Dr. Dobb's | IBM AIX Affinity with Linux

IBM AIX Affinity with Linux

IBM is committed to the open source community and to being a leader in providing Linux solutions for e-business. And that includes the affinity we've developed between AIX and Linux. That relationship enables faster and less costly deployment of multiplatform-integrated solutions. So customers have greater protection for their IT investments and can streamline their technology transitions.

September 24, 2001
URL:http://www.drdobbs.com/ibm-aix-affinity-with-linux/199101212

IBM AIX Affinity with Linux: Run your Linux Applications on AIX

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IBM is committed to the open source community and to being a leader in providing Linux solutions for e-business.

And that includes the affinity we’ve developed between AIX and Linux. That relationship enables faster and less costly deployment of multiplatform-integrated solutions. So customers have greater protection for their IT investments and can streamline their technology transitions.

AIX supports both 32- and 64-bit RS/6000 (tm) and eserver pSeries (tm) systems in their full range of scalability while providing improved software features for both environments. On 64-bit systems, AIX provides full interoperability and coexistence between 32- and 64-bit applications with processes that may run concurrently or cooperatively, sharing access to files, memory, and other system services.

AIX affinity with Linux includes Linux application source compatibility, compliance with emerging Linux standards, and a GNU/Linux build-time environment that facilitates the development and deployment of Linux applications on AIX. As a result, customers get the best of both worlds — the capabilities of Linux applications plus the industrial-strength foundation and performance advantages of native AIX applications.

AIX Toolbox for Linux Applications

AIX Toolbox for Linux Applications contains a collection of open source and GNU software built for AIX 4.3.3 and AIX 5L for IBM RS/6000, IBM eserver pSeries systems, and upcoming Itanium-based IBM eserver xSeries (tm) systems. Packaged using the easy-to-install RPM format, these tools provide the basis of the development environment of choice for many Linux system administrators and application developers.

For applications, a strong affinity exists between Linux and AIX. AIX has a long history of standards compliance and it is generally straightforward to rebuild Linux applications for AIX. The AIX Toolbox for Linux Applications demonstrates the strong relationship between Linux and AIX, allowing you to:

Build and package Linux application for use on AIX.
Run Gnome and KDE desktops.
Run other popular software commonly found in Linux
distributions.
Manage open source software using the popular RPM package management system.
Develop new applications for AIX, using GNU and Linux application development tools.

AIX Toolbox for Linux Applications contains a wide variety of software, such as:

Application development — gcc, rpm, automake, autoconf, libtool
Desktop Environments — Gnome and KDE
GNU based utilities — sed, diffutils, fileutils, textutils
Programming languages — guile, python, tcl/tk, rep-gtk
System Utilities — vim, bzip2, wget, lsof, samba, zip
Graphics Applications — gimp, ImageMagick, xpdf, ghostscript
Libraries — ncurses, readline, libpng, slang
System Shells — bash2, tcsh, zsh
Window Managers — enlightenment, sawfish

For a complete listing of tools and to download the AIX Toolbox for Linux Applications, visit

http://www.ibm.com/servers/aix/products/aixos/linux/