KDE: The next beta of KDE 3.0 has been released. You can find the downloads here.

Alan Cox has just released Linux kernel 2.4.18-pre9-ac3. You can down load the code from the main download site or from one of the kernel.org mirrors. Don’t forget to read the changelog!

From:	 Alan Cox <alan@redhat.com>
To:	 linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Linux 2.4.18pre9-ac3
Date:	 Wed, 13 Feb 2002 08:17:28 -0500 (EST)

[+ indicates stuff that went to Marcelo, o stuff that has not,
 * indicates stuff that is merged in mainstream now, X stuff that proved
   bad and was dropped out]

Linux 2.4.18pre9-ac3
o	Clean up various macros and misuse of ;		(Timothy Ball)
o	Correct procfs locking fixup			(Al Viro)
o	Speed up ext2/ext3 synchronous mounts		(Andrew Morton)
o	Update IDE DMA blacklist			(Jonathan Kamens)
o	Update to XFree86 DRM 4.2 (compatible to 4.1)	(Rik Faith, 
	and adds I830 DRM				 Jeff Hartmann,
							 Keith Whitwell,
							 Abraham vd Merwe
							 and others)
o	IBM Lanstreamer updates				(Mike Phillips)
o	Fix acct rlimit problem (I hope)		(me)
	| Problem noted by Ian Allen
o	Automatically set file limits based on mem size	(Andi Kleen)
o	Correct scsi reservation conflict handling	(James Bottomley)
	and add the scsi reset api code
o	Add further kernel docs				(me)
o	Merge to rmap-12e				(Rik van Riel and co)
	|merge patch from Nick Orlov
o	Small fix to the eata driver update		(Dario Ballabio)


Linux 2.4.18pre9-ac2
o	Nat Semi now use their own ident on the Geode	(Hiroshi Miura)
o	Put #error in two files that need FPU fixups	(me)
o	Correct a specific mmap return to match posix	(Christopher Yeoh)
o	Add Eepro100/VE ident				(Hanno Boeck)
o	Add provides for DRM to the kernel make rpm	(Alexander Hoogerhuis)
o	Fix a problem where vm86 irq releasing could be	(Stas Sergeev)
	missed
o	EATA and U14/34F driver updates			(Dario Ballabio)
o	Handle EMC storage arrays that report SCSI-2 	(Kurt Garloff)
	but want REPORT_LUNs
o	Update README, defconfig, remove autogen files	(Niels Jensen)
o	Add AFAVLAB PCI serial support			(Harald Welte)
o	Fix incorrect resource free in eexpress		(Gianluca Anzolin)
o	Variable size rawio optimisations		(Badari Pulavarty)
o	Add AT's compatible 8139 cardbus chip		(Go Taniguchi)
o	Fix crash with newest hpt ide chips		(Arjan van de Ven)
o	Fix tiny SMP race in pid selection		(Erik Hendriks)
o	Hopefully fix pnpbios crash caused by early	(me)
	kernel_thread creation

Linux 2.4.18pre9-ac1
o	Initial merge of DVD card driver  (Christian Wolff,Marcus Metzler)
	| This is just an initial testing piece. DVB needs merging
	| properly and this is only a first bit of testing
o	Random number generator support for AMD768	(me)
o	Add AMD768 to i810 driver pci ident list	(me)
o	Initial AMD768 power management work		(me)
	| Unfinished pending some docs clarifications
o	Fix bugbuf mishandling for modular es1370	(me)
o	Fix up i2o readl abuse, post_wait race, and	(me, Arjan van de Ven)
	some deadlock cases
o	Added cpu_relax to yam driver 			(me)
o	Fixup AMD762 if the BIOS apparently got it wrong(me)
	(eg ASUS boards)
o	MP1.4 alignment fixup
o	pcwd cleanup, backport of fixes from 2.5	(Rob Radez)
o	Add support for more Moxa cards to mxser	(Damian Wrobel)
o	Add remaining missing MODULE_LICENSE tags	(Hubert Mantel)
o	Fix floppy reservation ranges			(Anton Altaparmakov)
o	Fix max file size setup				(Andi Kleen)

