IBM Opens Beta for AIX 6 Operating System

By Ed Oswald | Published July 13, 2007, 4:03 PM

IBM said Thursday that it had launched an open beta for AIX 6, its in-house UNIX-based operating system. The latest version will be able to take advantage of the Power6 processor, as well as several other enhancements.

The beta program will be open to all users, with the OS packaged into CD-ROM and DVD images for burning by beta participants. More information on the program could be found on the AIX Web site.

AIX is intended to run on IBM's System p UNIX servers that use Power technology. Version 6 of the operating system includes enhancements to virtualization, security, near continuous availability, and manageability.

The OS will run on IBM systems based on Power4, PowerPC 970, Power5 and Power6 processors, the company said. AIX 6 would also be able to run Linux applications natively using a virtual SUSE Linux or Red Hat partition.

Key features in this release include a feature called workload partitions, which would reduce the number of OS images to reduce costs and be more efficient; allowing workload partitions to be relocated between servers without the need for restarts; and role based access control.

"AIX 6 is a significant technical achievement in the evolution of this world-class UNIX operating system, providing both investment protection allowing existing AIX apps to run unmodified as well as allowing those apps to take advantage of new virtualization technologies that will provide business value to our clients," System p marketing chief Scott Handy said.

The final AIX 6 code is due to be released in the fourth quarter of this year.

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Spamming idiot. Nobody wants your crapware.

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although i am a fan fo IBM,i never use this OS!i hope one day i can use this perfect OS System!

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It'd be cool if IBM could release the OS/2 source code. That was a great OS in it's day,
albeit technically obsolete now. Might be interesting to see if open source software
enthusiasts could do anything to make OS/2 a viable lightweight alternative OS.

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You are probably aware. IBM cannot release the source code of OS/2 due to Microsoft's involvement. I am not sure how much of the source code belongs to MS but I believe the core of the OS is Microsoft's code. I could be wrong of course. Then again, IBM can release the non MS portion...

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You're right, there is a lot of Microsoft code in there. Some stuff could be stripped out like the mini-installation of Windows 3.1, but other stuff like file systems and core components would probably be more trouble to replace than it's worth. Even if IBM did own it all I doubt they'd release it as open source, they are still making money on it licensing it to Serenity Systems as ecomstation and there are still lot's of places like banks that use OS/2 so they may still handle contracts with them. Anyway it's very unlikely to happen.

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Wow, I had no idea they still made AIX.

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AIX may not have the market share, but they have the technical advantage. It is a fine OS.

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Microsoft makes a fine OS too: they make an OS, and the EU fines them.

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lmao! all too true.

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They aren't fined for making an OS but for using their dominant market share and financial power to unfairly hurt or totally crush their competition.

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"Ba da bum' TISSSHHH!"

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I know this is a highly unpopular stance...and I'm as much of a Microsoft hater as the next guy (Go Apple!), but it seems to me that if your company has worked hard enough to get the market share necessary to "unfairly hurt or totally crush their competition," what's so unfair about it? I'm no scholar of Microsoft history, but surely there were bigger companies than Microsoft in the early days. IBM, even Apple. Why punish Microsoft for making some shrewd and ultimately profitable business decisions many years ago? They are where they are today not because they've always been monopolistic but because they were allowed to get that way.

This is Economics 101, isn't it? And I know I'm living in a perfect world, too...

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but it seems to me that if your company has worked hard enough to get the market share necessary to "unfairly hurt or totally crush their competition,"

Therin lies the rub, they've been using underhanded tactics from the very beginning. It is how they got to where they are. Things like putting fake error messages in the Windows 3.1 installer saying it would not work on DR-DOS, later bundling DOS into Windows 95 to kill that market, bundling IE to kill competing browsers, pressuring OEMs into not selling computers without Windows installed because doing so would cause people to pirate software, the list just goes on and on. If left unchecked Google would have been dead before it started and we'd all be using a Microsoft search engine for example. They're still trying. Economics 101 does not work when there is only one product to choose from.

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It's the US vs. the EU over Oracle+Sun and the meaning of 'open source'

Now that the EU is a virtual country, the US Justice Dept. is taking a stand in favor of its view -- and against the EC's -- that MySQL will survive under Oracle.

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