The company said in January that it supported Linux on 16-processor Integrity Itanium servers. Now through a program called BigTux, HP is working to build support for 64-processor Integrity Superdome models into the two prevailing versions of Linux sold today from Red Hat and Novell, said Martin Fink, HP's vice president of Linux. Fink is expected to give a keynote address next week at the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo in Boston.

Linux, which is booming in popularity, is functionally similar to Unix but instead runs chiefly on mainstream servers using x86 processors such as Intel's Xeon and Advanced Micro Devices' Opteron. Linux also competes with Microsoft's Windows.

HP is vying with IBM and Dell for customers attracted to Linux, which unlike proprietary operating systems such as Windows is created by a large group of developers who may freely share and modify the software's underlying source code. The fourth major power of the server market, Sun Microsystems, supports Linux but steers customers instead to Solaris, which is on the cusp of a transition from proprietary to open-source software.

On the business front, HP has expanded its Linux Reference Architecture program to simplify software choices with prepackaged combinations for various tasks. The program now encompasses HP's thin blade server product line, and HP sells services to install and configure Linux Reference Architecture systems.

By: DocMemory
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