Linux 2.4.18pre7-ac3
o	Fix a wrong error return in the megaraid driver	(Arjan van de Ven)
*	FreeVXFS update					(Christoph Hellwig)
+	Qnxfs update					(Anders Larsen)
o	Fix non compile with PCI=n			(Adrian Bunk)
o	Fix DRM 4.0 non compile in i810			(me)
o	Drop out now dead CLONE thread/parent fixup	(Dave McCracken)
*	Make NetROM incoming frame check stricter	(Tomi Manninen)
*	Use sock_orphan in AX.25/NetROM			(Jeroen PE1RXQ)
o	Pegasus update					(Petko Manolov)
o	Make reparent_to_init and exec_usermodehelper	(Andrew Morton)
	use set_user, fix a tiny set_user SMP race
o	Mark framebuffer mappings VM_IO			(Andrew Morton)
o	Neomagic frame buffer driver			(Denis Kropp)
	- Needs FPU code fixing before it can be merged
o	Hyperthreading awareness for MTRR driver
o	Correct NR_IRQ with no apic support		(Brian Gerst)
*	Fix missing includes in sound drivers		(Michal Jaegermann)

Linux 2.4.18pre7-ac2
*	i810 audio driver update			(Doug Ledford)
o	Early ioremap for x86 specific code		(Mikael Pettersson)
	| This is needed to do things like apic/dmi detect early enough
o	Pentium IV APIC/NMI watchdog			(Mikael Pettersson)
*	Add C1MRX support to sonypi driver		(Junichi Morita)
*	Fix "make rpm" with two '-' in extraversion	(Gerald Britton)
o	Fix aacraid hang/irq storm on i960 boards	(Chris Pascoe)
*	Fix isdn audio compiler behaviour dependancy	(Urs Thuermann)
*	YAM driver fixes				(Jean-Paul Roubelat)
*	ROSE protocol stack update/fixes		(Jean-Paul Roubelat)
o	Fix UFS/CDROM oops				(Zwane Mwaikambo)
o	Fix nm256 hang on Dell Latitude			(origin unknown)
	| Please test this tree with other NM256 based boxes and check
	| those still work...
o	Merge PnPBIOS patch		(Thomas Hood, David Hinds, Tom Lees,
					 Christian Schmidt, ..)
o	Merge new sis frame buffer drivers		(Thomas Winischhofer)
*	cs46xx oops fix					(Mike Gorse)
*	Fix a second cs46xx bug related to this		(me)
o	Fix acpitable oopses on boot and other problems	(James Cleverdon)
o	Fix io port type on the hpt366 driver		(Pete Popov)
o	Updated matrox drivers				(Petr Vandrovec)
*	IPchains fixes needed for 2.4.18pre7
o	IDE config text updates for the IDE patches	(Anton Altaparmakov)
o	Merge the first bits of ZV support		(Marcus Metzler)
o	Add initial ZV support to yenta socket driver	(me)
	for TI cards
o	Fix pirq routing on the CS5530 			(me)
	| Finally the palmax pcmcia/cardbus works properly

Linux 2.4.18pre7-ac1
o	Merge with 2.4.18pre7				(Arjan van de Ven)
	| + some quota fixups redone by me
	| several 18pre7 netfilter bugs left unfixed for now
o	Rmap-12a					(Rik van Riel and co)

Linux 2.4.18pre3-ac2

o	Re-merge the IDE patches			(Andre Hedrick and co)
*	Fix check/request region in ali_ircc and lowcomx(Steven Walter)
	com90xx, sealevel, sb1000
*	Remove unused message from 6pack driver		(Adrian Bunk)
*	Fix unused variable warning in i60scsi		(Adrian Bunk)
*	Fix off by one floppy oops			(Keith Owens)
o	Fix i2o_config use of undefined C		(Andreas Dilger)
*	Fix fdomain scsi oopses				(Per Larsson)
*	Fix sf16fmi hang on boot			(me)
o	Add bridge resources to the resource tree	(Ivan Kokshaysky)
*	Fix iphase ATM oops on close in on case	   (Till Immanuel Patzschke)
*	Enable OOSTORE on winchip processors		(Dave Jones, me)
	| Worth about 10-20% performance 
*	Code Page 1250 support				(Petr Titera)
*	Fix sdla and hpfs doc typos			(Sven Vermeulen)
o	Document /proc/stat				(Sven Heinicke)
*	Update cs4281 drivers				(Tom Woller)
	| Fixes xmms stutter, remove wrapper code
	| handle tosh boxes, allow record device change
	| trigger wakeups on ioctl triggered changes
+/o/X	Fix locking of file struct stuff found by ibm	(Dipankar Sarma)
	audit
o	Use spin_lock_init in serial.c			(Dave Miller)
*	Fix AF_UNIX shutdown bug			(Dave Miller)

