IRIX and Software

Sorry I meant Loonix.. You may have seen this on slash dot, but some of the comments are interesting.

http://betanews.com/2016/03/07/sql-server-linux/

Looking into the future, can anyone see the end of Windows? I'm not a fan of Windows, but have to use it like many people and even OSX doesn't interest me anymore (since about 10.6-ish). Maybe loonix desktop should get it's act together, is there a better time for it to take over the world?

Years ago, one Christmas time I think, I recall being sat in the pub with the mumps developer who argued with me that mumps was a better database server than MS SQL.. my argument was.. it doesn't matter, MS are bigger and will just win.. simple as.. He ended the argument by calling me a ginger headed fscker! (I class that as a win). History has proved me right, but in all fairness I could have been wrong, MS SQL at that time was version 6 and we used VB, but was mumps a better DB?

The problem I have always seen with Loonix, is like UNIX all those years ago, there cropped up too many flavours, incompatibility issues etc and you invested in one flavour only to find out years later.. you chose wrong! Our mumps ran on HP-UX, Our MS SQL ran on NT4. How many loonix magazine covers had the 'LINUX DESKTOP IS HERE.. BLAH BLAH..'

As you know I'm not a lover of Loonix, and don't really follow what is going on.. so maybe they have cracked?

Next up: Exchange on Linux

With all due respect, before this turns into a "Linux versus IRIX" debate let me comment on the release of a Linux SQL server by Microsoft.

I think this is a great but also necessary move by Microsoft to gain a foot into the server software market. It strengthens their position in the database sector, but also boosts Linux as server OS choice. Microsoft realizes that they cannot gain any more by selling an OS, so they turn to data information as their biggest asset. And give for free a windows OS which goes many ways of filling that huge data information hunger. Needless to say that i will stick with the Windows 7 systems i currently use.

Uunix is right in that the Linux flavors are confusing and the wrong choice can impact people working environment and businesses. Here at the University of Technology the choice for the Linux installation OS was taken at the top level management in 2008 and they chose ... SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop. It turned out that they can basically buy off support by signing a contract, thus making maintenance something you can outsource, which is the support management way of getting a successful business model, but a less than satisfactory experience by users, to put it mildly.
Which is why locally maintained Ubuntu/Debian systems are now very popular at the university, because people actually use that on their private laptop systems, and because the SLED image is still at version 11 with the old KDE desktop and not even a decent python 2.7 installation. Clearly a decision which has stalled Linux acceptance at the University for years.

As for SGI and IRIX: the 90's were glorious in getting Origin rack systems to bust High Performance Computing records, and were decent webservers but database wise they weren't big. I am still proud of having run HPC stuff on the TERAS in Amsterdam early 2000 and actually visit that huge beast.

At least look at it on the bright side: Of all the systems in the top 500 HPC clusters, 488 run Linux, 10 run Unix, one mixed OS and one windows SGI has supplied 29 systems and is 4th in the list of hardware providers. They still do something reasonably well...

dexter1 wrote: Of all the systems in the top 500 HPC clusters, 488 run Linux, 10 run Unix, one mixed OS and one windows SGI has supplied 29 systems and is 4th in the list of hardware providers. They still do something reasonably well...

the top500 are quite pointless because they make no difference between clusters and actual single machines. so you could just plug 4000000000000 ipads together and rule it despite not having anything hpc at all.
some years ago there was a separate cluster list for a short while but it didn't last long ... and i guess it's not hard to guess why
that said, sgi do well given what's available. comparable to when they actually developed their own stuff? not at all.

as for the actual topic, from microsoft's perspective i'm actually surprised that they've waited for so long but i guess it's not so easy to admit that they just don't matter in the server market.
whether having that db for linux is an actual gain - i don't know but given that all databases have a linux version i'm not sure it's gonna be a success.

HPC != single system image. A 200000000 iPad cluster would count perfectly as an HPC system if it's used for doing computational work.

uunix wrote: He ended the argument by calling me a ginger headed fscker! (I class that as a win).

As a fellow "ginger headed fscker," I concur. It is always regarded as a clear win when an opponent concludes with that.

PS. There is a certain irony to the "Microsoft to release SQL server for Irix" headline, when one considers the Sybase roots of MS SQL Server. Although Microsoft had ended its arrangement with Sybase before I got involved with IRIX, the Sybase database ran quite nicely on top of IRIX. (Sybase on IRIX was particularly popular among life sciences customers in the early days of the Human Genome Project.) It would not surprise me if the word "IRIX" is buried somewhere in Microsoft's SQL Server source code, even today.

Well, the sybase-based (pun intended) MS SQL server product was over 20 years ago, it predates NT even. It has been rewritten from scratch since, at least according to the former boss of that business unit @ Microsoft.

