work, moving to 64-bit will show a marked performance increase, but if your system has 4GB or less and is idling along with less than 5% IO you're not going to see much improvement.
It's also true that a lot of application software really isn't taking advantage of the larger memory space or extra registers available on a 64-bit platform. A lot of application people have just recompiled their apps to run on 64-bit systems. That will get better with time and more exposure to 64-bit programming.
IB4GE
I sure hope they have fixed the bugs and tweaked the interface in Symphony since the last time I tested it.
If/when it becomes available in the repo’s, I’ll try it again.
Right!
I was a heavy user of WordPro for my Math classes....did a great job .
One thing that i REALLY miss is Lotus Smart Suite. There were some features with Lotus Word Pro that i haven't seen elsewhere. It was a joy to work with. Wish they'd port Lotus to Linux.
Windows could help with this. I'm running XP Pro on a Phenom Quad, and while you can associate a given app to prefer a given core, by default XP seems to throw everything on Core 1. Manually associating every app with a given core is a stupid idea, first because it takes my man hours instead of Microsoft's, and second, because even if I did go and associate 25% of the things I run with each core, the mix of what I'm running at any given time is always different so from time to time I'd probably end up running all the Core 2 stuff at the same time. Why doesn't XP default to using an unused core if one is available??
I still have it on 3.5 floppies. LOL
I agree. I have the CD that came with my old IBM lappy. I was hoping that they’d start giving away Notes, since it’s such a breeze to install and backend a server.
I have all the Windows, but Vista, after the beta trial, it just took too much to run to recommend it to any client.
I know. I've written one-off stuff that even does that (with other types of resources). I guess it goes to prove Brook's law that once you get past a few programmers, productivity takes a nosedive.
At least stuff that runs all the time in the background like anti virus and firewall can be assigned to cores 2-4, and let the foreground stuff you consciously run be on core 1. I've done some of that but haven't taken the time to do it all as yet.
Yeah, when I was running the OS development group, it was clear that as the number of programmers went up, what went out the door went way down. The only way was with as few software engineers as possible and divide the work into packaged and constrained entities. This is where UNIX/Linux model kills MS. A giant hairball is not going to work very well, ever.
I had many a conversation with the original AT&T UNIX team on what they saw as the ideal way to develop complex systems. Sure would be nice if programmers today would learn the lessons of the past — They should dig out some of the old UNIX style guides and follow them.
When I do stuff myself (one programmer) I try to break it down in blocks with as few as practical defined inputs and outputs. Easier to debug a small black box, then move on to the next one. Plus, if you come up with a better way to do the job of a given black box, you just recode it and drop it in, confident you're not breaking 6 other boxes.
bump
That’s how UNIX was built a series of function boxes. But then the need to tune always gets the best of them, and wrecks the whole plan — sigh.
Reliable and easy to troubleshoot/fix is better than tuned, IMHO. (Course I’m not writing stuff on which the performance of millions of CPUs depends. YMMV)
i’m installing OpenSuSE 11.1 this week. Still have the installation CD that came with my old IBM Aptiva. Maybe i can install and run it out of WINE under Linux.
I checked the Wine Appdb, and didn’t find it. A cursory check using google, shows two folks have installed it, but neither one reports usable functionality.
I would recommend installing VirtualBox, Qemu, or VM, all free and available in the repositories, and, after installing Windows there, install SmartSuite. It will work that way, I’m sure.
I’ve been using VB for about two years on a TabletPC and especially for Filemaker, it’s very reliable and, since Sun bought them, more feature rich than ever.
Of course, you can always pay CodeWeavers to customize WINE for you and then it’ll work.
IBM also had another complete disaster with attempted Office replacements recently with their Workplace product. They don't even sell PC's anymore either, they sold that wing off to the Chinese government a few years ago, IBM is the absolute last place I'd look for desktop productivity.
One of the mysteries of life. You would think that a scheduler that just assigned the next available core to the next process would do something good, but the designs of the OSes were apparently blind-sided by multi-cores.Multithreading also needs some real attention before multiple processor chips is going to mean much to average users. Now they just seem to idle along.Windows could help with this. I'm running XP Pro on a Phenom Quad, and while you can associate a given app to prefer a given core, by default XP seems to throw everything on Core 1 . . . Why doesn't XP default to using an unused core if one is available??
I thought it fascinating that OS X.6, "Snow Leopard," is slated to have "Open GL" technology to make it easier for application writers to more fully exploit multiple cores and even to tap the number crunch capabilities of graphics processors. It seems likely that speech processing will become efficient - and possibly go mainstream - with that sort of technology . . .
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