Linux on Itanium
Red Hat
| Red Hat Linux / Enterprise Linux | |
|---|---|
| Initial release | Red Hat Linux 7.1 - Kernel 2.4
Released mid 2001 |
| Last release | RHEL 5 - Kernel 2.6.18
Released 15 March 2007 |
| Last major update | RHEL 5.11 - Kernel 2.6.18
Released 16 September 2014 |
| End of support | Full support - 8 January 2013
Maintenance - 31 March 2017 Extended - 30 November 2020 |
Red Hat Linux
Red Hat Linux was a widely used commercial Linux distribution, available for x86 machines from 1994 until its discontinuation in 2004.
Support for the Itanium platform was first announced on 16 February 2000 together with the release of some development tools.[1] This was followed up with the release of early source code in May 2000[2] and the release of a public beta in December 2000.[3] That beta release was for the 7.1 release of Red Hat Linux, running on the 2.4 Linux kernel.
The first commercial release was Red Hat Linux 7.1 was announced on 29 May 2001[4] and was available for purchase from sometime between June and August 2001 for the price of $499[5], more than 12x the price of standard Red Hat Linux at $39,95[6], 6x the price of Deluxe Workstation at $79,95[7], 5x the price of the Alpha Deluxe edition for the soon to be discontinued DEC Alpha platform priced at $99,95[8] and almost 3x the price of the Professional Server edition at $179,95.[9] Only the High Availability Server edition and the Enterprise Edition for Oracle were priced higher, costing $1995 and $2500 respectively.[10][11]
Red Hat Linux 7.2 was announced on 7 January 2001[12] and was released sometime around the end of 2001.[13] This version was discontinued sometime between June and September 2002[14][15] in favor of Red Hat Linux Advanced Workstation and Advanced Server for Itanium 2-based Systems.[16] This edition was initially only distributed through OEMs.[17]
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux is the successor and continuation of Red Hat Linux under a new branding. It continues where Red Hat Linux Advanced Server and Advanced Workstation ended.
RHEL 2.1 for Itanium could be first purchased outside of OEM channels from mid 2003, starting at $792 for the Workstation (WS) variant and at $1992 for the Advanced Server (AS) variant.[18] In mid 2004 the Enterprise Server (ES) edition was also made available for Itanium during the lifetime of RHEL 3. RHEL 4 released in February 2005 was the last release to come with a WS (Workstation) edition for Itanium.[19] The last release of RHEL to support Itanium was 5, released in March 2007 and discontinued in March 2017, with Extended Lifecycle Support available until November 2020.[20]
Today RHEL 4 AS and ES, as well as RHEL 5 Server can still be downloaded from Red Hat with a developer or business subscription account.
| Debian GNU/Linux | |
|---|---|
| Initial release | Debian 3.0 (Woody) - Kernel 2.2/2.4
Released 19 July 2002 |
| Last release | Debian 7 (Wheezy) - Kernel 3.2
Released 4 May 2013 |
| Last major update | Debian 7.11 (Wheezy) - Kernel 3.2
Released 04 June 2016 |
| End of support | Support EOL - 25 April 2016
No official LTS support available |
Debian
Debian is a widely known and used free and open source Linux distribution available for a variety of architectures and machines. It is one of the oldest Linux distributions and due to its stability it is very popular for PCs and servers. It also is the base for many other Linux distributions like Ubuntu, LMDE and Proxmox.
Work on an Itanium-Release of Debian began in mid 2000 during the development phase of Debian 2.2 (Potato).[21] Development was mostly done on remote servers and the occasional SDV. The first stable release of Debian would be Debian 3.0 (woody), released on 19 July 2002. Releases continued until Debian 7 (Wheezy), being released on 4 May 2013.
In October 2013 a roll call revealed that there were no developers and maintainers left that would actively maintain the ia64 build of Debian,[22] resulting in the discontinuation in February 2014.[23] Thus Debian 7 (Wheezy) would become the last official release. Support officially ended with the end of life on 25 April 2016. Long Term Support (LTS) was not provided for this architecture.
In recent years some experimental builds of Debian were made for Itanium under the ports classification. However there is currently no indication of a full release being planned.
| Gentoo Linux | |
|---|---|
| Initial release | Gentoo 2005.1
Released 8 August 2005 |
| Last release | Ongoing |
| Last major update | Ongoing |
| End of support | Ongoing |
Gentoo
Gentoo is a rolling release Linux distribution first released in 2002. Its unique quirk is that the source code for every package is compiled locally during the installation. It is designed to be portable and thus supports a variety of architectures, including Itanium (ia64).
Development on ia64 support started around 2003 with a first running build being reported in September 2003.[24] The first experimental build to release stages for Itanium was 2004.3 released on 15 November 2004[25], followed by 2005.1 on 8 August 2005 being the first release with an InstallCD image.[26]
Since its move to becoming a rolling release in September 2008, ia64 has been one of the supported architectures and is still maintained to this day.
Downloads
Red Hat
RHEL AS/ES 4.8 ia64 (free developer account required)
RHEL 5.11 ia64 (free developer account required)
Debian
Debian Archive - Historical releases (3.0 - 7.11)
Debian Ports - Current snapshots (2019-04-06 - ongoing)
Gentoo
Gentoo Linux - Downloads - ia64
References
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20010605134758/http://www.redhat.com/about/presscenter/2000/press_itanium-alpha.html
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20010605134758/http://www.redhat.com/about/presscenter/2000/press_itanium-alpha.html
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20010620054747/http://www.redhat.com/about/presscenter/2000/press_itanium2.html
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20020606134425/http://www.redhat.com/about/presscenter/2001/press_itanium.html
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20010802120544/http://www.redhat.com/products/software/linux/7-1_itanium.html
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20010613205301/http://www.redhat.com/products/software/linux/7-1_standard.html
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20010613201242/http://www.redhat.com/products/software/linux/7-1_deluxe.html
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20011031163454/http://www.redhat.com/software/linux/rhl7a_deluxe.html
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20010613204025/http://www.redhat.com/products/software/linux/7-1_professional.html
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20010620093351/http://www.redhat.com/products/software/linux/haserver/
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20010620105948/http://www.redhat.com/products/software/linux/eeoracle/
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20030602124754/http://www.redhat.com/about/presscenter/2002/press_itanium.html
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20020111065727/http://www.redhat.com/software/linux/7-2_itanium.html
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20021012105520/http://www.redhat.com/about/presscenter/2002/press_hp.html
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20021001234753/http://www.redhat.com/software/itanium/
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20030424053718/http://www.redhat.com/about/presscenter/2002/press_hp3.html
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20030401190804/http://www.redhat.com/software/itanium/
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20030802121118/http://www.redhat.com/software/itanium/
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20060630051556/http://www.redhat.com/rhel/compare/
- ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux#Product_life_cycle
- ↑ https://lists.debian.org/debian-ia64/2000/07/threads.html
- ↑ https://lists.debian.org/debian-ia64/2013/10/msg00006.html
- ↑ https://lists.debian.org/debian-ia64/2014/02/msg00000.html
- ↑ https://archives.gentoo.org/gentoo-dev/message/3ed82cbe1a6da7ae2c4acd97e753c922
- ↑ https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:RelEng/LiveCD/2004.3
- ↑ https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:RelEng/LiveCD/2005.1
Further reading
Intel White Paper - The Powerful Combination of Linux and the Intel Itanium Processor Family (2002)