Linux 2.4.18pre3-ac1

o	32bit uid quota
o	rmap-11b VM					(Rik van Riel,
							 William Irwin etc)
*	Make scsi printer visible			(Stefan Wieseckel)
*	Report Hercules Fortissimo card			(Minya Sorakinu)
*	Fix O_NDELAY close mishandling on the following	(me)
	sound cards: cmpci, cs46xx, es1370, es1371,
	esssolo1, sonicvibes
*	tdfx pixclock handling fix			(Jurriaan)
o	Fix mishandling of file system size limiting	(Andrea Arcangeli)
*	generic_serial cleanups				(Rasmus Andersen)
o	serial.c locking fixes for SMP - move from cli	(Kees)
	too
*	Truncate fixes from old -ac tree		(Andrew Morton)
*	Hopefully fix the i2o oops			(me)
	| Not the right fix but it'll do till I rewrite this
*	Fix non blocking tty blocking bug		(Peter Benie)
o	IRQ routing workaround for problem HP laptops	(Cory Bell)
*	Fix the rcpci driver				(Pete Popov)
*	Fix documentation of aedsp location		(Adrian Bunk)
*	Fix the worst of the APM ate my cpu problems	(Andreas Steinmetz)
*	Correct icmp documentation			(Pierre Lombard)
*	Multiple mxser crash on boot fix	(Stephan von Krawczynski)
o	ldm header fix					(Anton Altaparmakov)
*	Fix unchecked kmalloc in i2c_proc	(Ragnar Hojland Espinosa)
*	Fix unchecked kmalloc in airo_cs	(Ragnar Hojland Espinosa)
*	Fix unchecked kmalloc in btaudio	(Ragnar Hojland Espinosa)
*	Fix unchecked kmalloc in qnx4/inode.c	(Ragnar Hojland Espinosa)
*	Disable DRM4.1 GMX2000 driver (4.0 required)	(me)
*	Fix sb16 lower speed limit bug			(Jori Liesenborgs)
o	Fix compilation of orinoco driver		(Ben Herrenschmidt)
*	ISAPnP init fix					(Chris Rankin)
o	Export release_console_sem			(Andrew Morton)
*	Output nat crash fix				(Rusty Russell)
*	Fix PLIP					(Niels Jensen)
o	Natsemi driver hang fix				(Manfred Spraul)
*	Add mono/stereo reporting to gemtek pci radio	(Jonathan Hudson)
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Usonyx (www.usonyx.com), a leading provider of
affordable, innovative Web hosting solutions for SMEs, today began
operations and announced it will offer monthly shared, virtual private
server (VPS), and dedicated hosting plans. For as low as $20 a month,
small and medium businesses (SMBs) will be able to host their Web site
with Usonyx and receive full root access on Linux-based servers in a VPS
environment. The company is currently offering a free trial of the
hosting service at http://www.usonyx.com/.

Usonyx is also reaching out to the application service provider (ASP)
market, where it plans on radically changing the cost structure of ASP
hosting by enabling ASPs to offer services and applications via low-cost
virtual environments (VEs.) Traditionally, an ASP business hosts
applications almost exclusively on dedicated servers and Usonyx is
offering VPS hosting, enabled by SWsoft’s Virtuozzo technology, to allow
ASPs to offer low-cost VEs that have the full-functionality of a
dedicated server.

Usonyx chose the Virtuozzo automation technology as its platform for
hosting because of the efficiency and scalability provided. Usonyx will
support upwards of a thousand customers on a single Intel-based server,
which enables them to offer low-cost VPS plans through the Virtuozzo
resource management and clustering capabilities.

Usonyx is offering a free trial of its hosting business. Please see
www.usonyx.com to sign-up.

