Talk:IBM AIX (operating system)

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[edit] Unix transition guide

Anyone care to outline a introduction guide for persons already familiar with Unix? Links? Thanks, Gchriss 20:37, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] AIX 1.0 and SVR3

The article states that AIX 1.0 was based on SVR3, but according to UNIX System V the latter was released a year later. Qwertyus 22:31, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] AIX on IBM Mainframes

I changed the previous MVS/ESA section and replaced it with AIX on IBM Mainframes. AIX/370 and AIX/ESA information is very hard to come by because the operating system was not much of a success and didn't last long. I also removed the note about AIX/ESA being based off of OSF/1 because I could find no credible information saying such (and it seems unlikely). I found the introduction date on IBM's Year in Review website and based the release date off of Unix History (http://www.levenez.com/unix/). I also found some information on the MVS/ESA article. There are official IBM documents in BookManager format on AIX/370 available at this site (http://www.tavi.co.uk/ps2pages/aix.html). TimP 21:27, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

As someone who worked on AIX/ESA, I can confirm it was indeed a port of OSF/1. Why do you think it's unlikely? Also, the information in the AIX article that AIX/370 was rebranded as AIX/ESA is wrong. They were separate operating systems. Finally, while AIX/370 was restricted to running as a VM guest, AIX/ESA did not have this restriction and could be run natively. -Dave Marquardt, AIX/ESA developer from 1989 to 1993.

AIX/ESA did run natively on the mainframe and the kernel had little in common with AIX for the RS/6000. It was a port of OSF/1. I also was a developer of this OS from 1989 to about 1992. My team did the disk and tape support (which was ALL native). I have seen an AIX/ESA machine with a 1000 people logged on. Technically impressive, but didn't sell! Some said this was because MVS Open Edition was developed as a corporate "immune response" from the very large MVS development team. - Dick Johnson


AIX/370 was a port of the LOCUS clustering operating system from Locus Computing Corporation, which was a commercialization of an ARPA research project at UCLA led by Dr. Gerald J. Popek (of Popek and Goldberg virtualization requirements fame). You can see the book on Amazon.com -- ISBN 0262161028, "The LOCUS Distributed System Architecture", edited by Gerald J. Popek and Bruce J. Walker, MIT Press, 1985 (you may notice my name on Chapter 4). It was based on 4.1BSD and was not anywhere near the same branch of the UNIX family tree as IBM's AIX on the RT, for example. The same OS also ran on the IBM PS/2, as well as the VAX and a couple other Instruction Set Architectures (same source, different binaries of course). I think IBM called it Transparent Computing Facility (TCF), and I think it was also called Transparent Network Computing (TNC) at some point in time, I believe by Locus attempting to sell the technology to other buyers in addition to IBM. (It is a bit disappointing to note that the IBM370/AIX page does not seem to recognize this, and talks about the RS6000 version of AIX and the IBM370 verion as though they were the same thing; but then it seemed to me that IBM was pretty deliberate in using the "AIX" brand in a way that was consistent and made it look like one product.) The book referenced above was published during a time when the contract between Locus and IBM was still supposed to be secret, but Locus apparently got permission to credit IBM without making a direct statement, and that can be seen on pages xv (Preface) and xvii (Acknowledgments). I think it was an editing error that the example discussed on page 104 (first paragraph of section 6.5) was published talking about a "370" site -- I think all those examples were supposed to have been changed to "68K" instead (which LOCUS did run on). Amazon.com will let you see these -- I used the "search inside" feature to find "IBM" and "370". There are a few hints around: http://www-sop.inria.fr/parallel/DR:/lsf/man/tcsh.1.html (search for "TCF"); http://www.puffin.com/~lynn/99.html, http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#22, http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006c.html (search for "locus") Dave Butterfield 23:25, 20 September 2006 (UTC) co-chief technical lead for support of AIX/370 and AIX/PS2 at Locus, February 1989 - May 1992.

I just looked around and found that Locus delivered AIX for both the 370 and the PS/2 to IBM for acceptance testing in October and November of 1986. It was delivered to IBM in Boeblingen, West Germany by Evelyn Walton, one of the founders of Locus. Dave Butterfield 00:56, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Probably a Silly-Mistake

Last line of the Text says:
"If you are on a text based terminal, running the smit program will invoke the text-based version."
Shouldn't it be:
"If you are on a text based terminal, running the smit program will invoke the GUI-based version."
Ignore the post if I am wrong, as I have no AIX experience. Just a curious reader and Linux/Unix enthusiast, who thought it is probably a mistake. Thanks. --202.63.114.107 09:33, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

I just tested and running "smit" on a text based terminal does indeed bring up the text based version. I to make the hard call to the text based version the command is "smitty". 141.155.63.6 21:09, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I am pretty sure the smit command senses if you are running in GUI or text mode and will use the appropriate display.--Mrmouse 15:40, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

