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Bridging Unix and Windows At NASA
slashdotess writes "Information Week reports: "About a year ago, Patrick McCartney, a Johnson Center project manager, created a Linux desktop environment that could also run government-mandated Microsoft apps. This let his team of 30 engineers continue to program in a Unixlike environment and create Word documents and Outlook E-mail all on the same PC. This mixed-use scenario is slowly taking hold, encouraged by a growing number of applications for running Linux on PC desktops." Score another one for Linux on the Desktop."
This article can be summed up in one sentence: The Johnson Center's IT team installed CrossOver Office from CodeWeavers Inc. on McCartney's PCs to give the engineers access to a variety of open-source and Microsoft Office apps.
Bottom line: They didn't do anything special.
"Score another one for Linux on the desktop". Maybe. But if you read the article it states that the machines replace both UNIX and Windows boxes, which implies that there was some un*x presence in the first place.
IMHO, you will find that, in scientific and academic establishments, un*x and Linux are used a lot, because that's what they have been working with for a long time, and that's where the programming languages are free. If the academics could have their way, a lot of universities would be running Linux already on all their desktop PCs. What? They are? Well, that'll be due to the fact that Linux is now more than passable as an OS for your everyday user.
There's a difference, though, between university students and academics running Linux, and your average office secretary running Linux. It's a difference which I think will still take a long time to erode.
Like car accidents, most hardware problems are due to driver error.
Though Bochs and Vmware are great apps, the future lies with projects like Wine. Interoperability is the only way to increase competition and that is why MS should have been forced to open up at least it's API rather than be forced to include competitors programs like Java.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
Agreed. Instead of making a hybrid like this, their time would be better spent trying to get NASA to dump MS completely. Point out MS's track record for bugginess and insecurity (do we want script kiddies to be able to fly the space shuttle?), and Linux's freeness (sure, NASA gets volume discounts, but free is still cheaper than a percentage of something). Linux running MS software seems to defeat the whole purpose.
live(free) || die;
Bear in mind that the "government-mandated Microsoft apps" are not just Word/Office.
--
Error 500: Internal sig error
You don't have to be a rocket scientist to use Linux...
When I think of my reasons for leaving Microsoft, Word and Outlook are right up there at the top just under reliability. Reliability has always been one thing that Microsoft could never deliver and that is something they have gained and I can agree with them all the way on this. Where do most of the problem virii come from though? Word or Outlook with the occasional one on Excel. I know that you can try to lock them out but you never really succeed.
Open Office is a great office environment that meets all my needs and I have yet to meet someone that genuinely *NEEDS* anything that Word has, that OO does not (I have met some that claim they do but it always turns out that they really mean that once in the past 2 years they once had a situation that would have been easier with Word). I use Evolution instead of Outlook and it is even as good at eye candy. It does every thing and more that I was using Outlook for. The only think Outlook does better is spread virii.
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
Why don't they just get some Macs? Then they can do Word/Office in a native environment instead of some Wine-like UNIX hack.
Or run XWin-32, eXceed, or even VNC on ordinary PCs and share a large Unix machine? This is by far the best way to do things; rather than putting a Unix workstation on each desk, buy one much more powerful machine and share it among 30 people. For interactive use, from the machine's perspective, all users have a lot of idle time, whether between keypresses, or while reading what's on screen, etc. By sharing one powerful machine, everyone gets far more peak performance than a workstation can give them, for example for a compile, while getting the same processing power when averaged throughout the day because it's unlikely that all 30 users would want peak performance at the same time.
In such an environment, you just want the PC to run Word and Outlook, and be an X terminal for everything else. What they've done at NASA gives them no real advantage.
1. If NASA says GNULinux administrations costs are too high, think again---surely all these Unix gurus can administer thier own systems little support needed.
2. If NASA says that MS Office Formats are required for standard file formatted documents accross the organization, think again----surely the entire organization switching to OpenOffice.org is a much better way to ENSURE future standardization without upgrade costs.
3. IF NASA says that MS OUTLOOK is needed to standardize email ---- sticking to open and standard protocols as opposed to proprietary and costly protocols is surely the best way to standardization.
4. IF NASA management says that they liked the MS PowerPointless presentation, they probably did, and they probably believed all the points that MS made to them during the presentation. Which explains why we have a GOVERNMENT organization still running PROPRIETARY software and forcing thier users to use MICROSOFT when they don't want to!
5. If NASA made it a REQUIREMENT that ALL of its vendors communicate using OPEN and NON-PROPRIETARY FILE FORMATS as a REQUIREMENT FOR DOING BUSINESS, THEY WOULD!
6. If you told your senator what you think, than you did the right thing. If you did not, than you can blame no one but yourself when GNULinux is OUTLAWED and a copy of PALADIUM is REQUIRED to VOTE.
