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I've had to port applications to AIX from Solaris
and that was the worst job I've ever had. AIX
was incredibly hard to work with if you've worked
with Solaris, or SunOS or BSD. It was the technically
hardest thing I've ever had to do. Of course,
this was in the early days of AIX. AIX was
just so weird and different from all my unix experience up to that point.

If I had to work with AIX, I'd run screaming in fear.

Me? I'd choose linux over AIX in a heartbeat.

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Actually, I like AIX. Well, I've a confession to make, I really, really like AIX. I've been able to tune AIX perforance to levels I could never get to spitting distance with using Solaris or HP/UX.

That said, I'm one of those people who knew the System III and V families better than I did the BSD/Solaris family lines. So, for me, AIX was an easier jump.

If you are making the Solaris or BSD to AIX jump let me recommend, no insist, that you add

http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/aix/products/aixos/wh itepapers/aixmapping.html

to your bookmarks. You'll be glad you did.

Steven

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First of all a disclaimer: I haven't set my hands on AIX5L, only on older AIXes but there are two reasons to use Linux:

1) Familiar ground: Unless IBM has made a serious effort for AIX5L being Linux-like (not only on the API) a Linux user will be quite disoriented by AIX: files are not at the same places, there is no /proc filesystem, administrative commands like "free" don't exist. That means higher training costs since you cannot benefit if the experience acquired with Linux by people who learned at university or at home.

2) Unless IBM has made a serious effort for enriching AIX you will miss many of the things you get on your average distro: for instance no Samba so you will have a hard time with users who work part on Windows and part on AIX. But also no Perl, no Python, no decent editor so programmers will complain.

3) Unless it has udergone drastic changes in AIX5L then, by Linux standards, AIX user environment stinks. To begin with the standard Unix commands (aka grep, find, awk) are severeley crippled respective to their Linux counterparts, use older algorithms (read they are slower) and have limits who don't exist in their Linux counterparts (eg AIX's awk has a limit in line length, while Linux's gawk hasn't). Add to this that as a GUI CDE is several degrees below Gnome and KDE. In fact where I work we have to drag windows users kicking and screaming to AIX. And those same users are jealous of my Linux box who at times runs Gnome and at times KDE. So this reluctance of users to use the unpalatable AIX environment leads to them using Windows even in situations where they should use the AIX server.

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I have worked with AIX,HP-UX,SCO,UNIVELL,and LINUX.

AIX is by far the worst of the bunch. IBM always tries to put there twist just to be IBM.

There is a reason why the Unix community calls AIX
"Ain't Unix".

I think Linux will became more and more the choice as things go forward. I think all the O.S./Hardware vendors will make there own distro that will support the 64bit/32 cpu type environments. ( Which is available now for Linux, but the majority is still 32bit Intel based systems.)

Once the OS is proven to scale well in the 64bit world. I think you will see the application developers really start pushing Linux for the simple reason, one version of Code - for Linux, whether it run on IBM,HP,SUN, or whatever hardware.

Just - My two cents.

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Dude... Um, like most versions of commercial unix, you install these apps yourself. This is the way it has always been. AIX distro != Linux / BSD. If IBM included standard opensource utils with the OS, they would be expected to support them which they don't want to do. Compiling up a suite of tools is just part of what you have to do to get an aix box ready for use.

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Assumming you have a compiler, a LOT of time in your hands, that you don't care about TCO (remember your time is money), that you don't care much about security or have a lot of time for tracking security announces (you won't be getting automatic security fixes through RHN ans its equivalents), assumming you can no longer rely in a packaging system to keep track of what you have installed, assumming you and your users don't mind having to be extracareful about the mix between your vendors software and your unofficail upgrades (eg scripts who break because they get executed by bash instead of ksh), assumming, assumming, assuming. And I nearly forgot: assumming you have a boss who doesn't mind about it and about how you use your time

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The thing with AIX is that it is so stable.

