AIX On the Desktop Is Getting the Boot 366
flnca writes "Today, I was playing with the thought again to purchase an AIX workstation one day when I can afford them, and I was surprised to see that IBM is going to give its IntelliStation POWER Series workstations the boot in January '09. A black day for AIX on the desktop. I really wonder what's the problem there, warehouse costs? IBM has a history of burying its best stuff (like OS/2 for instance). Some years ago, I enjoyed hacking away on an RS/6000 workstation running AIX 4.2, and it was a pure joy. Not only the kernel, but also the admin tools, like smit and smitty. Their blade-centric solution uses Windows as a client for workstation application. This truly sounds like IBM wants AIX only for servers anymore. I'm not amused. Although, eXceed on Windows with an XDCMP server running on AIX might also be a viable solution ... whatever. But it can't beat a native POWER box sitting on your desk, that's for sure."
No, (Score:5, Insightful)
2009: Year of AIX on the desktop (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, how is this a story? I used AIX back in the 90s and it was okay. What do I use AIX for today? Back-end processing when I can't get a Linux box past the procurement guys.
Do I code on AIX? Nope I code on Mac OSX or Linux.
Do I manage on AIX? Nope the management stuff lives on Linux and Windows.
A story would be IBM pushing AIX on the desktop. But this is just sensible and if you really want an AIX desktop then its an X environment so just run a server and use an old box as an X Terminal.
Personally I've been looking at getting a server as my next box and concentrating on networking, monitor et al on an XTerm running a stripped down Linux. What is this 1995 to say you have to have a box running under your desk?
Another victim of Linux... (Score:5, Insightful)
Early on, it was said that Linux would kill more Unixs than Windows ever would.
It's your fault (Score:5, Insightful)
"I was playing with the thought again to purchase an AIX workstation one day when I can afford them..."
So you haven't bought one because it's not affordable. Yeah, I have no idea why it makes business sense for them to cut that line. I guess keeping them around to amuse you wasn't enough. Either their hardware is too expensive or their users too poor.
One things for sure - there was no profit there.
IBM is not a computer company (Score:1, Insightful)
They are an IT services and consulting company.
When their mainframe division stops being the cash cow that it is, it'll go to.
Somehow this remembers me 1995 (Score:3, Insightful)
Not a huge surprise. (Score:5, Insightful)
For something like AIX, with its serious UNIX roots, most of the things you would use it for can be done remotely, from just about any client that can handle ssh and maybe NFS. There just isn't all that much point in having costly, exotic hardware sitting on your desk. Now, I'm sure that there are certain exceptions; but it is very hard to sustain a product on "certain exceptions" in a market with substantial economies of scale.
It is a pity; but neither a new nor an avoidable one, that the technology market, particularly the lower end of it, has very little room for "a bit better and a lot more expensive". If AIX ran on commodity x86 gear, even a certified subset of it, there would probably be room(just look at OpenSolaris); but as long as it depends on POWER on the desktop, it is game over.
Re:"Smit Happens" (Score:5, Insightful)
If there is any system you don't hate, it is because you don't know it well enough.
Re:Somehow this remembers me 1995 (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Go ahead and suck it up. (Score:5, Insightful)
AIX is even worse if you do any system programming it. Around here, AIX is pronounced "aches" for a very good reason. We also have a saying "AIX is always different". Anything difficult you want to do on Unix, you need to code up a special AIX-specific version. It's Always Different.
And not different-better, different-holy-crap-this-API-was-designed-by-crack-addled-clowns.
Re:Pure Joy (Score:3, Insightful)
Indeed. I found smit to be a real pain in the rear to use. I'm glad I don't have to use AIX for my stuff.
Re:Don't get me wrong (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't see that ever happening. The veterans like AIX and Solaris provide a consistency and stability that Linux cannot. Linux is a chaotic and anarchistic mess that I find difficult to maintain on an enterprise level. Having the OS developed in a controlled environment and tightly coupled to the hardware makes for predictability and a limited set of variable that allows for refinement.
Don't get me wrong. GNU is awesome. I've had to put up with too much crap from the linux distros that ends up making things less productive.
Re:Go ahead and suck it up. (Score:1, Insightful)
HP-UX is far, far worse than AIX. AIX has some wonderful technology in it, including POWER6 and especially the virtualization used for LPARs, but HP-UX has pretty much no redeeming qualities, plus miserable Itanium hardware.
Re:Go ahead and suck it up. (Score:2, Insightful)
For others, especially those that require high throughput, the story is different. AIX on pSeries can move massive amounts of data, more so than a similarly configured PC based server.
I completely agree. TPC has the flagship benchmarks for enterprise databases. Check out www.tpc.org/tpcc and www.tpc.org/tpch. Do you see Linux anywhere on the high end of these benchmarks? (answer: no). You see some smaller systems with linux, and they are essentially toys. They aren't running the stock exchange; they aren't running intelligence for the FBI; they're handling smaller databases for smaller companies where mission criticality is not absolutely imperative.
Re:It's a true desaster. (Score:3, Insightful)
CDE has some nice features, like dropping icons into menus, stuff like that. (You first created an action script using a desktop applet, and then dropped the icon into a menu.) BTW, the idea of desktop applets comes from CDE; basically everything was controlled by a script, IIRC.