Get the letters out to the senators folks.
Real men don't need signitures!!!
Calm down Mate.
If you are happy with Linux, fine. Some of us are happier with OS X. Accept it.
The way you react it sounds like you are threatened by OS X. Hopefully that isn't the case - Linux needs people willing to extend it beyond just bitching about the other operating systems out there.
By the way, I use the terminal for a large amount of my work - I'm a Java developer. Java on OS X is better integrated than on any other OS. The development environment (Project Builder) is superb. The fact that I have all the usual Unix utilities is great. The machine just works - I don't need to mess with configuration unless I want to. And I like the iApps - I run iCal, I run iTunes, I sync with iSync, and I've used iMovie on occasions to put together some home videos.
Perhaps the apps don't appeal to you. That's fine. But you can hardly call them crap - they are far superior than the offerings on Linux. Hey, I used to develop on Linux. I've been a Unix developer for over 10 years - I moved on to something I find superior. Deal with it.
You really need to calm down and realise that not everyone thinks like you. Some people are going to find they work better on OS X.
they could bridge the metric/english units thing ;)
So while you make a good point, it doesn't seem to be Nasa that you need to make your argument to. The problem sounds like it's upstream somewhere, and that itself is a huge problem: why is the federal government forcing its employees to use the software of a tried, convicted, and... well completely unpunished abusive monopoly? Don't take your aggression out on the people that came up with this hack, point it at their bosses & their bosses' bosses, who told them that this is what they have to do.
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
Dear Unix user, welcome to mac. If you trust me you will just do all of the following without asking why, before you start whining about features you miss. The following is a no-fat-added list of essential customization for unix users converting to the mac world.
/Applications/Utilities. Drag the terminal.app to the Dock
/Users
/etc/fstab file. It does not matter where you put it since the mac will ignore it. To mount the disks type "sudo niload fstab" followed by the file path name. However, don't do this right away till you have more experience. Instead do the following. /hostpath is the exported fs. The disk will be mounted in /Volumes and be "aliased" to the desktop.
/usr/bin/Netscape & /Applications/Netscape
1. The Mouse.
Go buy a 3 button USB mouse. Make sure you get an optical mouse with a wheel. Buy the most expensive one you can. Heriditary mac users prefer a 1 button mouse, but you wont.
2. The Terminal.
Open
3. File system journaling
Open the terminal.app and type
sudo diskutil enableJournal
Just do it. This can be undone and you can change how you want it later.
4. The Compiler
Regardless of what compiler you prefer, you need the native compiler and libs. Go to
http://developer.lanl.gov and register for free. Enter the site and select the downloads option. Scroll through the list till you find "developer tools", download and install it.
5. Installing GNU ports part 1.
Goto http://sourceforge.com and find the latest stable release of "fink" for mac os X. download and install it. There will be some questions to answer, just choose the defaults except if offered, ask it to get updates from CVS.
6. Install X-windows part 1
If you have 5 hours to you can wait, type in the terminal
fink install xfree86-rootless
this is preferred as it gets the latest release of a fast changing package.
If you are in a hurry you can install the binary.
Type
sudo dselect
Quick intro to dselect: after some preliminaries you are offered the chance to choose packages from a list. Use the down-arrow key to move down and find xfree86-rootless.
Press the + key to select it. You will be offered "conflict resolution": accept the defaults by pressing return. Then return again to exit the selection. DO NOT GET GREEDY and select other packages yet. Finish the installation.
7. Installing X-windows part 2: the window manager
You may prefer fvwm2 or some other window manager but take my advice and try out oroborus first. Oroborus does things the mac way, and later you will be glad you did even if its not familiar at first. Oroborus deliberately eschews many popular features, letting the OS provide those services. For example, if you want virtual screens you DO NOT want them as part of the windows manager! You want them as part of Aqua so that they apply to both aqua and to x-windows. Likewise you want the Dock to manage minimizing windows not the window manager.
Go to http://apple.com click the OSX tab, then the downloads tab and find oroborus.
Note: the oroborus that comes with Fink/dselect is not quite the same thing.
8. Installing GNU ports part 2.
Use dselect or fink to install a few packages. Fink has about 2000 packages available including your favorite parts of kde and gnome. To see what's avalaible type
fink list | more
just for practice try installing gv (ghost view) and xemacs.
Remember, dselect will install binaries (fast), and fink will install source (slow), generally dselect is a good idea. Once a month type "fink update-all" or update packages in dselect.
9. Text editor
Goto http://www.barebones.com and get a free copy of bbedit "lite". I recommend buying the full version, especially to geeks. Note that you can save files in unix/mac/PC formats which have different end of line characters. Despite the name, on a mac you should normally use unix format. Mac mode is mainly for historic reasons but gums up unix commands. Even if this (amazingly) does not turn out to be your preferred editor, you should install it anyhow so that it is there for guests.
