IDS virtual appliances now come in a choice of operating systems! UK based IBM partners Bell Micro have entered into a distribution agreement with Canonical to produce a free IDS 11.50 Developer Edition virtual appliance running on Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex.

The appliance is similar in some ways to IBM's SLES 10.2 based Informix virtual appliance, following the basic format of a pre-installed instance of IDS 11.50.xC4 Developer Edition, associated drivers and tutorials. You will see a few differences, such as tighter intregration with AGS Server Studio and other Bell Micro customizations.

To download the Ubuntu virtual appliance, and for more information visit Bell Micro's website at: http://www.informixcity.com/ubuntu.aspx

I like using Ubuntu and am very happy to see an Ubuntu based IDS appliance available. I find it to be one of the most accessible and easy to use Linux distros out there and get a lot of work done with it running on my old laptop (which IBM keep asking me to return, I'll do that any year now).