linux & hp-ux differences?

[jazz_1]

hi,

what are the differences between the 2 operating systems?

j

[Pete Randall · Accepted solution]

j,

First, there's no "l" in HP-UX.

Second, they run on different hardware (with the notable exception of the Itanium Processor Family).

They have some subtle command differences but not much.

HP-UX is heavy duty, 24x7, non-stop, industrial strength. Linux is still trying to achieve that sort of quality.


Pete

[jazz_1]

thanks pete

[Darren Prior]

Hi Jazz,

Pete also forgot to mention that there is also no L in HP-UX!

On a more serious note, there are distributions of linux available for little or no money - which is not the case for HP-UX which must be bought from HP or a reseller and licensed.

regards,

Darren.

[Pete Randall]

Darren,

I used the lowercase version. It probably looks more like an i (eye) or something.


Pete

[Darren Prior]

Pete - I knew I should have picked the N! That'll teach me for having such tiny fonts.

regards,

Darren.

[Steven E. Protter]

Big difference is LVM.

You can use LVM to mirror with HP-UX, which is really important, though you have to buy it. I Don't think LVM is available in the Linux version.

Other topics.

Linux lets you do things with the crontab schedule that is not generally accepted in the Unix community. They are trying to set a standard, but people move their crontabs to HP-UX and are surprised when they don't work.

I think HP-UX, properly patched can not be beaten on reliablity. It scales nicely, I really like it.

Oracle and Red Hat and a few other Linux vendors are working very hard to make Linux World Class with how it runs Oracle's database and applications. Usually it requires more Intel processors to equal the performance of PA-RISC HP-UX and Oracle's licensing runs $40,000-$60,000 per CPU.

It can get pricey FAST!!!

HP-UX has Ignite, probably the best Disaster Recovery/Software Installation tool I've ever used. Linux has mondo and mindi, but I've not tested it. I trust Ignite with my job.

SEP

[twang]

Hi,
Take a look at this thread:
http://forums.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/0,,0xddea585fae8bd711abdc0090277a778c,00.html

regards

[Pete Randall]

LVM is available in Linux - has been for a couple of years. I think Steven may be referring to the MirrorDisk/UX product that allows logical volume mirroring in HP-UX. That, I don't believe, is available in Linux.


Pete

[Michael Steele_2]

Disposable Servers:

LINUX managers go LINUX because of its cheapness and the term 'disposable server' has evolved because of this. An O/S reinstall is usually the only way to fix problems that evolve from degradation over time.

LINUX O/S Loaders:

On the Intel platform PC firmware is going to be an issue. BIOS is vastly inferior to PA-RISC or SPARC firmware. You can network boot from 'lilo', you need 'grub' while these are firmware utilities in PA-RISC and SPARC. This is why there are so many LINUX O/S loaders like 'lilo' and 'grub'.

IDE vs. SCSI:

IDE is awful. With SCSI you can load your O/S on one SCSI disk and your applications on other SCSI disks, but because of CMOS and BIOS in IDE everything goes on controller 0's master disk. Terrible performance.

Diagnostic Utilities:

Goes along with 'disposable servers' since diagnostics are almost unheard of in LINUX, or at best, they're in their infancy. Red Hat 8 and 9 are just now being released with some basic commands.

And nothing beats LVM for reliability, not even VXVM.

[Martin Johnson]

There is more business software for HPUX than Linux. Much of the software that we run on HPUX does not currently run on Linux.

Linux's major selling point is that Linux on a PC is MUCH cheaper than HPUX on a HP9000. But if it doesn't run your applications, it is worthless.

HTH
Marty

[doug mielke]

HOLY COW! ( cash cow, that is)
SEP, what a great point.
If Oracle pricing per proccesor not cheaper on Intel then that explains the recent flashy overtures Oracle seem to be making to the Lynix community. Cheap multi x multi intel servers could make Ellison rich. ( ha )

BTW: A common Happy Hour debate here is over the proper pronunciation of Lynix.
( When I saw an interview with the Master, he introduced himself such that his name rhymed with Guinness.)

