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A Quick Peek at Longhorn
Kaypro writes: "The Register
has an interesting article with some minor details regarding Microsoft's next OS.
P2P, filesystem plugins and some thoughts from Hans Reiser, of ReiserFS fame
make for an interesting read."
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
A database core...
This means they are going to start bundling Access, doesn't it?
Oh wait, I read that wrong... It's a relational database core... That excludes Access.
I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.
"The final feature set for Longhorn - the codename for the successor to Windows XP - hasn't been nailed down yet, and the database core had been rumored for inclusion in Blackcomb, the next Windows after Longhorn. "
:)
In a nutshell, they are currently deciding how exactly to make the new one obsolete...before they release the new one.
That's marketing at it's finest!
------
Today's Top Deals
P2P at the filesystem level!
Couple that with MicroSoft's security trackhistory, and possible T1 pipes in every home in a few years, and I see virii mailing entire directories of data.
Scary thought huh??
Live today. Tomorrow will cost a lot more!
95 included a plugin fs, but no one did anyting with it...
So what kind of DRM-shackled kernel-integrated, msn.com centric peer to peer might that be? ;)
I bet they still won't support my PPC proc and mobo! Damn Microsoft bastards!
ASCII tastes bad dude.
Binary it is then.
Microsoft will market themselves as a Media OS.
JLG will dethrone Bill Gates.
Stock value will plummet to 3.20.
Microsoft will start selling Internet Appliances.
That idea will crumble.
Palm will buy out Microsoft.
It's evolution folks.
LOL, Windows XP is already peer-to-peer, though inadverently :)
Seriously though, they do need to make some drastic changes to the OS. Any OS that is going to be used by 90% of Americans needs to be more reliable. Nothing worse then having to be tech support because you are the only one in the family that can figure it out.
The move has antitrust implications: it potentially puts Microsoft at an advantage over Oracle and other competing SQL implementations every copy of Windows will effectively come with a light version of Microsoft SQL Server.
Ahh, now I see. I can just see the high-ups at Microsoft, "Hey, we can't make an RDBMS as good as Oracle or IBM's, so let's make our OS one, then when people run SQL Server on it it will be like 10 times faster, and SQL Server will capture the high-end database market."
I hope many of you submitted feedback for the Tunney act before yesterday's deadline or we will see a lot more anti-competitive behavior over the next year.
--Jon
The bit about how Oracle may have an antitrust suit on their hands because MS is making the filesystem a front-end for a database. Uh. Doesn't RedHat ship with a database? So are Oracle's lawyers knocking on RH's doors?
Good to know that barratry is the solution for all your (potentially) obsoleted business. Just ask the RIAA...
Easy does it!
This comment has been submitted already, 276865 hours , 59 minutes ago. No need to try again.
- A.) How bad MS is, and how we hate it and everything they do.
- B.) How MS users are inferior and shouldn't be played by MS.
- C.) The intricacy of this new idea, and how linux can compete, or use the ideas they bring forward
I guess it all comes down to whether you see MS as an 'enemy' or a competitor. Linus sees it as a competitor, respects them, and makes sure his OS can compete with them. He never really derails them or has an elitist attitude. Maybe we should follow suit, here?Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Just think if this were extended to the whole Internet!
"Find pr0n featuring Traci Lord with two men wearing spandex."
"Find l33t games with midgets in Iowa."
"Find ripped versions of Longhorn Windows."
Microsoft is just up to the same old tricks. By tightly coupling their enterprise server apps to their client apps via poorly documented, proprietary interfaces, they hope to stomp competitors out of existence. They want people to rely on these proprietary features so that IS departments are forced to deploy and maintain Microsoft-only networks.
Without government intervention, it will only get worse. The average computer user does not understand issues of inter-operability, conformance with open standards, or the dangers in adopting Microsoft proprietary formats and protocols.
Naming their new OS 'Longhorn' is an affront to all UT grads everywhere!
Can't they call it 'Aggie' or something?
AngryArmadillo
XP successor Longhorn goes SQL, P2P - Microsoft leaks
By Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco
Posted: 28/01/2002 at 21:58 GMT
Sources close to Microsoft confirm that The Beast is set to include a new relational file store at the core of its next version of Windows. Some roadmap slippage has apparently occurred, too, as the database core will be introduced into Longhorn, and Blackcomb has been pushed further back. That leaves a gap for a point revision of XP next year, although there's no sign of this on the roadmap just yet. Despite the annual revisions being named as users' number one bugbear, Microsoft hasn't let a year go by without releasing a new version of Windows since 1997, when it was fighting the browser wars.
The final feature set for Longhorn - the codename for the successor to Windows XP - hasn't been nailed down yet, and the database core had been rumored for inclusion in Blackcomb, the next Windows after Longhorn.
It's highly significant, as it signals a much tighter integration between Microsoft's enterprise server products and the client.
As Jon Honeyball wrote here last May - but it's still the most comprehensive dissection of the change - file systems would become plug-ins for a raw, native relational data store.
We don't yet know if this runs in user land, or kernel mode.
Peep to Peep
Microsoft will also offer a new peer-to-peer networking feature, say sources briefed by The Beast. A new "sub-workgroup" network level - a subset of the current "workgroup" - offers a finer granularity of network access for ad hoc collaboration. Microsoft is intent on P2P-style workgroup collaboration looks seamless, with additional updates to NetMeeting built in to the OS.
