Supported Linux Distro's for Informix CSDK

Hi all, I found on http://www-306.ibm.com/software/data/informix/linux/csdk.html#281 that the CDSK 2.90 is (in case of SUSE) only supported for SLES not for Suse Pro. Is it really necessary to install SLES on a Client Workstation ? TIA Joachim

JoKlassen@email.com wrote: > Hi all, > > I found on > http://www-306.ibm.com/software/data/informix/linux/csdk.html#281 > that the CDSK 2.90 is (in case of SUSE) only supported for SLES not for > Suse Pro. Is it really necessary to install SLES on a Client > Workstation ? > > TIA > Joachim > Depends on Informix support. **THE** core difference between SLES and Pro is that SLES requires you to purchase SLES support, which in turn gets you a key for automagic updates. The automagic updates won't work without the key. It is reasonable to expect Informix or any other vendor to require the SLES product since it was designed as a baseline for ISV and other enterprise products with required support. The product update cycles are different too. Most vendors are behind current releases simply to avoid bugs that haven't popped up that nobody is yet aware of. But you might get them to support you, just ask. Technically you can probably run Informix or any other Linux software on the Pro version but since SuSE recently forked their products like RedHat did with Fedora, using the Pro version puts you in the Fedora category for support. SuSE 9.3 Pro is now extinct with SuSE10, but guaranteed to be supported for the next 7 years. You can purchase support for SuSE10 but I'm willing to bet getting support from Informix/IBM, if possible, will require a special-case consideration and you would probably want it in writing. SLES support is not that expensive and SLES9 is a very good release. Whether you use SLES or Pro, you will eventually have to upgrade the kernel and other software, which means either updating-by-RPM or DIY. Kernel upgrades via SuSE's update are pretty reliable but DIY updates are going to get you more speed out of the system since you'd be compiling your own kernel. But you still have to upgrade other software via RPM, which means YOU will have to keep track of recent news about updates. SLES also has better support for SCSI devices, especially for systems on a SAN, like EMC, etc. By the way you can install SLES for free on x86, by downloading the ISOs,and just running it in "evaluation" mode. The CDs for other platforms are available through channel distributors, like you local IBM ISV/Rep. It is curious whether IBM would support you without SLES being supported. You will have to do your kernel updates by hand, and pray that you get the right RPM, or compile it and hope you get it right. If it were just a web server, getting support may not be as critical as a database server.

To broaden the question: suppose I want to run IDS on one of the other Linux distros (other than RHEL, SLES, and other listed distros). Would it be enough to respect kernel, glibc and compiler versions included in supported distributions to expect to run IDS smoothly? An example: let's say I have a stable Debian distro with kernel 2.4.21, glibc 2.3.2 and gcc 3.2.3 (same values listed for RHEL) and I want to run IDS 10.00.UC3R1 on it. I suppose I couldn't get Informix support, but can I expect IDS to run OK? I wouldn't put it in a production but it would be very useful to have such configuration for running Informix courses (which I will start to do in a not-so-distant future). I'd appreciate any comments.