About Usonyx
Usonyx is a leading provider of affordable, innovative Web hosting
solutions for SMEs and offers Web hosting, e-commerce, and application
hosting services. From basic shared to virtual private servers to
dedicated hosting, Usonyx is providing a low-cost means of provisioning
and maintaining a steadfast Web presence that meets and exceeds all
business objectives. More information about Usonyx can be found at
www.usonyx.com

Rajesh Goyal writes: LinuxCertified, Inc. announces “Linux Fundamentals” Bootcamp for busy IT professionals – February 23-24th, 2002. All attendees get a free Linux laptop.

Linux is fast becoming a key component of the Network age of today and the future. Linux is now core of systems ranging from small smart devices to supercomputer clusters. A working knowledge of Linux is critical for professionals who use computing devices as tools for their work.

“Linux Fundamentals” bootcamp is designed for busy professionals with no prior experience with Linux or any other flavor of UNIX. This two-day introduction to Linux broadens their horizons with a detailed overview of the operating system. Attendees learn how to effectively use a Linux system as a valuable tool. They get familiar with the architecture and various components of the operating system, learn both graphical and command line tools, and learn to do basic networking. This class is scheduled for February 23 – 24th, 2002.

In addition to carefully designed lecture material delivered by experienced Linux professionals, there is a heavy emphasis on hands-on learning. Attendees get a powerful Linux laptop on their arrival, alongwith other class materials. At the end of the class they take this laptop with them to further enhance their Linux expertise. Professionals with basic UNIX experience can enroll in the the popular “Linux Certification Bootcamp” class.

About LinuxCertified.com

The mission of LinuxCertified.com is to bring Linux to mainstream IT usage. We firmly believe that Linux has an enormous potential, once it crosses over from the early adopters to the more mainstream users. Our goal is to help this transition by providing:

– Linux trained and certified professionals

– Linux certified products that cater to mainstream users rather than early adopters.

Contact:

info@linuxcertified.com
http://www.linuxcertified.com/
Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.
All other names and trademarks are the property of their respective owners.”

Visionaries have the ability to draw pieces together to
reveal a broader vista than we might otherwise be able to see, but they
are usually not the force for change that creates the vision. Invention
itself is the work of one or more individuals who pause to look at the
pieces of a puzzle and ask, “Hey, what if?” Slash, the open source
software that drives the popular Slashdot.org site, evolved as the
Slashdot creators asked this question while their site took shape:

“What if you could build a program to manage a web site, where people
could organize and create things through a browser instead of HTML
editors and FTP clients? What if you let readers publish their
thoughts, and comment on stories and on the comments of other users?”
Slashdot has subsequently triggered a revolution of its own, drawing
hundreds of thousands of users and dozens of imitators. In O’Reilly’s
just-released book, “Running Weblogs with Slash” (US $34.95) coauthors
chromatic, Brian Aker, and Dave Krieger show readers how to make this
popular, powerful, and free system work for their own sites.

“Every day, more and more people buy computers, discover the Internet,
and realize that they have stories to tell,” says coauthor chromatic.
“Some of them have business interests. Some are fans of a sport, an
author, a television show, or an operating system. Some will find
conversations to join, while other will either create them or go
without. Slash is one of the many tools to help people talk to each
other. In my opinion, it’s easily the most powerful and flexible free
software program out there today.”

Slash, which stands for the “Slashdot Like Automated Storytelling
Homepage” is much more than just a weblog. It separates presentation
from content, has a database abstraction layer, performs powerful
caching, hooks directly into the Apache web server, and, according to
the authors, can be extended to do just about anything a web
application can do. And, in the true spirit of open source software, it
can be downloaded for free and modified as desired.

“As more people use Slash and learn its features, they’ll start to have
wild ideas that can be translated into code. Someone will say,
‘Wouldn’t it be great if’ and he’ll program it himself or keep bugging
other people enough until it’s accomplished,” explains chromatic.
“Norbert Kuemin thought a printable mode for stories would be nice, and
he wrote it, and I ported it to Slash 2.x, and it’s in the book as an
example. Brian liked the idea of user journals, wrote the Journal
plugin, and it’s been extremely popular on the Use Perl web site
(http://use.perl.org/). Conceptually, both are pretty similar to the
news format of Slashdot, but each new idea gets further away from
Slash’s beginnings.”

chromatic adds, “It’s a flexible system. The architecture continues to
improve. I fully expect someone to do something really wacky with it in
the near future. The rest of us will scratch our heads and say, ‘That’s
funny. Why didn’t we think of that?’ That’s how progress is made.”