[Pete Randall]

Doug,

All the Linux session I've been to have pronounced it that way (rhyming with Guiness, rather than rhyming with wine). Linus himself pronounces it that way, so I guess that pretty much settles that debate.


Pete

[John Poff]

Hi,

In regards to the Intel vs. PA-RISC comparison, I have very recently been involved in a test here for a new application that will be running on Linux. The application uses an Oracle database.

We originally loaded it on an 8-way N4000 box (550Mhz CPUs I think) running 11i, connected to an FC10 disk array and ran the application [after a bit of tuning] in 1 hour and 45 minutes. We just loaded the same application on an IBM x345 with 2 Xeon 2.8Ghz CPUs and 8 Gb of RAM, running RedHat AS 2.1 and using an internal RAID5 array. The application ran in 2 hours and 5 minutes, straight up, without tweaking the OS or Oracle.

I am as big a fan of HP and HP-UX as anybody else out here. There are still large, critical applications that belong on big HP systems, but the Intel CPUs and Linux have come a long way in a short time.

As for reliability, I have some small Intel boxes that run Linux for months on end. I have one box that is halfway across the country, running on an old HP Kayak that was abandoned two years ago by our desktop team because it was too slow to run the latest Windows. I salvaged it, loaded RedHat 7.0 on it, and it does a great job as a file server [Samba] and an ftp and print server. It has only been down once in the last 27 months, for a planned power outage. For the right applications, Linux is a great fit.

The requirement for our project is that this application run in two hours or less. I wonder which way they are going to go now? ;)

JP

[doug mielke]

thanks Pete, for taking away yet another reason for me to go to Happy Hour.

[doug mielke]

thanks Pete, for taking away yet another reason for me to go to Happy Hour.

Now If we can just get SCO Group ( Bill Gates??) to cease it's attack on Lynix.

[Pete Randall]

Sorry, Doug, but I thought I was just echoing the conclusion you'd reached already. I, for one, would never want to ruin happy hour (or happy evening/day/week/month/year/life) for anybody.

;^)


Pete

[Caesar_3]

Hello!

First in HPUX there is no Lin.

Linux it's open source it's mean that you
can change the system as you like.
You can build new system from nothing.

Linux became more popular in the world.

HP give a full suport for his OS as for
linux it's difrent.

Caesar

[kenny chia]

One costs a bomb while the other is free..

The quantity of software utilities available for Linux is more than HPUX but in terms of quality and workability, HPUX software is better (eg ignite and SAM)

[Stefan Farrelly]

JP has a very interesting comment about Oracle and performance differences on HP-UX v Linix. Were a big Oracle house and if Oracle licenses were cheaper on Linux than HP-UX we would certainly be trialing some.

As for Linux not being industrial strength - it damn well is - what do you think amazon.com runs on ? A huge cluster of Linux boxes all running clustering software, managed by HP. Thats all 7x24 non stop, and very reliable. A node drops and its simply removed from the cluster and another one added in.

[Pete Randall]

Stefan,

Good point about Amazon. However, I'll stick to HP-UX for fault tolerance, thankyou.

Another point about Linux: As it has grown in popularity, so have the hacker's exploits of it. It now regularly contends with Microslop for the highest number of reported exploits each week in the SANS Security Consensus. HP-UX, being less widely deployed, is still relatively low on the hacker's target list, thankfully.


Pete

[Ralph Grothe]

First as already mentioned Linux is *free*, not as in "free beer", as the Linux community put it.
Meaning, its greatest pro is not so much the price which unlike seems to have been the main motivation for so many transitions in businesses from other OS, but rather that "the source is always with you".
This is an invaluable advantage, and means provided you have the knowledge and the time that you can fully adapt your OS to your personal needs!
On the other hand, Linux's sources are mainly tied to the ethical GNU GPL which expects that modifications, alterations, and extensions of the sources have to be dsiclosed as well.
To whom this model is too radical still has the choice to go with one of the free BSDs who also come with sources but have a lesser binding BSD license.

