[clug] IBM announcement

[Bob Edwards]

For those who weren't at the LCA2005 Penguin dinner on Friday night,
or who were there but missed Hugh's announcement, here it is:

IBM are loaning/donating two SMP Power5 machines to the Department
of Computer Science, ANU, to be used for teaching, research,
development and community-based projects. They will most likely be
4-way SMP, although one may be only 2-way.

The proposal (as part of IBMs conditions) is that one of these
machines be operated at DCS on behalf of the Linux community in the
Canberra region, which seems to line up pretty well with CLUG. This
machine will be the "production" machine (ie. infrequent kernel
updates) and will host web sites, a "repository", and will have
shell logins for anyone who asks and is prepared to adhere to simple
conditions of use (eg. no spamming, no DOSing etc.). These shell
accounts are intended to allow anyone to develop and test their code
on Power5 architecture.

My proposal is that all members of the LCA2005 organising committee
be given sudo access to this machine, so all that people need to do
is to ask their local friendly member of that committee for an account.

The machines are "loaned" as part of IBM's "Linux On Power" program to
promote Power5 machines. The idea of the "loan" is that, depending upon
uptake in usage, IBM will update these machines every 12 months or so,
with the tantalising possibility of a 16-way SMP box sometime in the
near future. So, start planning your possible usage of this box.

ANU staff, students and "affiliates" will have access to the other
"development" machine, which will possibly undergo kernel testing at
various times and so won't be suitable for, eg. hosting the CLUG
website.

Cheers,

Bob Edwards.