“Running Weblogs with Slash” covers Slash from theory to customization.
Targeted at site administrators and content managers, it is designed
for people who want to run a medium-to-large weblog but have neither
the time nor the inclination to wade through the voluminous source
code. The book teaches how to install and configure the software and
covers common setups. Readers will learn how to publish Stories, create
community guidelines, and even modify the underlying code. Written by
users and developers, this book is also officially blessed by the
people behind Slash and Slashdot.

“Weblogs and community driven websites in general have only grown since
the bubble burst and the carpetbaggers fled the scene,” says coauthor
Aker of Slash’s role on the Internet. “Slash is a very scalable system
that is an enterprise level piece of software. It’s great to see it put
in place by communities who have something to say but not the budget to
buy the software needed to make their voice heard.”

“Over and over again, I’ve seen a small site go with homegrown software
or some knock-off of Slash,” Aker adds. “As soon as they either have
real traffic coming into their site or find themselves being attacked
by malicious users, they find they don’t have the tools to keep their
sites running. This is often true of corporate sites as well. Since
Slash is used to run Slashdot, it is constantly being updated to run
securely against the latest attacks and has led the innovation for
community sites for sometime in how to keep the signal higher in the
signal-to-noise ratio. Slashdot showed off exactly how well Slash can
scale during 9-11 by being one of the few sites capable of taking the
sudden surge in traffic.”

“Running Weblogs with Slash” was written for anyone who wants to get a
weblog up and running. As Rob Malda, creator of Slash, writes in the
foreword, “Hopefully, what we’ve learned over the years will make it
easier for you to tell your story.”

Additional Resources:
An article by coauthor chromatic, “Slash’s Wiki Plugin” can be found
at: http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2002/01/17/slash_plugin.html

Chapter 4, “Editing and Updating Stories” is available free online at:
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/runblogslash/chapter/ch04.html

ZDNet UK has a story on Microsoft’s budget for lobbying, which makes Enron’s lobbying budget look small. The software giant spent $1.6 million on lobbying in 2000, and “total donations to political donations from Microsoft and its employees to political parties, candidates and PACs in the 2000 election cycle amounted to more than $6.1 million. During this period, Microsoft and its executives accounted for $2.3 million in soft money contributions, compared to $1.55 million by Enron and its executives for the same period.”

ActiveState, the leader in open source programming languages, today announced the 1.2 release of Visual Perl, Visual Python and Visual XSLT for Microsoft Visual Studio .NET. Perl, Python, and XSLT programmers can now leverage the power of the Microsoft Visual Studio .NET Integrated Development Environment (IDE) and rapidly create, edit, debug and run programs with Visual Perl, Visual Python, and Visual XSLT. These releases now include full IntelliSense and source code control support.

“These plug-ins are ideal tools for programmers using powerful languages such as Perl, Python, and XSLT,” said Dick Hardt, Founder & CEO, ActiveState. “Programmers can now use the language that best maps to the problem at hand and can leverage the advanced features in the Microsoft Visual Studio .NET IDE; such as the integrated help which makes online help of Perl and Python keywords and modules literally a single click away. As well, the graphical debugger makes drilling down into complex data structures trivially easy.”

“Visual Perl, Visual Python, and Visual XSLT fit ideally into the Visual Studio .NET model of allowing projects written in multiple languages to be developed at the same time,” said Marie Huwe, General Manager for the Developer and Platform Evangelism Division at Microsoft Corp. “Microsoft is delighted to be working with ActiveState to provide a comprehensive programming solution that enables customers to use the languages that best fit their needs all within one integrated development environment.”