(Microsoft took a $51 million stake in P2P pin-up Groove Networks, the company started by Lotus Notes creator Ray Ozzie, last year).
The demonstration version of Longhorn currently being demoed to Microsoft's teams and selected third parties displays a new type of task dock that can include everything from stock tickers to work group collaboration features. The task dock is similar to what is found in Office XP with the tasks panels. That's the pane in Office XP that provides a list of most recently used files, or clipboard entries, or other frequently-accessed features.
Sources tell us that the Longhorn "screenshots" showing some of this functionality currently doing the rounds, but sources briefed by Microsoft assure us these are not genuine.
Sane, useful, legal?
There's a sensible rationale for such a move, argue advocates: our data stores are confined to silos such as our email application. A shared namespace would allow distributed corporate queries such as 'Find emails from Bob to Carole about ProjectX in FacilityY'.
Although Microsoft has touted such a vision for a decade, precedents are rare. They've run into performance issues, and no namespace schema has won general acceptance.
Hans Reiser, of ReiserFS fame, has been leading the discussion in how free software can respond to the challenge, and his arguments are summarized in his excellent paper here which should be compulsory reading.
As we noted last year, Pick and IBM's OS/400 effectively run a data store as the file system, but they didn't get there from here, so to speak, having designed the OS around such an architecture from the ground up. On the desktop, the late Be Inc attempted such an ambitious scheme (hi Benoit) before reverting to a more conventional file system layer which has database-like properties: relying on file attributes which are constantly reindexed in the background.
The move has antitrust implications: it potentially puts Microsoft at an advantage over Oracle and other competing SQL implementations every copy of Windows will effectively come with a light version of Microsoft SQL Server.
In practice, however, a distributed database is only as strong as its weakest link, and we can't imagine a corporate IS manager who'd turf out Oracle for a distributed network of Windows PCs running Longhorn. A mantra in recent years has been that IBM and Sun offer a "single point of failure", but the dangers of multiple points of failure become more stark in a distributed system. Want last quarter's accounts receivable? Ah, you'll have to wait until the cleaner's unplugged the Hoover. ®
I really did!
Well... you asked.
If the filesystem plugins are required for the OS to function we are going to need some pretty serious hardware to run it.
This should make intel/amd happy.
Sounds to me like Microsoft is now just picking the best attributes from current and past OSes. A dash of Be, a hair of ReiserFS, maybe a little OSX to brighten things up.
I've heard talk of this over a year ago, and while at first it sounded like a really overblown idea, the more database work I do, the more interesting it becomes.
There are a few problems though:
Boot media. Right now, in the windows world, most boot floppies are fat12. NTFS won't fit on a single boot floppy. And it is a pain in the butt to make a bootable cd when compared to making a bootable floppy.
So what happens when you need to boot from something other than your hard drive? How easy will it be to make a boot cd?
What about the way MS keeps things hidden from you? Try this in XP: make a directory. Put 1 file in it called "testme" with no file extension. Open the file and type in the word "apple". Now do a search for all files containing the word apple in that directory. Windows won't find it.
What happens when you do something with a file that the relational database can't handle?
Done well, this has the potential to be really cool. I doubt it will be done well.
Microsoft today announced a security patch for Longhorn, to counteract the 'Sharp Cheddar' trojan horse, which shreds hard drives.
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
A db coupled filesystems will probably make it harder to share files across multiple platforms.
Tighter lockin into Microsoft prducts. Once they have you, you are hooked.
And if you think XP phones-home, wait till you get this baby. It should be a lot easier for Microsoft to control things on YOUR machine via db.
Want to access more than 50 files a day... upgrade to corporate.
Live today. Tomorrow will cost a lot more!
I just knew they were lying about halting new development to make current OS and apps secure. What, me worry?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I personally think the idea of an sql-ish filesystem might be handy for some tasks but not the majority of them. I can see the benefits of running queries on my email and documents (and maybe even log files), but I question the performance of such a system in general. I can't imagine access time would not be affected signifigantly by this - even for the home user. I definitely can't see running this on a server level - can you imagine all the I/O involved in email processing on a large server running a DB FS?
Sinepaw.org: Grape Winos
To one who doesn't actively use a Microsoft OS, I can't help but wonder how many operating systems they plan to support and host. How long was the active lifespan on ME? I think it seemed less than a year. It makes me wish MS would use version numbers to imply upgrades or changes rather than XP one day and Longhorn the next. The Linux and Apple folk have never really had this problem.
-Barkeep, a draft of your most hazardous brew, for the world is slowly stepping into focus, and I don't like what I see.
I didn't realize that Apple was currently planning another new OS for Microsoft to use as their template...
-Barkeep, a draft of your most hazardous brew, for the world is slowly stepping into focus, and I don't like what I see.
I have no opinion about this news; but I hope it prompts a few more people to make the effort to read through Hans Resiser's brilliant whitepaper. The first time I read that article I was blown away by the amount of thought the guy has put into the design of file systems. The first OS to thoroughly exploits his ideas will revolutionize computing.
--
CPAN rules. - Guido van Rossum
"Microsoft will start selling Internet Appliances"
I'm still waiting for the successor to the "Audrey" internet appliance.
The first Audrey looked like a toilet tank. The 2nd one promises to add a porcelain bowl in front of it.
Look for Audrey II at Circuit City, Home Depot, and Lowe's
"Feed me Seymore!