That is why people like it. It doesn't do much but what it does do it does really well. The other aspect people like about AIX is LVM. Which allows you to change for lack of a better word to explain to Linux people "Partition" sizes on the fly. It also allows you to group several Hard Drives on many differant machines into one big hard drive or "VG".

Although Linux has some of the same LVM capibilities as LVM on AIX it is not nearly as well tested.

In short if you were the Sys Admin at a Bank that handled Millions of transactions a second. AIX has performed well for you for the last 10 years how willing would you be to try Linux?

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Consistency! If I've got an old alpha server, a few Intel Linux boxes, and an RS/6000, and a Sun Sparc, I'm going to prefer to support one OS!
Add to that the ability to share files with windows workstations with samba and you have a much simpler environment to support. All the required security patches and upgrades will be more or less the same for all of them and I'll generally get them from the same vendor or download them with a brower. A couple of ssh and rpm commands later and I'm done. It's great to have consistent commands, that use the same switches and all files located in the same place.

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AIX absolutely rocks. I'm an AIX admin (although I've been administering all UNICES for 12 years), and it is true that AIX is the most non-UNIX of the UNIXES, I find it easier than Solaris. When I switch from AIX to Solaris, I feel sad that Solaris can't do what AIX does. Not only vg's but smitty alone is worth it's weight in Gold. Beats HP's SAM. There's no equal counterpart w/ Solaris. Linux is the cat's pajamas, but in comparison to AIX, it just doesnt compete.

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I have worked with all major UNIX variants as a sysadmin except IRIX (Solaris, HP-UX, OSF/1, AIX). I understand why some people like AIX, however, I strongly dislike it as a UNIX variant. I really do not enjoy working with it. Why? As the previous poster commented, it's the 'most non-UNIX of the UNIXES'.



The only thing I care for about AIX is the built-in volume and filesystem management. Outside of this, I believe it has several major design flaws (I haven't worked with 5L, but a good amount with 4.3.3). Flaw #1 would be the ODM, basically, a Microsoft-like registry for UNIX. Who is the imbecile who brought this concept to UNIX? It has no place, and causes more problems than it solves. Flaw #2 would be yes, as convenient as it is, SMIT. This tool performs such 'magic' behind the scenes as to actually modify literal values and sections of init scripts and modify values in the ODM, all 'behind the scenes', so you have no idea the number of different things it is touching. If I wanted to use a menu-driven interface to admin my system, I'd either choose Windows or OS/400. Flaw #3 would be the INIT system for AIX.....why on earth do they use the inittab, when pretty much every other UNIX operating system on earth utilizes an RC directory hiearchy? Flaw #4 would be its package (fileset) and patch management system. Every other UNIX variant I have used uses a fairly straightforward method of patch management (one patch package addresses one issue). For AIX you pretty much have to order a full CD's worth of fileset updates to address one issue. Flaw #5 would be the simple fact that IBM is associated with the design and support of it. The 'big blue' IBM mentality (mainframe and AS/400) pervasive to the OS is very obvious....needless to say, I haven't been impressed.



I could continue on, but I'll cut this short. Is there anyone else out there that shares my intense dislike for AIX? I think its gaining marketshare amongst UNICES is a bad thing, and I'm not too keen on admining any more AIX-based systems. My two favorite UNIX variants are most definitely Linux and Solaris. Very common-sense and straight forward. Even when these two implement new concepts and approaches to things, they simply make sense.

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Flaw #5 would be the simple fact that IBM is associated with the design and support of it. The 'big blue' IBM mentality (mainframe and AS/400) pervasive to the OS is very obvious....needless to say, I haven't been impressed.

Yup, this is a big problem. If IBM hasn't got a step-by-step instruction sheet on how to do it, well, then as far as IBM support is concerned, it can't be done.

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A target for growth, A source for learning -- after all Linux is "fastest growing operating system in the world". :)

Linux doesn't have to be everywhere, or anywhere for that matter, just where people want it. The want is the important thing because we all share in the reasons for want, the value of the OS.