ActiveState’s plug-ins provide a suite of development and deployment tools, including an editor, graphical debugger, dynamic help, and code completion (IntelliSense). Other key features include:

• Regular Expression debugger – a unique, visual interface for almost effortless debugging of powerful regular expressions
• XSLT debugger – takes the pain out of XSLT by making it simple to find problems in both input data and code
• XSLT automatic output preview – eliminates time-consuming steps so transformation results can be viewed immediately
• Source Code Control – industry-standard change management through SCC-compliant source code control
• XML Web services ? consume XML Web services with Visual Perl

“Visual Perl is the best IDE I have seen for coding in Perl. ActiveState has greatly simplified regular expression development. What was once a time consuming process of writing then debugging a regular expression has been turned into a fast and efficient process with the Rx Toolkit,” said John Menke, Oracle Consultant, CSC Corporation. “Visual Perl?s remote debugging feature is also great. I can write code on my development box, then deploy and continue to debug on my Oracle staging machine. I?d like to thank the Visual Perl development team for designing what has quickly become indispensable in my Perl toolkit.”

“A new feature in the 1.2 releases is support for source code control,” said Eric Promislow, Technical Lead, ActiveState. “Programmers can now easily track and control changes to their programs with the leading version control systems such as Perforce, CVS, and Microsoft Visual SourceSafe.”

“XSLT is a newer language, and while it has extremely powerful features for transforming XML, it offers few diagnostic capabilities to let the developer know what the transformation is doing,” said Paul Prescod, XML Technical Advisor, ActiveState. “The Visual XSLT debugger shows the developer exactly what the program is doing, and leverages features found throughout the Visual Studio .NET IDE, such as call stacks and variable display windows to explain why.”

Visual Perl, Visual Python, and Visual XSLT are $295 each. The upgrade is free to existing customers. Educational licenses and free evaluation copies are also available.

About ActiveState:
ActiveState is the leading provider of open source based programming products and services for cross-platform development. ActiveState’s key technologies are Perl, the Internet’s most popular programming language; Python and Tcl, user-friendly scripting languages; PHP, the dynamic Web programming language; and XSLT, the XML transformation language.

Media and Analyst Contacts:Lori Pike, ActiveState

ActiveState, Visual Perl, Visual Python and Visual XSLT are trademarks of ActiveState Corp. All other company names herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Fosdem.org has published its last series of interviews from speakers at the conference for Free and Open Source developers. FOSDEM is this weekend.

The most recent interviews on Fosdem.org:

Thierry Matusiak
The Eclipse project … more than an IDE
http://www.fosdem.org/interviews/1661.html.

Richard Moore
Enter the heart of a system with Dprobes
http://www.fosdem.org/interviews/1665.html

Loic Dachary
Savannah’s author gives a talk on Senga
http://www.fosdem.org/interviews/1686.html

Jean-Michel Dalle
Concepts of Generic Software and economical/philosophical implications
http://www.fosdem.org/interviews/1690.html

Andy Oram
O’Reilly’s “Peer-to-Peer” author introduces this concept in its
interview
http://www.fosdem.org/interviews/1692.html

Gilles Fedak
Massive computing and XtremWeb
http://www.fosdem.org/interviews/1695.html

Richard M. Stallman
GNU, FSF and Patents
http://www.fosdem.org/interviews/1696.html

We are pleased to announce that Tom Dyas will be giving a general
overview of GNU/Linux at our next meeting, this Wednesday,
February 13, 2002. There will be plenty of opportunity for questions
and answers that need not asuume any prior knowledge. If you need
an overview/introduction to Linux (i.e. GNU/Linux), want to know how
it all fits together, or simply have gaps in your understanding or
misunderstandings this will be a good meeting to attend.

Please note the security procedures required by IBM below.

Date: Wednesday, February 13, 2002
Time: 6:30 – 7:00 General Q&A
7:00 – presentation
Presenter: Tom Dyas
Subject: Overview of GNU/Linux with Q&A
Where: The IBM Building,
590 Madison Ave. (New York City)
(57th Street and Madison Avenue)

Procedures required for attending meetings at IBM

IBM has asked us to implement these security measures for our
meetings. In particular, it will be necessary to email us your
name in advance if you plan to attend so that we can give them
a list of the people who will be attending. It will also be
necessary to bring photo ID in order to get in to the meeting.
We regret the need for these measures. Please send email to
lo+0202@eskimo.com with the Subject “February 2002 GNUbies”
(note this is a “plus” not the letter “t”). Sorry for the
inconvenience.

