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Windows Services For Unix Now Free Of Charge
pole writes "Version 3.5 of Services for Unix will be free. Previously, it was $99. This article at Information Week has the details. It contains an NFS client and server in addition to POSIX libraries and utilities including pthreads. Aside from the NFS utilities, how does the environment compare to Cygwin?" An anonymous reader adds links to coverage at News.com and at geek.com, writing "The reviews for these tools have been highly favorable. It looks like the next volley has been fired in the struggle between Windows and Linux."
Let's make this simple for simple people like me. