[Ecommerce] Library of Congress taps into IBM, Linux (CNET)

[Manon Anne Ress]

Library of Congress taps into IBM, Linux

http://news.com.com/2100-1016-5070809.html
By Stephen Shankland
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
September 3, 2003, 10:24 AM PT


IBM announced that the Library of Congress will run Linux on its pSeries 
servers, models that historically have run Unix.
The Library of Congress will use the servers for an online catalog of 
film, video and TV archives that are stored at museums, broadcasting 
companies and other locations, IBM said Wednesday. The goal of the 
project, called the Moving Images Collection, is to provide a single 
site on the Internet that will let people search for video images.

IBM has been avidly embracing Linux, an open-source operating system 
closely similar to Unix, but the pSeries models were the last of the 
company's four server lines to be endowed with the ability to run Linux. 
Although Linux competes with IBM's existing operating systems, the 
company's top server executive, Bill Zeitler, has argued it's better for 
IBM to embrace Linux than to be left behind as customers adopt it.

The National Science Foundation has provided $900,000 to the University 
of Washington, Rutgers University and the Georgia Institute of 
Technology to set up the project, IBM said. The Library of Congress 
plans to take over administration of the project in 2004.

The project will use two four-processor p630 servers, which use the 
current Power4 processor, and two two-processor p610 servers, which use 
the older Power3-II. The systems will run the SuSE Linux Enterprise 
Server 8 operating system.

All four of the top server sellers--IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Sun 
Microsystems and Dell--have embraced Linux. But unlike its competitors, 
IBM is pushing Linux not just for Intel processor-based servers but for 
its in-house models as well.

SuSE has been more aggressive than its U.S. rival, Red Hat, in 
supporting IBM's non-Intel server lines. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3, due 
in early October, will bring full Red Hat support to IBM's complete 
server line.



-- 
Manon Anne Ress
Consumer Project on Technology
www.cptech.org
PO Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036
manon.ress@cptech.org, voice: 1.202.387.8030, fax: 1.202.234.5176