I can't wait for the abuse to start a fresh!
After the US DOJ and the courts caved in to Micro$oft, the Marketing department adopted a new attitude. At thier latest press conference their spoke mistress (dressed in black leather) called the meeting to order with her whip and declared that "All your desktops are belong to us!".
For some reason, /. didn't consider a story on future MS operating systems important.
0 738,2802585,00.html
Read it yourself:
http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/stories/story/0,1
Will Longhorn feature the Blue Cheese of Death?
picture taken from his trailer home in Podunk, Missouri.
I see no life behind your weary eyes
I see the looks you struggle to disguise
I've seen all vital signs begin to slip
Oh, it's much too late for you to aim, you'd only miss
The owls are not what they seem
After significant scientific endeavour, I have calculated the speed of slashdot to be a whopping 53720mph!
Time the register posted the original story:
28 January 2002 5:58pm
Time slashdot posted the link:
Tuesday January 29, @06:04PM
Therefore:
5.58pm - 06.04pm = 6 minutes
Distance from London, England to California, USA:
5372 miles
Therefore:
5372/6 = 895.3333333 miles per minute
=53720mph
Is this some kind of world record?
I didn't see anything in that article reflecting the alledged new focus on security that billg went to so much trouble to spell out in his public memo.
And not just that the new "features" metioned sound like great new places for bugs to hide, but MS doesn't even mention new security features in it's leaks.
Like many other people have said, if MS is serious about security then the next release of Windows has to be a complete security audit with zero new features.
sigh. and I had such high hopes that they got it this time.
I've not posted like this before, and I know this is immediately going to be modded down, but here goes...
Recently I've noticed that the moderation on Slashdot has changed quite considerably. I consider I post intelligent, articulate and reasonable posts, and I used to score 5 quite frequently. But now more often than not my posts are moderated down as off-topic or redundant even when I am directly responding to the subject of the parent.
This makes posting less interesting, because fewer people get to read my posts, and is becoming annoying.
OK, now to see how quickly this gets modded down. Oh well...
like all the work and money MS has been throwing into SDMI like digital copywrite detection and prevention.
From what I understand MS sees an opportunity to vector the DMCA-like drum beating of the music and film industry with it's own "application as services" subscriber model.
don't know when that shoe is going to drop, but when it does well... here is a quote for you: "Piracy is not a technological issue. It's a behavior issue," Apple CEO Steve Jobs
All hail alternative operating systems
the only was m$ can move xp units is to preload the oem version, but they're already cooking the successor to the successor? that's innovative!
This is rediculous. Microsoft keep bastardizing and screwing up good ideas for security on thier and other's products. P2P is a great idea, but the implementation they are trying to do WILL NOT WORK. It will be really easy to use and have no real security just like MS's version of kerberos.
. asp?url=/TechNet/security/news/raw_sockets.asp.
They ripped all the security features out of kerberos to make it more "useable", and their justification for this, to quote Dave Thompson at the RSA conference is "If it's not easily useable then nobody uses it and hence it isn't secure" he was also quoted as saying something along the lines of how hard kerberos is on UNIX because of all that "command line stuff".
Another show of MS idiocy is the use of "raw sockets" in XP. This is a known security issue and the MS justification is that "raw sockets implementations are already present in Linux, VMS, Unix, Mac OS X, and even in previous versions of Windows." (quoted from: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default
While yes, it is true that unix will use raw sockets, it only uses them mitigated and ONLY ROOT CAN DO IT. WinXP allow raw socket use without mitigation or accnowledgment of access level BY DEFAULT. This isn't a security issue that MS released and then was notified about, this is something everyone with half a brain knows is a horrible idea.
But anyway, I'm all worked up now and I'm gonna go back to work creating a rediculously secure network around the windows machine my company has since MS obviously isn't going to make my job easy..... EVER, so theres no point in waiting for them to wise up when I can cover my network in OpenBSD firewalls.
The demonstration version of Longhorn ... displays a new type of task dock that can include everything from stock tickers to work group collaboration features. ... That's the pane in Office XP that provides a list of most recently used files, or clipboard entries, or other frequently-accessed features.
Does this sound so very similar to any other Windomanages to anyone else. So often on slashdot I see comments regarding Linux needs to stop playing catch up to Windows, but now it seem that Windown is playing catch up to Linux in may errors:
- Security is now a hot iteam at MS
- The "new" task bar
Ok that is only a few and to clarify I am not saying that Linux is beating MS, but it does look that MS sees many good ideas with the work being done with Linux.
man
No manual entry for
It's sort of funny to me that Mac die-hards are complaining about the difficulties associated with moving to OS X, when the last serious OS upgrade we've had to deal with was OS 7, back at circa 1994.
I'd hate to be a poor beleagured Windows user, having to go through major OS changes every time I finally get used to working with the previous OS.
I guess it's job insurance for MS tech support folks.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
-Legion
P.S. Once again, it must be pointed out that virii is not a word (and actually makes no sense linguistically).
It does make sense. As the singular word virus stems from Latin, it's plural version actually is virii.
Oh wow, finally it pays off having to take Latin as first language ... ;-)
I just heard the sad news on CBC radio. GNU fanatic Richard Stallman was found alive in his home this morning. Even if you never used his apps, you can appreciate what he did for GNU(/LINUX). Truly a low-res icon. He won't be missed ;)
graspee
hmmm...apache....?
But seriously - you could say the same about windows applications ripping off other win apps (there are several napsters, several cd burners, and several IM clients - all similar in form and function...). But in the case of Open Source, at least the software is free for everyone to change & use. There are such things as "standard applications": most people will use a media player, a web browser, a file browser, a text editor, and an office suite. Just because *nix ones are functionally similar to win ones doesn't mean they are meant as rip-offs. There are certainly advantages in Mozilla, konqueror, and some of the office suites you'll never find in a MS product...and i don't just mean the security.
If you look at it in a stupid enough way, linux itself is a "rip-off" of windows, because they are both operating systems. I suspect that by trying to look smart and ripping on linux you are in fact a fool.
Who is this Anonymous Coward character, how does he post so much, and why is he always such a whore?
You talking about the File System Driver reference? Try http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/wmeother/s torage_5uig.asp
That works only on Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows Millennium Edition, and Microsoft no longer sells Windows 95, Windows 98, nor Windows Millennium Edition. From the IFS kit pages: "The IFS License, which includes one (1) kit, is $995.00 plus shipping and handling" and is too expensive for the average hobbyist.
Will I retire or break 10K?
It is hard to tell where Microsoft is going. Why does my filesystem need to be able to index my messages when it will all be on an Exchange Server (which already stored messages in a database) out on the .Net somewhere.
- P2P, filesystem plugins
DELTREE \\*\*.*
Does anybody else get nervous about letting Windows have raw access to the same hard disk that some other OS might also be installed on? I wonder if Microsoft will make any effort to put in controls so that the database stays in its own partition.
Anyone else have any idea what they might do? Afterall, that'd be one way of attacking its number one threat: erase it.
The Moo went "Cow!"
From the article:
The move has antitrust implications: it potentially puts Microsoft at an advantage over Oracle and other competing SQL implementations every copy of Windows will effectively come with a light version of Microsoft SQL Server
Sorry I dont see how a light version of MS SQL Server and Oracle 9i could be playing in the same field...
...it's called Windows 2000.
;)
The entity known as Microsoft, is rapidly taking over the Internet, and they may already be unstoppable. This year, they will probably ship more server class operating systems than all other OS vendors combined.
Ladies and gentlemen, consider, if you will, this equation, and know the chosen weapon of Microsoft:
Think of it this way: from the perspective of your desktop machhine, the internet is the cloud. From any other device, your desktop is in the cloud. A primary goal of .NET is to provide "in the cloud" data access from anywhere.
Most slashdotters have assumed that MS would somehow host and serve all that data, but why should they? Exactly how many desktops are out there? Soon, at least nine out of ten will run a server OS from Microsoft. With a database core. And native p2p. And an Internet services platform.
It looks like home users will soon, and perhaps unkowingly, be using the likes of .NET File Server, .NET Print Server, etc to access data from their own PC's transparently. Brilliant idea. The bastards...
Not so far as I've heard; Ellison probably figures the enemy of his enemy is his friend.
--Charlie
I like saying virii. I like saying boxen. And irregardless of what you consider good or bad grammar they are the words that not only will I continue to use, but I will spread them to all my friends and through them to the rest of the nation until they are accepted in the national lexicon!
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
Apache is far more than just a "linux app". It is actually a free-software foundation that creates an HTTP Server that can be used on Linux (and many, many other platforms including Windows). The HTTP Server is historically a modification of the original NCSA HTTP Server. Its named is a tribute to its origin as "a patchy" server.
Therefore it isn't a "linux app" and it isn't all original.
Um... I'm kind of curious myself. What ever happened to M$'s 'new' stance on software as a subscription-based service? What happened to focus on developing more secure and stable products instead of chucking "the next best thing" out there?
Ya know, before 1970 the automobile industry in the US sucked. The Japanese came through and started making better cars. Then the US industry cleaned up their act and focused on quality. I'd love to see this happen in the OS market.
vir is Latin, virus is English, as has been pointed out a billion fucking times every time this comes up.
You're overcompensating for a problem that doesn't exist: give it up!
it still makes no sense.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Every version of Windows has a version number, and a build number (ie. Windows 2000 is NT Version 5.0 build 2195). Microsoft has just decided they're easier to market with all these other names. "Windows XP" is something new, "Windows 5.1" is just another minor upgrade.
Names like Longhorn are just internal codenames, just like, say, Debian Potato.
Windows 3.0
Windows 3.1
Windows 4.0 = Windows 95
Windows 4.1 = Windows 98
Windows 4.9 = Windows Me
Windows 98 SE was version 4.1 with a higher build number than Windows 98
Windows NT 3.1
Windows NT 3.5
Windows NT 4.0
Windows NT 5.0 = Windows 2000
Windows NT 5.1 = Windows XP
- There will probably be an XP Second Edition, which'll be version 5.1 with a higher build number
- Longhorn will probably be version 5.2. Who knows what'll actually be called - XP wasn't decided on till last spring.
- Blackcomb will probably be version 6.0
Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.
- Nietzsche
It is cool that gramer and language has to move along with the language that people actually use. Yesterday's slang
becomes, like, today's rule.
Sources inside of Microsoft were neither able to confirm nor deny rumors that Longhorn would have a built in multitasking Baked Potato Bar. They did however offer informaton regarding the new desktop themes which include Hickory Smoked, Wild West and Country Goodness. One source was quoted as saying, " Our main goal with this next OS is to get wait times down below 30 minutes for processes of 5 or more." It would seem that this is a hugh undertaking when weekends are thrown into this equation. As of this posting Microsoft plans to release Longhorn in two flavors: Smoking and Non-Smoking. -peel
computres never mkae mistooks. -WOPR
While yes, it is true that unix will use raw sockets, it only uses them mitigated and ONLY ROOT CAN DO IT.
The fact that only root can do something provides no additional security if the user is the owner of the machine and therefore is root legitimately.
Will I retire or break 10K?
But if I were working in Corporate America, and the good people in my IT department were following Microsoft's firm guidance (notice they've made it VERY difficult for enterprise users to stay with NT 4.0?), I might not have any choice in the matter.
I've had it happen to me before.
I didn't say anything at all about having the government force Microsoft to stop upgrading their OS. In fact, I think that Microsoft's continued reliance on "this one is even bigger and better than the one before" OS rollouts is ultimately good for distributors of other OSes (because they can attract disgruntled MS users).
I didn't say anything about Linux kernel upgrades, either.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
It seems that these days no matter what Microsoft does, some ignorant writer will insert an obligatory "Well.. for so-and-so, this might be antitrust violation."
In this case, it's simply not true! Microsoft was deemed to have a monopoly in the HOME COMPUTING market. Oracle doesn't do a damn thing in the HOME COMPUTING market. MS, however does NOT have a Monopoly (in ANY sense of the word) on server software (operating systems included). Moreover, it hassn't deemed anti-competitive to bundle IIS, so it shouldn't be to have a stripped down version of SQL Server either.
Ahh, now I see. I can just see the high-ups at Microsoft, "Hey, we can't make an RDBMS as good as Oracle or IBM's, so let's make our OS one, then when people run SQL Server on it it will be like 10 times faster, and SQL Server will capture the high-end database market."
I hope many of you submitted feedback for the Tunney act before yesterday's deadline or we will see a lot more anti-competitive behavior over the next year.
I dunno, that sounds competitive to me. God forbid they try to compete more with IBM and Oracle.
is named after brands of Scotch... (Talisker is 4.0)
... likes scotch...
because the head developer
... hi bingo
Here's an idea MS. Why don't you try building a REAL OS before adding a bunch of features. Then I hope Oracle et al go after them for attempts at tying again. This time a RDBMS with an OS, instead of the browser. Not that they have a chance against Oracle, just that I'd like to see them burn after being forced you use their various products. It really sucks when you've seen the alternatives.
Before I started going back to school I worked in a UNIX environment, and although crashes did occur and were considered big events they were rare with years plus of up time. However, with MS products I ran into constantly (yes constantly) crashes, locks up, or spontaneously combusts. Now they want to try something as potentially dangerous with my data like ty it to the filesystem as a database. No doubt they will leave transactions and rollbacks out of it, so not only do you lose the current data from one of their features( crashes are a feature aren't they?) but suddenly it corrupts even more stuff because it was joined, etc.
Now add someone somewhere else with malicious intent, with MS current(talk doesn't count) stance on security, not only wiping out relations, probing for intimate details(you're not keeping your finances on that machine are you?)
Maybe, I'm just a little skeptical or pananiod or both. That whole thing bothers me to no end.
Correction #1: El Reg posted on 28 Jan. El Slash posted on 29 Jan. So add 1440 minutes.
5372 mi. / 1446 min. = 3.715 mi./min. * 60 min./hr. = 222.904 mph.
So we've gone from Ludicrous Speed to just making the field at Indianapolis. Still faster than any car I'll ever own. :-/
Correction #2: Slashdot comes to you live from the bustling metropolis of Holland, Michigan, not California. Using MapQuest to hastily plan a route from Holland to San Jose, the driving distance is 2295 mi. Subtract that from your London-California distance, and we have 3077 mi.
3077 mi. / 1446 min. = 2.127 mi./min. * 60 min./hr. = 127.676 mph.
The spedometer on my car goes up to 130.
So, it's not any kind of record, except for time wasted to get a (Score: 2; Funny). :-)
This sig intentionally left blank.
Okay, well hopefully it won't be shipped with the ability to search for every Win32 machine on the net and attempt to log in as Administrator on every machine it finds, but you can find programs now to bruit force passwords on SMB shares.
I think any consumer OS's default behavior should be to tell the user a new passwrd when commanded, not to ask. A word database of 2048 words in each supported language and the ability to capitalize the first and last letter of each word means 14 bits of entropy per word. 5 words means 70 bits of entropy, which is stronger than 95% of the passwords out there. Joe average can be expected to remember 5 words muchbetter than, say the random default passwords for slashdot accounts.
Copyright Violation:"theft, piracy"::Anti-Trust Violation:"thermonuclear price terrorism"<-Overly dramatic language.
With Microsofts new number one priority of software security, we can count on all these new features being secure, right?
ROFLMAO
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
Ahh,the state of pre-schooleducation in the US . . .
:)
hawk
Smoke and mirrors... they have done it once, twice... and more ... and will doit again.
p.
Why does this sound like such a Larry Ellison (Oracle) strategy:
"Everything is a database..."
Why does my Mother, who reads email and plays solitare, need a database?
What she NEEDS is an OS that doesn't flake out all the time.
-- You can't idiot-proof anything, because they're always coming out with better idiots.
You're correct in that files which contain the hives will be defragged. However, this technique still won't defrag the registry's internal data. For that you have to use a utility like RegCompact.
Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!
I thought Active Directory was just the API that one implements thier FS under?
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
So Microsoft ships Fear, Uncertainty, and/or Doubt with their products? That's really interesting. Obviously you didn't have the first clue as to what FUD actually meant when you posted your pointless comment, but since all the other cool kids on slashdot use that word whilst in the process of Microsoft-bashing, you thought you'd try to fit in and pull out one of those neato-keen $0.05 words. And so it ended up being irrelevant, much like the rest of your comment. Sorry, lil' buddy! Thank you for playing though! If you hang in there long enough, you'll eventually get invited to join the IAKW Union (International Alliance of Karma Whores, AFL-CIO) Best of luck!
Daniel J. Kelly
Are many of the moderators on here coming in from the microsoft.com domain? The message to which I reply got an "Interesting" and "Informative" moderation which were fair. Then it was moderated "flamebait." How was that message flamebait? There was nothing insulting in it. It wasn't rude or vulgar. It was not offensive. It just said that Microsoft was trying to tie the server and client software together for monopolistic purposes.
It's times like this that I think that the entire moderation system is a failure.
WinXP Uptime: 1w 1d 3h 47m 50s every two hours when I was abusing it (heavy multitasking, programs freezing etc.)
Not to put linux down, I know Linux could go for longer without a reboot, and with less reboots, but at least try a little more honesty and a little less FUD. Also note that most people wouldn't have a problem with their system deteriorating, as most turn it on and off every day, just with crashing 5 minutes after they turned it on.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
"with additional updates to NetMeeting built in to the OS."
.net or maybe just to the stinking passports.
Lets just hope that they have discovered by then that the entire world does not have a real IP adr. but sits on a local network where their ip gets NAT'ed. Some protocols needs updating there since the current version of Netmeeting asks the PC what ip it's on instead of asking the world where the world sees it coming from. Oh well, I guess they will update it and make the protocol extremly closed source, tied to the
Advice: Never use HTML comment arrow when pointing to something.
Anyway, WinXP Uptime: 1w 1d 3h 47m 50s currently
Although I got 10 programs waiting for a reboot, (most of which work anyway, they just want to be an ass about it), but it's stable. A friend of mine has his server running for months now on it. Even win2k had some strange driver issue + 1 kernel crash, haven't had a single problem using XP-compliant-drivers and software, some less luck with legacy games.
And besides, most people are used to running w98, which crashed on average every two hours when I was abusing it (heavy multitasking, programs freezing etc.)
Not to put linux down, I know Linux could go for longer without a reboot, and with less reboots, but at least try a little more honesty and a little less FUD. Also note that most people wouldn't have a problem with their system deteriorating, as most turn it on and off every day, just with crashing 5 minutes after they turned it on.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Seriously I now use it instead of linux for my desktopp because its so stable.
Laugh if you want but millions of people are enjoying a stable and easy to use OS for the first time from MS.
And NO I don't like M$ and think they should be slapped down, but a good OS is a good OS.
Will the next release be called "pointy tail"?
Yawn... Microsoft makes an inexpensive database. According to the price/performance table, it seems to be really great. On the other hand, if you look at JUST performance numbers, the difference becomes clear. SQL server doesn't even make the list Oh well, I guess you get what you pay for.
...my WinXP will, on hitting the search button, try to connect to sa.windows.com port 80, and unless it can connect, and either get a reply that the page is unchanged, or download an XML (or something like that, I sniffed it with Commview) page, it'll display the error message: A file that is required to run Search Companion cannot be found. You may need to run setup. This is when running both in classic and normal mode. It does not send my search terms, nor my search results, but I still won't open that port for them. Is this the beginnings of the .NET? To see how many will find out? I've seen only one other with the same issue, and he didn't get any help at all from MS support, I haven't bothered calling them.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
So, a small microkernel, with a huge proprietary closed set of fundamental OS functions is OK? By that definition a kernel could simply be
10 Execute next instruction
20 goto 10
Or what about VMware? With different OSs running in different VMware containers, can't those be preempted by the VMware software?
Sorry, but I think it's a bopeless definition.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
You should all just face the facts that Microsoft makes a superior product to linux. Better GUI, better application support, better security, better use of memory, better networking, better everything.
The sooner you people figure this out the sooner you will be able to learn a real operating system (Windows XP) and get a real job.
Does anyone else find it amusing that a Windows codename is a large Cow?
Imagine if the filesystem is a relational database, any user can add tables or do queries, and there are tables where the directories and files are primary keys. Any user could add any property to any file or directory, and do complex queries on them. Applications could do the same - I could use this for an app I'm working on now. And while Gelernter talks about how Lifestreams is better than hierarchial folders, if your desktop could query a database you could have both as alternate views of the same system.
What Reiser is talking about is even more sophisticated - for him, a relational database, a hierarchial system, and a simple keyword system are all special cases of the same overall scheme. If he can come up with a decent query system for it, a Linux desktop built around it will make Windows look like a complete dinosaur, even to nontechnical folks.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned how close some of this sounds to Plan 9. Heck, if Microsoft wants to bring distributed computing to the OS masses, and get databases off of a single source (like .NET) I say be my guest.
As a native Texan, and a Unix bigot, I wholeheartedly agree.
There's a sad vehemence here against all things Microsoft, without even evaluating them. A database-based filesystem is a Good Thing, whether Microsoft does it or not, in the same way that GUIs (using windows etc.) is a good thing, whether Microsoft does it or not. Microsoft's involvement is beside the point.
Regarding relational databases as filesystems: maybe better to look at it as a relational directory structure. It's a much more flexible and useful way to organize a file system, as pointed out in the Reiser paper mentioned in the article.
For example, I was working on projects involving multiple languages, so I wanted a logical directory structure for source code. Do I make a hierarchy based on project first (e.g. proj_a/java, proj_a/sql), or language first (sql/proj_a, sql/test)? I experimented with a variety of symbolic links but that was only fun for a little while - maintaining something like that is annoying. The logical way to organize would be to select by either project, language, or both (e.g. "proj_a and java", "sql and anything" - syntax to be determined).
There are other uses, such as BeOS's integration of mail handling with the OS. The idea is so good (as the article says) it's been used in AS/400. Remember, most databases used to be hierarchical too, before relational database theory.
This may be a case of Microsoft "innovating by copying" again, but they are doing it (they've managed to do it ahead of their competition by virtue of no longer having any competition, except for Apple, which is concentrating OS development on usability issues instead).
Regarding peer-to-peer capabilities: This is the logical extension of Microsoft instant messager. Microsoft has been ahead of AOL in expanding the idea of instant messaging to new media, such as still or moving video, sound clips, etc. It's logical to make this a more general peer-to-peer system.
Regarding Microsoft as a whole: IBM used to be the Evil Empire, delivering inferior products late while unfairly using their monopoly power. However, they did invest their money in product development and research, and it eventually trickled out into good products.
I think it will be a while before this happens to Microsoft, but I do think it is beginning - they do invest in actual research and development - and the database filesystem is an example where they are applying established theory to produce a genuine improvement in their products (or trying to - they tried with NT, with purchased brainpower (from DEC), with mixed results). There may come a time twenty years from now where "Microsoft" is not a perjorative, as has happened with IBM.
whister and blackcomb are the names of mountain peaks in BC (near the redmond campus). longhorn is the name of a pub between whistler and blackcomb :-)
Now, I'm not a database guy, but isn't a cluster less useful, because you have to divide the query between the machines, and any query that touches multiple machines is going to be a whole lot worse.
So, thats not quite a fair comparison.
i think slashdot mentioned that M$ bought several patents from SGI. most speculated that these patents had to do with OpenGL. could it be possible that M$ bought the patents or technology that would enable them to integrate xfs into Longhorn?
Why did I lurk so long before registering for a Slashdot account? I could have had a Slashdot ID of less than 100000.
Hey! Attacking Microsoft is Karma Whoring not flamebait!
Methinks the mods need to look at developing a sense of humor. It was a joke - next time must remember smilies.
:)
-- When a fool hears of the Tao, he will laugh out loud.
If the filesystem is a database, Then maybe MS Backup/Restore just might actually work
...Then everyone will buy new tape drives
...which will lower tape drive cost.
...Then I can buy a new tape drive.
Get a free ipod.
"Aggie" would be a better name for a Microsoft
product: "arrogant, foolish, loudmouth".
All i want is a computer that WILL NOT CRASH.
If Micosoft would have fixed ther OS before making
a new one they would have a customer. There is no way in hell I will buy anymore junk from Microsoft.
Linux has mostly the same GUI. They just made it work better (mostly). Thats what I WANT. I don't want all these features that slow down my computer and make it crash more and make it less secure.
Thanks for letting me vent.
I don't know if anyone put a link down the WinSuperSite so there it is. It has screenshots, some fake, some real, and a long description of the operating system. Worth a look.
--Metrollica
Hair of newt. Toe of dog.
Spider spit. Pint of grog.
Try our new os and watch your data disappear into a fog.
When compared to Oracle... THAT is a different matter.
If you want a real database that scales with reliability then you need something other than a MS product.
Price performance comparisons at TPC.org show little as to what a DB can do. They are often skewed in favor of cheaper Intel based distributed systems that would be virtually IMPOSSIBLE to maintain in a real world scenario.
MS SQL Server is constantly playing catch-up with the leaders in the market. In terms of features they are always 1 - 2 revisons behind people like Oracle.
The fact that your post got a Score of 5 only shows that you nor the moderators understand what an enterprise database is.
"ile systems would become plug-ins for a raw, native relational data store. "
This reminds me of the IBM AS400 setup, where the fs is an RDB. Any AS400 people care to comment?
"One man can change the world with a bullet in the right place."
- Mick Travis, "If..."
Imagine a Beowolf Cluster of THESE!!!
Bill, you are killing me. Every two years I have to learn a new OS from scratch and figure out how to set up all my customers with new machines with your new OS which is "completely redesigned". Aargh! Sure, DOS lasted about 15 years, but Windows was first sitting on DOS, then '95 blew me out of the water. And NT was pretty different. Ok, on top of that, hey, it's Windows 2000. Take NT and then start memorizing screen after screen of GUI "manager tools". Now XP is 2000 with cartoons and a lot of new screens to learn. Now you're blowing me out of the water AGAIN, and I have to keep defending this Registration system to my clients?
UNIX has lots of tools, but the basic concepts and tools are text files that are edited in a text editor. Everything is a file. Once you learn it, sure, you'll want new tools for security, or a better technology to perform this or that task, but generally someone that was using PDP-11's could jump on a modern UNIX box, read a few docs and be up to speed.
Put your vendors' backs against the wall and you're going to have a backlash on your hands...
Lincoln Rutledge
I use SQL-Server at work for a transactional system. It's doing the job so far, the main weakness compared to Oracle though is one that Phil Greenspun has pointed out: Oracle has versioning that lets you read the previous version of a row while a new version is being written. SQL-Server locks the row while it's being written so you can't read it. We do a lot of updating of large tables while users are online, so this is a major hassle which has required all kinds of time implementing workarounds. In Oracle it's just not an issue.
...Duh.... Yeah. It says that right there.... Sorry about that...
"One man can change the world with a bullet in the right place."
- Mick Travis, "If..."
It's still too long! And that fucker should consider SHAVING once in awhile. He's getting as disgusting as RMS.
THe speed of SQL Server 2k comes from its ability to horizontally partition tables across a cluster. Its clustered and its cheaper. You need to compare SQL server is limited to clusters because it runs on Intel hardware. Since when isnt' cost important? and now clusters are shitty?. an oracle *nix solution costing 2x as much and not as fast is better? i am sure Oracle or DB2 might be the best choice right now because of maturity but claiming something is crap when its plain faster and cheaper is silly. If Oracle was at the top you'd be quoting the results. If you look at who sponsors tpc you will notice some pretty familiar names. larry ellison is just as big of a greedy bastard as bill gates is. Oracle has been over charging for its products for years.
Get over it you whiny, fucking liberal!
Eat me you right-wing, Enron-idolizing, self-impressed, Republican, prick.
In light of these naming tie-ins to Whistler mountain, the Blue Screen of Death will be replaced in subsequent versions of Windows by a skinny guy with an afro whining, "I think I just made yellow snow."
(Sorry, I've been playing too much SSX Tricky lately.)
"And like that
Socialist!
...from someone who doesn't know the difference between "it's" and "its".
;)
If you can replace the word with it is, use it's. Otherwise, use its.
It's that easy.
The filesystem that BeOS uses is database oriented and allows complex queries in (basically) real time over the whole file system and it's metadata. I've used it in the past and was amazed.
e =1 3
This is the best link I could find so far that tries to explain the advantages:
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=421&pag
I just hope that Linuxland listens to Reiser sooner instead of later. He does have the vision to bring some real progress to filesystems.
--
Simon
I did try and write a plugin for Explorer once (not a fs driver, just a COM plugin a la ZipFolders), and after a frustrating few weeks managed to trash my copy of Explorer - I had to reinstall Windows. Eventually I got it working, but at what cost!
I'll tell you why nobody writes FS plugins (a feature that I maintain till this day was a good idea, innovative even, spoilt by bad implementation) - even getting the "minimal" hello world plugin requires creation of several different COM objects, with virtually zero documentation, and when it does exist it's often inaccurate.
I have nothing but respect for the ZipFolders guys, I tried to do something similar and failed miserably.
thanks -mike
Now let's eradicate the folks who type all lower-case ;)
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
First, obviously any minimally decent relational-like, even SQL database is better than any non-relational (object, hierarchical) one &ndash& before proceeding please read Database Debunkings. So substituting MS SQL Server for NTFS should be A Good Thing(tm).
Second, SQL isn't a good implementation of the relational model... so it doesn't matter what's the management system behind it (MS SQL, DB/2, Oracle), if it's SQL it's not ideal -- a really relational system should be faster, have less arbitrary restrictions, and do everything a hierarchical or OO database management system could possibly do. But still SQL would be far better than any hierarchical or OO filesystem.
Third, as a SQL implementation MS SQL isn't quite ideal, and Jet (Access, Exchange, the registry) is simply horrible. So while this will probably improve Windows feature-wise, it will make Windows even more bloated, perhaps even less stable and slower. But if they manage to fix the database engine, it could even make Windows faster and more stable.
Fourth, this has already been done. By Oracle. It's called iFS (sorry but I couldn't access Oracle site to get a better page), and exports SMB and other filesystems. As Oracle is too big, proprietary and isn't even SQL compliant, and iFS does not support NFS, I didn't care much about it, but I may have an opportunity to use it as a kind of version control for binaries very shortly.
Last but not least, this idea should be adopted by the Free Software comunity ASAP. We should create a really relational implementation, ideally based on Tutorial D -- there's already a SourceForge project, but nothing has been done up to now. Then this would became a Hurd filesystem (because of Hurd's flexibility) to be ported to Linux. That would blow Longhorn out of water.
If we don't do it better than Microsoft, and if computers continue to get faster and Windows less unreliable, we could have serious competition, say some two or three generations after Longhorn.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
What if MS were to apply the Apple Mac OS X model to Windows, using GNU Linux instead of BSD? Darwin is (nominally) open, yet Apple retains control through its Aqua/Carbon/Cocoa model. Let's call a theoretical GNU Linux layer "Dante" (similar to Darwin), the MS-Windows backward-compatibility emulation environment "Wintel" (like Classic) and the new part of the OS "Winux" (like Carbon/Cocoa/Aqua/X-Windows). Couldn't such an OS allow MS to retain its monopoly while effectively seizing control of Linux? Would this be a victory for Linux, or would Dante destroy everything penguinheads hold dear?