Linux performance guides for distributions

I'm often asked for the performance guides from Red Hat and SUSE. So here are the links for that: RHEL 6 Performance Tuning Guide SLES 1...Read more »

IBM XL C/C++ for Linux on System z beta program

IBM has launched a beta program for a new compiler for Linux on System z. If you've been working with IBM platforms you may already kno...Read more »

Oprofile on zLinux - how to setup and use

(updated 1/8/2014) Oprofile is a system wide profiler which is available in all major distributions for Linux on System z. Here is the setu...Read more »

Installation of Linux on System z

Now and then I get the question on documentation for the base installation of Linux on System z. As this depends on the distribution, take a...Read more »

zBC12

On July 23rd IBM has announced the new business class model of the mainframe the zBC12 . This is the successor to the z114 and is as you pr...Read more »

How to determine which kernel level corresponds to which service release for RHEL and SLES

Now and then I get the question - where to find the kernel level or version for a specific service release. And vice versa - I have kernel l...Read more »

SLES 11 SP3 released

Today SUSE announced the release of Service Pack 3 for SLES 11 . It's been more than 16 months since the last release, so quite some wai...Read more »

Cheat sheet for lock debugging in the Linux kernel

From time to time I'm getting a performance problems that requires identifying the lock in the Linux kernel that causes too much lock co...Read more »

zEC12 Linux certifications and tested platforms

IBM has announced a new mainframe the zEnterprise EC12 . This systems supports all the Linux versions, that are currently supported by IBM, ...Read more »

Oracle 11 installation problem on SLES 11 SP2

Before starting an installation of Oracle 11 with the grid infrastructure on SLES11 SP2 it's highly recommended to read the Oracle note ...Read more »

New Whitepaper "Using the Linux cpuplugd Daemon to manage CPU and memory resources from z/VM Linux guests"

CPU and memory resources are normally shared in a virtualized environment. Therefore multiple guests are fighting for the same resources. Be...Read more »

New article: Dynamic Program Analysis on Linux Using Valgrind

Did you have any memory problems with your applications recently? Wild accesses, improperly initialized variables, memory leaks, illegal fre...Read more »

SLES 11 SP2 released

More than 21 months after SLES 11 SP1 today SUSE released the SP2 of their enterprise distribution. You can find more information on this re...Read more »

Updated Virtualization Cookbook

The virtualization cookbook from Michael MacIsaac, Brad Hinson, Marian Gasparovic received a major updates to cover z/VM 6.2 (including sin...Read more »

Gathering performance data with sysstat

The sysstat package is included in all distributions but not always installed by default. It's a collection of performance monitoring t...Read more »

New Redpaper: "Installing Oracle 11gR2 RAC on Linux on System z"

This Redpaper describes the installation of the latest Oracle DB on RHEL 5 and SLES 11 for Linux on System z. It covers both ECKD as well a...Read more »

How to find software solutions for Linux on System z

There are multiple sources for finding middleware and solutions for Linux. As the web sites get updated this may change - let me know then I...Read more »

OCFS2 support for Linux on SLES

Recently there has been quite some discussion around the support for OCFS2 . SUSE has published their support statements in two blog entries...Read more »

Bug fix for Linux on System z extensive swapping

Recently there has been a small bug fix for the swap behavior of Linux on System z. The following problem has been observed by several user...Read more »

Which Distribution is supported on which hardware?

A frequently asked question for Linux on System z is which distributions are supported with what hardware. There are two different sources f...Read more »