I agree that HP-UX has proven its reliability in professional heavy duty.
But you have to aknowledge that Linux was originally designed to run on cheap (mainly Intel) hardware (however this is no longer the only platform).
Of course cheap of the shelf hardware also means a lesser reliability.
Then the Linux OS, driver and application developers have to make their code run on a sheer myriad of mostly no-name hardware.
In this respect it is much easier for HP that exclusively have to service their own made hardware.

Another point worth mentioning is that the main chunk of development still today is done by mostly volunteers who do it as a hobby (or are paid by their employer to have free resources to do so).
This also means a great distributed effort of coding accross the whole globe with participants who may have never personally met before.
This of course can also be the reason for the demise of a software project because people lose either interest or time or are suddenly tied by other circumstance.

Considering all this it seems to me really amazing what has been achieved so far.

Mind you that low cost Linux clusters are about to outperform high cost high end hardware in number crunching applications (e.g. scientific computations).

Btw. LVM has been available in the Linux kernel since 2.4.X.
It is modelled after the HP-UX LVM (almost same commands and syntax).
However Linux LVM mirroring isn't yet available (but software RAID tools are!)

What I like most is Linux's high degree of Kernel modularization.

[Pete Randall]

That same miraculous development model also means that it can take a long time to get drivers developed for the latest hardware, so don't expect that you're going to be able to install Linux on your latest, greatest laptop that you just bought yesterday. The installation and administration of Linux boxes takes (in my opinion) a *lot* more effort than HP-UX. After it's up and running you can pretty much forget about it, as someone else said.


Pete

[Ralph Grothe]

Still felt urged to respond to Pete's hacker issue.

You have to consider that the by now millions of Linux systems are mainly operated by non-professional people of whom many even don't know the basics of networks, protocols, services, system administration etc.
But despite many of them connect to the internet via their ISP while they have services running they will most likely never need because they simply don't know of their existence.
Then they also connect without a firewall or other sound precautions for which Linux has all the tools.

On the other side, who on earth is ever getting his fingers on a HP-UX box?
Mostly I'd bet professionals who have been trained or gained in many years of system administration enough experience, or who even are old time veterans who have grown with Unix and the internet.

Then again, most HP-UX servers are run by companies or institutions who even employ a special firewall dept. or such.
Most of the servers are exclusively in private networks that are never exposed to the threats of the internet.

[Ralph Grothe]

2nd reply to Pete.

Yes it can be pretty daunting to get your latest hardware running on Linux.
But this is hardly ever the blame of the driver developers but rather the consumer market hardware producers who still are mostly ignoramous and only provide drivers for the Windows.
But if this wasn't enough, most developers would volunteer to write the drivers if they were provided with the hundreds of competing similar devices, and worse if they only had a chance to get hw topolgy disclosed at least as much as what is reuired to write a driver.
If these prerequisites are given you can bet that the distributed hacking community is the fastest to provide drivers (often only a matter of days, you have to follow usenet announcements and mailing lists).

As far as documentation and online help (manpages, info pages, howtos, faqs, news groups etc.) is concerned you can find support for almost any issue on the internet.
Not seldom that you have direct contact to the developers who are keen on fixing bugs or extending features if the community of users is sending them feedback.

Apart sound Linux users know that it is almost compulsiory to study the hardware compatibilty lists before buying any piece of hardware.
There is such a hardware howto amongst others available from here:

http://www.tldp.org/docs.html#howto

Especially for Linux on laptops, as you mentioned it, there is an excellent website where users who themselves have gone through the bleak installation odyssee report what needs to be done to get it running on that special make of laptop:

http://www.linux-laptop.net/