London Stock Exchange dumps Windows for Linux

When it comes to business computer systems, nothing is more mission-critical than the massive trading software systems that underlie stock markets. A failure of an hour here can mean billions of dollars of lost trades. The LSE (London Stock Exchange) learned that the hard way when their .NET/Windows Server 2003 trading platform died like a dog early last September. The new LSE management is not going make that mistake again. This October, the LSE purchased MillenniumIT and will be switching its stock exchange programs to the company's Linux-based Millennium Exchange software.

I saw this move coming. While the LSE never officially announced that its Windows and .NET stock trade software TradElect was the root of its September failure and perpetually slow performance, it was an open secret in the City -- London's equivalent to America's Wall Street -- that that was the case. Indeed, it was this technology flop that lead to the LSE CEO Clara Furse leaving the Exchange in July. The new CEO, Xavier Rolet, immediately decided to get rid of TradElect and started shopping for other platforms.

Friends of mine in the City tell me that the LSE immediately started considering a Linux-based solution. It doesn't take a genius to see why. The world's fastest stock exchanges, like New York's International Security Exchange, run on Linux. In a world of high-frequency trading where a millisecond really can mean the difference between profit and loss, stock exchanges can't afford to be slow, never mind actually going off-line.

Wow. That has serious ramifications. I wonder why there’s not a peep about it screaming through the community?

I also wonder if it will be seamless to the users, and, what it will mean for updates, applications, and such? I support about 50 Seniors that I have put on Ubuntu, and about 15-20 small businesses, too.

Thanks for the heads up, EATB.

Things are happening....see this:

Next Debian Release Will Use FreeBSD Kernel

Thanks, I hadn't noticed that.

I took a look over the debian main website, and found the Debian announcement:

Debian pushes development of kFreeBSD port

October 7th, 2009
The Debian Release Team is pleased to announce that it sees the port of the Debian system to the FreeBSD kernel fit to be handled equal with the other release ports. The upcoming release codenamed 'Squeeze' is planned to be the first Debian distribution to be released with Linux and FreeBSD kernels.
The kFreeBSD architectures for the AMD64/Intel EM64T and i386 processor architectures are now release architectures. Severe bugs on these architectures will be considered release critical the same way as bugs on other architectures like armel or i386 are. If a particular package does not build or work properly on such an architecture this problem is considered release-critical.
Debian's main motivation for the inclusion of the FreeBSD kernel into the official release process is the opportunity to offer to its users a broader choice of kernels and also include a kernel that provides features such as jails, the OpenBSD Packet Filter and support for NDIS drivers in the mainline kernel with full support.
About Debian

The Debian Project was founded in 1993 by Ian Murdock to be a truly free, community project. Since then the project has grown to be one of the largest and most influential open source projects. Over three thousand volunteers from all over the world work together to create and maintain Debian software. Translated into over 30 languages, and supporting a huge range of computer types, Debian calls itself the universal operating system.
Contact Information

For further information, please visit the Debian web pages at http://www.debian.org/ or send mail to <press@debian.org>.

http://www.debian.org/News/2009/20091007

I support about 50 Seniors that I have put on Ubuntu

How are you doing with that....?

It's going well. I have been able to get larger Corporations to donate old, broken equipment, or equipment that's headed for the recycler-even if it's not broken, which I then breakdown and use the good parts to build PC's for the Seniors with.

I usually install Ubuntu and OpenOffice and some other FOSS for them to use. If the PC came with a legal license I might install that OS, depending on the person's needs. They really like Ubuntu, and the fact that there is so much software to download and try out, just by clicking a few times, as well as the easy and automatic updates. (unlike Windows-LOL)

I do, pretty much, the same thing with some Church's.

Mint, of course. I like it.

But, they’re mostly older folks, and not computer savvy. They surf, they type letters, they play games, etc. That’s it. Sometimes I’ll get a call and one of them will be over joyed that they had the nerve to download and install a new app package through synaptic. LOL

I was using Ubuntu-Lite, till they stopped working on the project, and now I’m hoping LUbuntu releases soon. In the meantime, Ubuntu works, and stays fairly consistent from update to update.

I’d like to see his Karmic Mint release when it happens. Karmic is sooo sweet.

I just got in 6 Win98 pc’s. They’re all in very nice condition, all are Toshiba’s. Celery 333’s. I threw 256 MB Ram in, and am right now loading those up with Ubuntu 7.10.

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