GT.M V5.3-000 is a major new release, with support for HP-UX and GNU/Linux on Itanium based servers such as the HP Integrity family.

Although there are no changes to M language support or to database functionality, GT.M has been internally re-engineered to support both 32- and 64-bit architectures.  Even on 64-bit hardware, prior GT.M releases have always executed as 32-bit processes.

In GT.M V5.3-000, GT.M processes on HP-UX and GNU/Linux on Itanium are true 64-bit processes.  On all other platforms, GT.M processes remain 32-bit processes.  In releases to follow in the next few months, GT.M on IBM pSeries AIX and Sun SPARC Solaris will execute as 64-bit processes.

Since all hardware and operating systems on those platforms are 64-bit, there will be no 32-bit versions of GT.M on those platforms.

Also coming in a release in the near future, 64-bit GT.M processes will be supported on GNU/Linux on x86_64.  Since 64-bit hardware and operating systems are not yet common on the x86 platform, a 32-bit GT.M will continue to be available to run on GNU/Linux on both x86 as well as
x86_64 hardware.

GT.M on OpenVMS & Tru64 UNIX on Alpha/AXP servers, as well as GT.M on HP-UX on PA-RISC will permanently retain a 32-bit architecture.  Ongoing releases of GT.M on these platforms will include required bug fixes, but not enhancements.

As with any GT.M release, V5.3-000 includes fixes to bugs & misfeatures.

Details are in the release notes.

FIS would like to acknowledge the active participation of HP in the project to deliver GT.M on Itanium hardware.