On Mar 23, 2009, at 4:58 PM, Andrew Wiley wrote:
Okay, you've given me a lot to consider. My first question is about Linux/390. I'm an avid linux user and I assumed from my experiences that the difference in underlying platforms is handled entirely by the kernel; userspace programs, with only a few exceptions, compile and operate similarly no matter the platform. The comments I'm reading here seem to imply that this isn't the case.
They're wrong. From a non-root-userspace perspective, mainframe Linux is Linux. Period.
Also, I'm not sure why the Hercules emulator keeps being recommended as an alternative to mainframe linux. Do linux installations in LPAR's on Hercules perform better than existing linux virtual machines, or am I missing something else obvious?
No. If your goal is "a Linux machine" a virtualized Linux that doesn't require processor emulation is a better use of your cycles. If your goal is to play with a mainframe Linux, then maybe not...for what you want to do, though, it sounds like Linux, rather than particular-architecture Linux, is what you want. In which case, virtualize the native hardware. If you can get your hands on a mainframe, some disk, a reasonably decent network interface, and z/VM 4.4, you might find it worthwhile to run Linux boxes under z/VM. The last one of those is going to be the tricky part. 4.3 would be OK, but prior to partway-through-4.2 you couldn't really do guest LANs effectively, which in turn mean that networking your penguins becomes really much more irritating than you want. Adam ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