Bo

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... on their native platforms, as they run best there. But make sure their headers and libraries are built for GCC. That's all I ask. Vendors don't need to go 100% Linux, just go 100% Linux source compatible.

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I can't help but notice that a lot of people here grumping about AIX have only used it in 4.3.3 and earlier. 5L was a major step up, and the recent 5L 5.1 adds even more changes and makes it a lot more Linux friendly. For more on that see:

http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/aix/overview/linux.ht ml

But, and this is important, AIX isn't Linux. It doesn't feel the same, it doesn't act the same. With the Linux affinity, you can bring a lot of Linux open source over to run natively on AIX, but this isn't like hopping an app from Red Hat to SuSE.

Steven

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Be serious. I've been an SA for 20 years and have worked with AIX since '88 when it was release 2. When it went to 3, it was the first and the only one to have an LVM and dynamic kernel at that time. If IBM didn't keep shooting themselves in the marketing foot, the race would have been over years ago.

Linux was created by developers for developers - period. As such, it's not standard and constantly changing; erronous or missing man pages and other documentation; various commands and options that don't work; a terribly screwed up NFS implementation, to name just a few.

Would I put this in a mission critical role? Hell no. And for anyone who hasn't had to administer systems built by developers... well, let me just say it's a very painful experience.

I'm not bashing developers, but lets face it, they're not concerned about the scalability, infrastructure, standards, long term reliability, maintainability or anything outside of development.

The only way I'd ever use Linux in an important role, is if I built it myself from the ground up, which is the whole point, right? If you don't like it, change it.

Bottom line - there is no comparison.

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The only way I'd ever use Linux in an important role, is if I built it myself from the ground up

So you would be perfectly happy to use "roll your own" in production? Without the benefit of thousands of others using / testing / working out bugs? This makes ZERO sense. This is like saying " I wouldn't use AIX unless I built it myself." A double standard.

Could you eloborate on your stance?

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And for anyone who hasn't had to administer systems built by developers... well, let me just say it's a very painful experience.

Tell me ... what system is not built by developers?
Maybe you should change your distribution, if you are not happy about the packaging. I'm running an IN server since '98 w/o problems.

<TT>Linux my.host.name 2.0.38 #7 Sat Oct 20 13:38:11 CEST 2001 i686 unknown

4:36pm up 227 days, 58 min, 2 users, load average: 0.08, 0.02, 0.01 </TT>

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Anonymous reader #1 posted:

1) Familiar ground: Unless IBM has made a serious effort for AIX5L being Linux-like (not only on the API) a Linux user will be quite disoriented by AIX: files are not at the same places, there is no /proc filesystem, administrative commands like "free" don't exist. That means higher training costs since you cannot benefit if the experience acquired with Linux by people who learned at university or at home.

2) Unless IBM has made a serious effort for enriching AIX you will miss many of the things you get on your average distro: for instance no Samba so you will have a hard time with users who work part on Windows and part on AIX. But also no Perl, no Python, no decent editor so programmers will complain.

3) Unless it has udergone drastic changes in AIX5L then, by Linux standards, AIX user environment stinks. To begin with the standard Unix commands (aka grep, find, awk) are severeley crippled respective to their Linux counterparts, use older algorithms (read they are slower) and have limits who don't exist in their Linux counterparts (eg AIX's awk has a limit in line length, while Linux's gawk hasn't). Add to this that as a GUI CDE is several degrees below Gnome and KDE. In fact where I work we have to drag windows users kicking and screaming to AIX. And those same users are jealous of my Linux box who at times runs Gnome and at times KDE. So this reluctance of users to use the unpalatable AIX environment leads to them using Windows even in situations where they should use the AIX server.


Response:
1.) Linux-like does not always mean best. Ask a FreeBSD project member and see what [s]he has to say.

