Linux on IBM Z and LinuxONE

New Release: Ubuntu 24.10

Canonical released a new version of their Ubuntu server offering Ubuntu Server 24.04!

A definite highlight is the inclusion of our new support for vertical CPU polarization aka HiperDispatch. This technology can yield substantial performance improvements for CPU-intensive workloads on highly utilized CECs

See the announcement on the mailing list here, and the blog entry at Canonical with all Z-specific highlights here.

New Release: SLES 15 SP6 on IBM Z and LinuxONE

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP6 is out! See the official announcement here

Highlights include

HSM support for Secure Execution
Concurrent HSM master key change for openCryptoki

See this section in the release notes for an in-depth look on IBM Z and LinuxONE support, including a detailed list of all new features.

New Publication: "Enriching Linux on IBM Z Workloads with AI"

A new Redbook titled "Enriching Linux on IBM Z Workloads with AI" is available for download here.

Check out the abstract as follows:

This Redbook publication helps clients with the initial steps on their AI journey. The continuously increasing interest in AI led to a great variety of frameworks and tools. Implementing an AI solution requires to make selections. This publication explains which frameworks have been optimized to make best use of IBM Z and LinuxONE, and demonstrates ways to obtain them. AI applications can benefit from the ongoing full-stack optimization work reaching from the unique IBM Z and LinuxONE hardware enhancements over compiler optimizations to the topmost software layers of an AI stack.
The exploitation of the unique IBM Z and LinuxONE hardware capabilities such as the Integrated Accelerator for AI allows Linux AI applications to run as part of transactions on the platform. Thus clients can use AI in security-sensitive environments with strict latency requirements to implement solutions, such as in-transaction fraud detection and natural language processing.

New Release: RHEL 8.10 on IBM Z & LinuxONE

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.10 is out! See the press release here, and Red Hat's blog entry here!

Both releases ship

s390-tools v2.29 (renamed to s390utils)
smc-tools v1.8.3
openCryptoki v3.22
qclib v2.4.0

Further information can be found in the release notes for RHEL 8.10.

New Release: RHEL 9.4 on IBM Z & LinuxONE

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.4 is out! See the press release here, and Red Hat's blog entry here!

Both releases ship

s390-tools v2.29 (renamed to s390utils)
smc-tools v1.8.3
openCryptoki v3.22
qclib v2.4.0

Further information can be found in the release notes for RHEL 9.4.

New Release: qclib v2.5.0

qclib v2.5.0 is now available for download here. Most prominent changes:

Removed support for textual hypfs, as previously indicated with v1.4.0
zname, zhypinfo: Added a new command line switch -d for debug messages on the console

For more information, see the README.

New Release: Ubuntu 24.04