IBM today introduced an
energy-conserving IBM eServer[1] that consumes up to 57 percent less
electricity and generates up to 63 percent less heat than the comparable
Sun solution.[2] Designed for customer flexibility, the eServer runs both
UNIX(R) and Linux[3] and costs substantially less than the Sun offering.[4]

IBM eServer lowers total cost of ownership with Project eLiza
self-management features that enable the kind of “hands-off” operation
usually associated with high-end IBM eServer systems like the pSeries 690
“Regatta” and zSeries mainframe.

“More than ever, our customers are interested in lowering their total cost
of ownership,” said Val Rahmani, general manager, IBM eServer pSeries.
“IBM’s new UNIX server combines energy efficiency and enterprise-class
management features with ultra-fast performance to provide customers with
the ideal synthesis of power and affordability.”

A new addition to the IBM eServer p610 family, the system is a powerful
one- or two-way machine ideal for data sensitive applications such as
e-business, customer relationship management, enterprise resource planning
and sales force automation. It was developed as part of IBM’s company-wide
initiative announced last fall to address the energy needs of computing.

Enterprise-Class Storage Technology
Based on an elegant mainframe-inspired design, the IBM eServer supports
sophisticated storage technology, called RAID 5, inside the server cabinet
rather than in a separate storage enclosure. This design breakthrough
eliminates the need for the power supplies and cooling fans associated with
a separate box, dramatically reducing energy consumption and conserves
floor space.

Crucial to e-business infrastructures, RAID, Redundant Array of Independent
Disks, allows a large number of disks to be treated by a system as a single
storage device. The main benefits are improved data recovery if one or
more of the disks in the array fails and potentially improved disk
performance.

RAID 5 offers the best blend of performance, data recovery and resource
usage of any of the RAID architectures and is especially important to
e-business and other transaction processing applications, large databases,
and to other customers with a high sensitivity to data loss. Customers
wanting to implement RAID 5 on an entry level Sun or HP system [5] must
first purchase an external storage device.

This presents several disadvantages.

The external storage device takes up valuable space on the floor or in the
storage rack. Having an external storage device adds considerably to noise
levels and to electrical requirements. Not having an external RAID system
leaves the external SCSI controller free to connect to other peripherals
and storage devices. A full hardware solution, like the IBM RAID
implementation, provides higher performance levels than a software
implementation, which can place increased demands on the system processor.

Compared to Sun’s 280R with StorEdge A1000 Workgroup, the IBM RAID
solution:[6]

• Transfers data from disk to server four times faster[7]
• Needs no external box (no additional power requirements, no external
  cabling)
• Is quieter[8]
• Leaves external SCSI connector available for use
• Can be implemented in tower and rack configurations

The IBM eServer contains up to 291 GB of internal disk storage, twice the
capacity as the Sun Fire 280R, which holds a maximum of 146.8 GB.

The IBM eServer also features a balanced design based on copper
microprocessors, which require less power than competing Sun processors.[9]

Project eLiza Manageability Features
IBM Project eLiza technologies, unique to IBM servers, enable the system to
dramatically reduce downtime. These technologies include First Failure Data
Capture, which is designed to keep a running log of all system errors.
IBM eServer includes Light Path Diagnostics, sets of LED lights that make
systems management easier by flashing red if components are not performing
optimally. A dedicated service processor monitors the overall health of
the system and is designed to detect potential problems before they occur.

The IBM eServer is also equipped with wireless systems management features
allowing administrators to easily manage servers using handheld PDAs.

Operating System Flexibility
The IBM eServer p610 runs AIX 4.3.3, AIX 5L and Linux. AIX offers the
scalability, performance, reliability and security needed to accommodate
demanding e-business workloads. AIX features a strong affinity with Linux,
allowing customers to build and run many popular Linux applications on AIX.

As part of its effort to improve the interoperability between AIX and
Linux, IBM has ported a collection of Open Source and GNU software tools
from the Linux world and bundled them into a toolbox for AIX users. This
toolbox opens up a broad range of Linux applications, development tools,
and utilities to AIX users. For Linux application developers, it
introduces an easy way to target new opportunities for their software on
AIX.

The IBM eServer system’s advanced features and attractive price point make
the server an ideal solution for ISVs and other solutions creators seeking
a 64-bit development platform for AIX applications.

