[77] in SIPB_Linux_Development
SIPB Linux Effort & Recommendations for IS Linux Support
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Michael L Barrow)
Thu Jul 8 14:57:36 1993
Date: Thu, 8 Jul 93 14:57:06 -0400
From: mlbarrow@posse.mit.edu (Michael L Barrow)
To: resnet-planning@mit.edu, linux-dev@mit.edu
Cc: cons@mit.edu, cprivate@mit.edu
Reply-To: mlbarrow@mit.edu
Report on SIPB Linux Effort
and
Recommendations for IS Linux Support Policy
Michael L. Barrow (mlbarrow@mit.edu)
July 8, 1993
In an effort to reduce the number of questions about Linux and
its impact on a Resnet support plan, I took the initiative of talking to
the SIPB Linux Development Team on July 1st. This document is a report
based on that conversation.
The SIPB Linux Development Team consists of the following people:
Who Responsible for
=============================================================
Chad Brown (yandros) General *NIX programs & utils
Mark Eichin (eichin) Kerberos, Release Engineering
David K Krikorian (dkk) Motif
Greg McMullan (mcmullan) Installation disk, iLinux doc
Salvatore Valente (svalente) Athena-specific software
If the Linux demand at MIT is anything like the Linux demand at
large, then there is a very good chance that a lot of students will want
to run this package. This strong demand may even increase once students
find out that there is a Linux implementation of the Athena Computing
Environment.
What makes Linux so appealing is that it is a powerful, free
Unix that will run on pretty much any PC-compatible machine with an
80386SX or better processor. There are several exceptions to this rule
(e.g., Linux does not run Micro Channel Architecture machines such as
most IBM PS/2s), but none of them are significant enough to cripple the
overall demand for Linux.
With these points in mind, it is imperative that IS adopt an
official policy for supporting Linux. I am not advocating full-support
for this system, but I do not believe that we can ignore Linux and wait
for it to go away.
SIPB plans to distribute Linux plus the Athena extensions to any
interested party. At a minumum, they would like to provide an
installation diskette that will contain programs to do all the necessary
grunge work such as reconfiguring the partition table to allow both DOS
and Linux to be resident on one hard disk. If all goes as planned, the
disk would also contain a program to let users load the Linux core
operating system and Athena extensions from a server on the network.
In addition to providing distribution, SIPB plans to do some
end-user Linux support by answering questions and writing an
"Inessential Linux" document that will outline the installation,
configuration, and troubleshooting of Linux.
I recommend that IS offer no front-line support for Linux at
this time. However, we should support SIPB by providing any resources
for them to install and maintain centralized servers (i.e., Linux system
packs and AFS-to-NFS translators). If necessary, we should also create a
"linux" topic (in the unsupported section or a new SIPB section) within
OLC to allow the user community to pose questions to a central area.
Anyone knowledgable about Linux will be welcome and encouraged to answer
the Linux OLC questions. As for the paid consultants, their first
priority will continue to be the supported topics.
If Linux becomes more stable and is in greater demand at MIT, we
should reconsider our support policy such that more front-line support
rests on IS. This support model is similar to the one that was used for
other services such as the Athena dialups or LaTeX.
Appendix A: General information on Linux
*) What is Linux? (snarfed from Linux META-FAQ)
Linux is a clone of the UNIX operating system that has been
written entirely from scratch. It has no proprietary code in it. Linux
is freely distributable under the GNU Public License. It only works on
IBM PC compatibles with an ISA or EISA bus and a 386 or higher
processor. See the FAQ for more exact hardware requirements. The Linux
kernel is written by Linus Torvalds (torvalds@kruuna.helsinki.fi) from
Finland. Most of the programs running under Linux are generic Unix
freeware, many of them from the GNU project.
*) Specifically, what hardware is required to run Linux? (snarfed from
Linux INFO-SHEET)
The following is probably the smallest possible configuration
that Linux will work on: 386SX/16, 2 MB RAM, 1.44 MB or 1.2 MB floppy,
any supported video card (+ keyboards, monitors, and so on of course).
This should allow you to boot and test whether it works at all on the
machine, but you won't be able to do anything useful.
In order to do something, you will want some hard disk space as
well, 5 to 10 MB should suffice for a very minimal setup (with only the
most important commands and perhaps one or two small applications
installed, like, say, a terminal program). This is still very, very
limited, and very uncomfortable, as it doesn't leave enough room to do
just about anything, unless your applications are quite limited. It's
generally not recommended for anything but testing if things work, and
of course to be able to brag about small resource requirements.
If you are going to run computationally intensive programs, such
as gcc, X, and TeX, you will probably want a faster processor than a
386SX/16, but even that should suffice if you are patient.
In practice, you need at least 4 MB of RAM if you don't use X,
and 8 MB if you do. Also, if you want to have several users at a time,
or run several large programs (compilations for example) at a time, you
may want more than 4 MB of memory. It will still work with a smaller
amount of memory (should work even with 2 MB), but it will use virtual
memory (using the hard drive as slow memory) and that will be so slow as
to be unusable.
* end *
