LinuxWorld conference has high-end flavor

The no-longer-NASCENT Linux operating system stood to gain another measure of credibility among corporate accounts at the second annual LinuxWorld last week. Its proponents delivered.

Robust server hardware and corporate-level service and support programs were on display, and the creator himself, Linus Torvalds, laid out a road map for the delivery of kernel-level enterprise capabilities for the open-source OS.

For customers, a serious push by Linux into the enterprise could generate renewed competition among operating systems, which could lead to higher performance levels and lower costs.

"We've used [Linux] for single-apps hosting for a while, but really want to move it up to handle more important applications," said Tom Jacobs, a LAN administrator at a Los Angeles bank. "What I see here tells me I'm going to be able to do that, and do that with more than a few choices at my disposal."

IBM held its place at the forefront of the Linux push by announcing plans to port its Tivoli Enterprise systems management software to Linux later this year. The company also said it is making the early versions of Lotus Domino, Release 5, for the open-source operating system available for download.

Underlining that commitment is Big Blue's $30 billion per year Global Services unit, which will offer a range of different services for Linux users. IBM also took the wraps off a new Netfinity server, the 3500 M10, which has been purposely optimized to run all four major Linux versions.

In addition to IBM, a strong contingent of vendors was present to support Linux, including several with Alpha-oriented server offerings.

During his keynote address, Torvalds said Version 2.4 of the Linux kernel, due in 12 to 18 months, will include some high-end features that would take advantage of more powerful servers.

One of these capabilities is symmetric multiprocessing support, which will allow the operating system to support between 16 and 32 processors. The current 2.2.11 kernel, completed last week, supports between four and eight processors.

Another effort that will help the Linux assault on the high-end market is the Linux for Merced project, code-named Trillian, which promises to be a fully exploitative 64-bit version of the operating system for the upcoming Intel chip. Intel Chairman Andy Grove unveiled the solution by carrying out a simple Web transaction on a Pentium III server using an IA-64 software simulator running on Linux.

Torvalds said the first beta code of Trillian should be available in early 2000.Before that, Linux will add a journaling file system, which will give programmers the ability to track a wide variety of changes to the operating system. That capability is already present in Unix, Windows NT, and OS/2 Warp.

The Lotus Domino, Release 5, preview is available on the Web for free download at notes.net/linux.