z86VM Beta 3 is available

Following months of work in bug fixes and performance improvements, this beta ships with an updated Damn Small Linux client and an updated Small Medium Enterprise Linux Server. DSL 2012 and SME Server 8.1 include significant updates to their kernels as well as later levels of middleware. Mantissa’s efforts on z86VM are branching into two significant areas: 1. improvements in the z86VM code base 2. Identifying examples of how and where z86VM can be utilized to solve customer business problems. For example: With SME 8, usage of Apache, MySQL, PHP and WordPress are possible. Updates to Mantissa.com show how a business can leverage these capabilities, including cloning an existing WordPress site into this environment for demonstration purposes. There is still work to be done with z86VM before it’s ready for production. This work includes additional performance improvements, simplification of systems administration and usability improves that are intended to avoid system errors.

Most important with this Beta 3 is that Mantissa would like to get customer feedback on usage, exploitation and types of problems that might be solved by using z86VM. A set of exercises has been established that we hope customers might try to see if this helps their business operations.

z86VM Technical Presentation to the New York City chapter of NASPA on Tuesday, April 29th. This included a demonstration from my Macbook which included fourTN3270 sessions (Management console, I/O Server, two users), Virtual Network Connection to two DSL desktops and the SME command line and three  web sites – the SME Server-manager, PHPmyadmin and a clone of the mantissa.com site. I also had an iPad that connected to those websites as well.  We’ll find some time to make some additional youtube videos  of the demos after Beta 3 ships. z86VM Technology Presentation

z86VM Beta 3 coming soon. We’ve made some significant improvements in instruction performance and file system operations. More importantly, we’ve spent time using the code. Our next distribution will include LAMP Stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP) along with WordPress all running. For our own testing, we cloned this site, mantissa.com, and have it running on z86VM. We’re spending the time documenting things, updating manuals, updating use cases, we’ll document the effort to clone a wordpress site, etc so we can make this as easy for new users as possible. We’re targeting the beta to be out by the end of May, if not earlier.

What problems might z86VM solve? Some of our favorites are: hosting management consoles so z stands alone; web, file and email server; Post a comment and let us know what you’d like to see in your own environment.