The IBM eServer p610 Model 6C1 and 6E1 start at $5,995. The system is
available in rackmounted or tower versions. Planned availability is
February 22, 2002.

[1] The IBM eServer brand consists of the established IBM e-business logo
with the following descriptive term “server” following it. IBM and the
e-business logo are trademarks of IBM Corporation in the United States
and/or other countries.

[2] Comparison is based on maximum configurations of the p610 with
internal RAID and Sun 280R with a StorEdge A1000 Workgroup. According to
the pSeries Site and Hardware Planning Information Document (SA38-0508-13),
available “http://www.ibm.com,”http://www.ibm.com, the p610 requires a
maximum of 450 Watts and dissipates a maximum of 1,536 BTUs per hour.

According to the Sun 280R Server Owner’s Guide, January 2001, Revision A
(which can be found in Technical Documentation on http://www.sun.com), the
280R consumes a maximum of 810 Watts per hour (AC power) and dissipates a
maximum of 3,140 BTUs / hour. According to the Sun StorEdge A1000 and D1000
Installation, Operations, and Services Manual (which can be found in the
Technical Documentation on http://www.sun.com), the A1000 consumes a
maximum of 260 Watts per hour and dissipates a maximum of 1,092 BTUs per
hour. The combination of the Sun Fire 280R and A1000 consumes up to 1,070
Watts and dissipates up to 4,232 BTUs per hour.

[3] SuSE Linux Enterprise Server Version 7.

[4] p610 with 1 333MHz processor, 2 Ethernet ports, 1 x 36 GB disk, 1 GB
of memory, internal RAID 5 with 4 18 GB hot swappable disks, $17,175. Sun
280 R with 1 900 MHz processor, 2 Ethernet ports, 1 x 36 GB disk, 1 GB of
memory, and A1000 storage device with 4 18 GB hot swappable disks, $20,185.
Sun pricing available at http://store.sun.com.

[5] Entry level Sun and HP systems defined as Sun 22R and 280R and HP A400
and A500.

[6] p610 information according to the pSeries Site and Hardware Planning
Information Document (SA38-0508-13), available “http://www.ibm.com,”
http://www.ibm.com, A1000 information according to the Sun StorEdge A1000
and D1000 Installation, Operations, and Services Manual (which can be found
in the Technical Documentation on “http://www.sun.com).”http://www.sun.com
).

[7] IBM p610 drives are Ultra3 SCSI (160MB/sec) vs SUN A1000 with Ultra
SCSI (40MB/sec) drives, 128MB cache on IBM FC 2498 vs 24 MB cache on Sun.
p610 information according to the pSeries Site and Hardware Planning
Information Document (SA38-0508-13), available “http://www.ibm.com,”
http://www.ibm.com, A1000 information according to the Sun StorEdge A1000
and D1000 Installation, Operations, and Services Manual (which can be found
in the Technical Documentation on “http://www.sun.com).”

[8] According to the pSeries Site and Hardware Planning Information
Document (SA38-0508-13), the p610 operates at 6.4 bels. According to the
Sun 280R Server Owner’s Guide, January 2001, Revision A (which can be found
in Technical Documentation on http://www.sun.com), the 280R operates at 6.9
bels. According to the Sun StorEdge A1000/ D1000 Datasheet (which can be
found in the product section on http://www.sun.com), the A1000 operates at
6.6 bels. The combination of the Sun Fire 280R and A1000 operates at 13.5
bels. This combination operates at 204% of the noise level of the p610.

[9] According to the pSeries 610 Models 6C1 and 6E1 Technical Overview,
the POWER3-II processor consumes a maximum of 42 Watts per hour running
at450 MHz. According to the UltraSPARC III Specifications (which can be
found on http://www.sun.com), the UltraSPARC III dissipates a maximum of 65
Watts per hour (AC power) running at 900 MHz.

IBM, the e-business logo, zSeries, Project eLiza, Light Path Diagnostics,
AIX, AIX 5L, and pSeries are trademarks of IBM Corporation in the United
States and/or other countries.

UNIX is a registered trademark in the United States and other countries
licensed exclusively through The Open Group.

Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds.

All other company, product and service names are trademarks or registered
trademarks of their respective companies.