This is correct. If you invoke "smit" without any options, it will determine if the $DISPLAY variable is set; if so, it will invoke the GUI-based version; if not, it will invoke the CLI-based version. Invoking SMIT as "smitty" forces the "tty" (CLI-based) version to run. This is, of course, by design. --SolarisBigot 16:55, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A Correction

Actually AIX stands for "Advanced Interactive eXcutive" if memory serves me well. I remember back in the version 1 days they used to print that phrase on the 8" floppies you used to build it, and that always stuck wtih me. 141.155.63.6 21:05, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what is meant by "AIX v3 was the first OS to introduce a journaling file system". Does this mean it was the first to natively support a journalled FS? Because Veritas_File_System was the first journaling FS.

AIX was the first to naitvely support a journalled FS. AIXv3 shipped in 1990 (and was working in-house years prior to that). When did Veritas start shipping thier product? linas 00:38, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "but also beat the competition by a factor of 10 in floating-point performance."

does anyone else find the breathless enthusiasm for AIX and the RS/6000 a little POV? i mean, just a bit?

Flagged appropiately. --SolarisBigot 17:09, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Incorrect info about SMIT command log

smit.log contains the output and results from actions that are performed, but does not contain much that would be usable in writing scripts. smit.script contains all the commands that are generated to execute an action, and is where one would get the commands to write their own script. -- Kel Byers, AIX Test Engineer

I updated the article to reflect both files as you mentioned. --Unixguy 15:40, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article name "IBM AIX (operating system)"

Why there is "(operating system)" in the article name? I think that there is not anything else called "IBM AIX". I am going to suggest renaming the article. --pabouk 07:30, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree that this is redundant, but I don't think it's the (operating system) part that should go, it's the "IBM" part. Coherent with: Tru64 UNIX, Solaris Operating System, Mac OS X, HP-UX, OS/2 and IRIX. All proprietary operating systems without the vendor name in the article. The odd man out is Microsoft Windows but that's all in order since MS couldn't register just "windows" as a trademark. -- Henriok 15:21, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
I agree that the "IBM" part is redundant. I was not sure whether it has not been part of the name. I also asked User:Rwwww who renamed the article for the reasons for renaming but I am not sure whether he will answer because he has not contributed to Wikipedia since November. --pabouk 15:29, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
There ia a long response on my talk page. tooold 14:28, 10 June 2007 (UTC) (Rwwww)
I think that as long as AIX operating system redirects to the main page IBM AIX (operating system) then we are ok. A person would still arrive at the end page without knowing that IBM is part of the name. Here are all the current redirect pages:
--Unixguy 17:04, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] SCO lawsuit

SCO has not claimed (in court) that IBM misappropriated code from sysV and put it in AIX (or anywhere else), but rather IBM took code that IBM wrote for other operating systems, and ported that code into AIX, and then later on ported that same code into linux. What SCO says to the media is sometimes different from what they say in court. 67.52.199.222 18:40, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Journaling

This assessment it is not true: AIXv3 innovated in several ways on the software side. It was the first operating system to introduce the idea of a journalling file system, JFS, which allowed for fast boot times by avoiding the need to fsck the disks on every reboot —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 62.14.109.238 (talk) 09:36, 24 April 2007 (UTC).

I have absolutely no idea what's true. We cannot replace something that might not be true with something else that might not be true either. At least I need some evidence before I change anything. Henriok 09:55, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pronunciation?

How is AIX pronounced? I think the article should tell us: is it a single syllable "AYKS", or is it two syllables like "AY-iks"? The latter I thought was the case, to identify it as part of what we now call the *nix family of operating system - albeit without the "n" in this case. Are there any sources that say one way or the other? Is it still lodged in the memories of those who worked with it? --Nigelj 22:13, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

"Aye-Eye-Ecks" is the way I've heard from representatives from IBM. Listen to IBM's developerWorks podcast to hear for yourself. -- Henriok 14:50, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
Although it's an acronym, the proper name is to say the letters A-I-X aloud. /Blaxthos ( t / c ) 22:33, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:Aix logo.gif

Image:Aix logo.gif is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot 22:30, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] AIX on Bull Express5800

I'm not entirely convinced by the cited website mentioning an IA-32 port of AIX 5L for the Bull (NEC) Express5800. Does anyone have any other references for the existence of this? Letdorf 13:19, 8 November 2007 (UTC).

Bull sells rebranded IBM pSeries with AIX and is also involved in the development of AIX (on POWER) but that's the only link I'm aware of, so the claim of an IA32-port of AIX done by Bull is IMHO highly doubtable. --Kvedulv 14:12, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
Removed per talk. /Blaxthos 18:29, 8 November 2007 (UTC)