10. Mounting network disks
You can mount NFS disks by creating a file that looks just like the usual
In the finder window, select go>servers. In the text field type
nfs://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/hostpath
Where xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx is the ip address or domain name of the host with the disk, and
To mount windows network disks we use
smb://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/path
Be nice and unmount your disks (throw them in the trash) before disconnecting from the net.
11. using X windows across the network.
All the usual stuff (like xhosts and DISPLAY) works as expected. However you do need to activate oroborus (which will fire up X-windows) since its not on by default. However, before you do this let me suggest an alternative you may find better. Goto http://apple.com and on the osx downloads page locate VNCdimension (or VNCthing) and install this application. On the X windows client, run vncserver. And on the mac attatch to it using VNC dimension. On anything but the fastest network connection you will find this smoother and faster than using x-windows. Plus its more secure and even runs through firewalls. At present much of X-windows on the mac is not graphics accelerated, but VNC dimension which runs in aqua is.
12. Shortcuts worth knowing about
On your unix machine to run netscape you type
on a mac you type
open
to open the file browser at the current working directory type
open . (note the period)
to open a web page type
open http://macosxhints.com
13. Pitfalls
There are few pitfalls in the file system you need to know about early on.
First be careful with cp,mv,rsync, and tar. For 99.9% of the time they work as expected. But a lot of mac applications and mac documents store info in something called the "resource fork" of a file. Unix files only have a single data fork. Mac files have a data and a resource fork. The data fork is the same as what you would see on the unix system. The resource fork can contain almost anything, but usually contains unimportant meta-information about the file itself like what app created it, and so on. But sometimes it contains crucial information (e.g quicken).
When you do a unix cp or mv or tar all you get are the data forks. The rule of thumb is this: if your file can be used by a unix program then dont worry about the resource fork. Most modern mac apps do not use the resource fork but older ones do.
Second, mac filenames are case-insensitive but case preserving. Thus ReadME and readme are the same file.
Third, unfortunately, for backwards compatibility there are two different kinds of soft links on a mac. One is the usual unix soft link and the other is the "alias" function of the OS. The OS is smart enough to recognize the unix links and treat them as file aliases in the GUI. But the reverse is not true. Generally you are better off using the unix soft links.
Fourth, macs have three layers of file permissions where unix has one. Macs have the usual unix permissions. Plus there is an ability to lock a file against changes or deletion, and finally there is the ability to lock a file against modification even by root. generally you wont ever need either of the latter two, but you may someday find a file you cant seem to delete! just in case, the normal file lock is accessed via "get info"
Fifth, fstab, exports, shadowpassword, passwd, and most unix configs don't work the way you expect. Use the admin tools to alter netinfo configuration data. (see root below)
14. Thinking mac-like.
First off you never need to touch the other mouse buttons outside of x-windows. Second, try to adopt apple applications where they exist to replace you current favorites. For example, use the mail.app instead of pine or Eudora. Sure these have nice features, but long term apple apps will stay more tightly integrated: for example, mail.app links to addressbook which links to iCal. Third, Chill-out dude. Macs force you to do things a certain ways with warning dialog boxes or focus-on-click windows. These are not worse than other ways, and long term you will come to see the benefits from the cross-application uniformity of operations. Unmount disks, especially network disks, by tossing them in the trash. (you may want to add an eject button to the finder menu)
15. Viruses, Worms, holes, etc...
Regularly use the software update feature. Bugs get patched quickly. Historically, the only security holes you must stay on top of are Microsoft Internet Explorer holes, Microsoft Entourage/outlook holes, and Microsoft macro viruses. Don't bother worrying about anything else till you worry about these. Many people use Chimera for this reason.
16. Root
If you read just one book try "mac OS X for unix geeks", most other books aren't for you because they are trying to explain unix to mac-heads. Avoid using root when you can use an admin tool or sudo instead. Apple has not fully document root admin, so stick with tools. Except don't ever play with netinfo manager or niload until you have a lot of experience, as there is no faster way to make your mac unbootable.
17. Goodies
There are virtual window managers at mac OSX downloads.
Try out Watson at http://www.karelia.com/watson/
Microsoft office X is a great program even if it is made by Microsoft.
Scientific plotting: You may like Igor from wavemtrics.com since it has both command line and menu driven interface. Fink comes with R, Octave and Gnu-plot. Mathematicians may prefer mathematica.
If you have a powerbook, put the dock on the left and make it small.
Turn off autostart on OS 9.0
Discover iTunes.
Consider a mac.com account
Read http://macosxhints.com
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.