Red Hat Goes Power Mad

Linux is certainly an operating system that has made huge strides in the Intel server market. Equally, much has been made of the fact that Linux is
also supported on IBMs zSeries Mainframe computers. However, to date the world at large has paid little attention to Linux running on any other chip
architectures. This week, that changed with Red Hat becoming the first major Linux distributor to Sign an agreement with IBM to make the operating
system available pre-loaded on IBMs POWER based servers.

Whilst a number of Linux distributions (including the major players Red Hat and SuSE) have previously supported the Power architecture, the expanded
agreement between IBM and Red Hat will allow Red Hat Enterprise Linux v.3 to be ordered concurrent with the IBM eServer POWER hardware. It will also
be possible to purchase support options on the Operating System at the same time. This move makes Red Hat the first key Linux distributor to reach
agreement with IBM to allow customers to order and receive Linux with the IBM POWER eServer systems with a single purchase.

Whilst Big Blue has yet to announce any Red Hat specific detail, it is expected that IBM is likely to provide its customers with option of running Red
Hat Enterprise Linux almost its entire range of Power based servers. If this is the case then it will be possible to order everything from entry level
1-2 way POWER4+ systems to high-end 32-way POWER4+ systems as well as the increasingly popular POWER-based, IBM eServer BladeCenter offerings.