2.) I run a dedicated samba server providing file access to Windows users. It's been running on AIX for years. As for perl and python, we use those too. In fact, the majority of our administration scripts are written in perl and ksh. No decent editor you say? vi/vim/gvim, emacs/xemacs/memacs, nedit, and more are used on a daily basis by the hundreds of users on my AIX servers.

3.) The GNU versions of grep, awk, tar, bash and many other command line utilities can be installed on AIX. Yes, even X11 desktop manager suites like GNOME and KDE run on AIX just fine. I run most of these programs on many Power CPU-based servers myself.
Visit: <A HREF="http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/aix/products/aixos/linux/download.html">http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/aix/products/aixos/li nux/download.html</a ibm.com> to download 120+ such applications for AIX 4.3.3 and 5L.

*************************************************

Another anonymous reader posted:

"There is a reason why the Unix community calls AIX
"Ain't Unix"."

Response:
Actually, AIX follows most of the various open, industry-proven, long-lasting UNIX standards. I.E.: POSIX, OSF, CDE, and it has a truely even mix of both System V *and* BSD in its pedigree.

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Come on AIX has no real interest in being replaced by Linux...It is true but the story is misleading--Truth is many of my large customers are leaving the P series world and replacing them over the next few years with Intel machine (they are hoping 64 bit) in clusters if needed. Mid size companies seem to be staying but large enterprises are leaving because it jsut cost too much to support. Reason for no interest in Linux on p series is simple-dying interest in p series (except for the small/mid size companies) --check your IT plans for the next five years and look for the Intel 64 bit systems to replace the p series.

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pSeries? Dying? I don't think so. Intel is all well and good, but the Itanium has been a long, long time coming and the integrators and resellers I know who work with pSeries are a lot more concerned with SPARC, as has always been the case, than with Intel Linux boxes eating their lunch. Your sales calls may vary.

Steven

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1.) Linux-like does not always mean best. Ask a FreeBSD project member and see what [s]he has to say.

Response: It could not mean best but it means you save on training since people you recruit are far more likely to know Linus than AIX. You also get more homogeinity with your IA32 Linux servers and your Linux virtual machines on z series. For the BSD people: you cannot run Oracle on BSD (use through an emulator voids support so boss will not let you), it does not run on wristwatches and on zSeries and BSD's superiority is a thing of the past so they are bitter about Linux.

2.) I run a dedicated samba server providing file access to Windows users. It's been running on AIX for years. As for perl and python, we use those too. In fact, the majority of our administration scripts are written in perl and ksh. No decent editor you say? vi/vim/gvim, emacs/xemacs/memacs, nedit, and more are used on a daily basis by the hundreds of users on my AIX servers.

Response: I knew that but you don't get them out of the box and that has a number of drawbacks I analysed in another post. Also guess which Samba is better tested and supported? Samba on AIX or Samba on Linux?

3.) The GNU versions of grep, awk, tar, bash and many other command line utilities can be installed on AIX. Yes, even X11 desktop manager suites like GNOME and KDE run on AIX just fine. I run most of these programs on many Power CPU-based servers myself.
Visit: http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/aix/products/aixos/li nux/download.html [ibm.com] to download 120+ such applications for AIX 4.3.3 and 5L.

Same thing: you don't get them out of the box, (with same set of drawbacks) plus Gnome, KDE, bash are better supported on Linux

Later you answer to a person who says Aix aint Unix. My own answer would have been I cannot care less. When AIX was created, Unix was (rightly) not considered as suitable for mission critical tasks. It had a pathetic security model (the infamous rwx bits plus the setuid Damocles sword), it lost data with unplanned shutdowns, had not real locking and was unable to recover gracefully from peripheral failure. Just to name a few. So IBM picked some ideas from MVS and put them into AIX. This didn't sit well with the Unix people who had developped an antimainframe, anti-IBM mindset. But I for one, I am longing for IBM adding to Linux some of those non-Unix AIX features.

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