This section provides the planning information that you need to be able to run Linux in a hosted or nonhosted guest partition.
Evaluate each i5 server to determine if your hardware supports Linux. To successfully partition an i5 server to run Linux, the server requires specific hardware and software. The primary partition must run i5/OS Version 5 Release 3 and be updated with the latest programming temporary fixes. You can find the latest Linux-related i5/OS programming temporary fixes at http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/iseries/.
Linux is not supported on a primary partition.
Selected models can run Linux using the shared processor pool configuration. Other models require the use of dedicated processors for a Linux partition. Those same models also require that you disable processor multitasking for the whole system, including the primary partition.
The Linux operating system supports single processors or multiple processors. You make this choice when you create the guest partition. If you build a Linux kernel for a single processor that is loaded into a partition with multiple processors, the processor will function correctly. But, you can only use one processor. If you assign multiple processors to a partition, you must use Linux built for Symmetric Multiprocessors (SMP). You can assign a number of available processors to a guest partition.
To determine whether your system supports Linux in a guest partition, go to http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/iseries/.