Edit: Some links no longer work.
Originally posted June 13, 2017 on AIXchange
If you’re running Linux on Power, are you running these service and productivity tools?
While Linux lacks the diagnostics and reporting capabilities that are built into AIX, these tools help bridge that gap. There are tools to help you with hardware inventory. There’s information about Linux platform diagnostics. Although it’s not quite the same as it is on AIX, you will find explain_syslog command and the diag_encl utility, for example.
There’s an inventory scout, which surveys the system for vital product data. There’s a servicelog and related utilities to manage events that require service. There are power and environmental management features, service aids, performance management, raid adapter utilities and the IBM Electronic Service Agent tool.
Finally, there’s information about service aids, which provides for things like lparstat, lsslot, bootlist, etc.
If you’re running Linux on Power hardware, it just makes sense to run these packages. Go here for help with installation.
The idea that I can run lscfg, lsmcode, lsvpd and lsvio on a Linux partition warms my heart. Linux administrators need to be able to do these things that AIX admins have taken for granted for years.