I don't understand for whom Microsoft is targeting this product. The main value proposition for MSSQL server is that it is the de facto big DB system for the windows ecosystem. But if you're not part of that ecosystem, there is not much value going for it. MS seem to be in a mode where they keep throwing shit to the wall to see what sticks during the past 5 years. Which I personally think makes for wonderful schadenfreude.

R-ten-K wrote: MS seem to be in a mode where they keep throwing shit to the wall to see what sticks during the past 5 years. Which I personally think makes for wonderful schadenfreude.

The really cruel irony is that they've been progressively undermining just about every one of their strengths in order to do it (*cough* iWindows *cough* XBone *cough*)

I quite like apples new surface book.

Now, wouldn't it be funny if Microsoft build its own Linux distribution?

Just remember that back in the day there was XENIX too.

R-ten-K wrote: HPC != single system image.

not what i meant at all. i meant a system designed for professional use.

Once again I'm working with SQL Server and it works plenty well. The licensing costs are pretty high if you want all the features and need to run on a wide machine. This colored my initial take on the news: What's the point? What does the OS matter for a SQL Server? Here's an example - let's say you pay $70k for a machine and SQL Server license - who is going to argue over a $1k Windows license? It just doesn't make sense.

A friend however did bring up a valid point. Small systems - PostgreSQL or MySQL run on anything - want to run a DB on a raspberry pi or a LinkSys router? no problem. Have an embedded linux appliance? no problem.

So this could be a play for embedded and small systems.

foetz wrote: not what i meant at all. i meant a system designed for professional use.

That distinction to me appears irrelevant, honestly. There's plenty of "professional" work getting done on iPads on any given day. Or a more serious example being the IBM Blue Genes, undoubtedly supercomputers, their building blocks are crappy embedded PPCs. A computer is a computer is a computer.

I simply disagree with things like the Top500 being meaningless. To the people in the field it provides a good snapshot regarding HPC and its realities.

japes wrote: So this could be a play for embedded and small systems.

I would personally bet against that. The only thing that MSSQL brings to that space is cost. Why would anyone go out of their way to pay a licensing fee to microsoft, when already working alternatives are free?

I am going to be most probably wrong. But, to me, this move probably makes more sense in the context of large scale, for stuff like azure. Microsoft may have won the desktop. But on the infrastructure end of things, the free alternatives (linux, the BSDs, foss embedded systems) are either good enough or better. Nobody, not even microsoft perhaps, would be stupid enough to base their cloud infrastructure on windows server machines, at this point.

I thought the whole point of microsoft stuff was to 'leverage value' for people who can't afford a sysadmin, but still need a web-server, so they pay to have IIS running out-of-box.

I can see this being profitable if they have a whole product lineup of " Microsoft Certified Enterprise Linux " stuff, and expensive course-ware with ' how to get any girl to sleep with you guaranteed ' bootcamps. Let us not forget Microsoft Visual GCC 2016 Pro Edition Team Server Private GitHub iCloud ( on Rails )

The thing for me about HPC is that it just isn't fun or exciting anymore. Great, I rack commodity crap and add another linux node.... I remember the excitement of when finally getting the PO signed off and then waiting for the big iron to be delivered. Unwrapping and boxing a beautiful non-intel work of art on pallets. I miss having to worry about getting spinters. I swear those moments were better than Christmas morning as a kid.

P.S. Each year, I just despise linux more and more. The most excitement I have had in the last few months was upgrading the Tezro to quad 700s. About 10 years ago, I thought the future would be OSX Server on Xserve nodes. Managing those with Apple Remote Desktop and ssh.... My how boring IT is these days....

P.S. M$ would have to be smoking crack if they think I would ever put MSSQL Server on Linux in my environment (not even thinking about the underhanded BS they pulled putting nails in SGI's coffin). I wonder if the boxed copy comes with a complimentary gimp mask and strap-on in a death of Supermanesqe black baggie.

opcode wrote: The thing for me about HPC is that it just isn't fun or exciting anymore. Great, I rack commodity crap and add another linux node.... I remember the excitement of when finally getting the PO signed off and then waiting for the big iron to be delivered. Unwrapping and boxing a beautiful non-intel work of art on pallets. I miss having to worry about getting spinters. I swear those moments were better than Christmas morning as a kid.

P.S. Each year, I just despise linux more and more. The most excitement I have had in the last few months was upgrading the Tezro to quad 700s. About 10 years ago, I thought the future would be OSX Server on Xserve nodes. Managing those with Apple Remote Desktop and ssh.... My how boring IT is these days....

P.S. M$ would have to be smoking crack if they think I would ever put MSSQL Server on Linux in my environment (not even thinking about the underhanded BS they pulled putting nails in SGI's coffin). I wonder if the boxed copy comes with a complimentary gimp mask and strap-on in a death of Supermanesqe black baggie.

if we had a post of the month or something this would be my vote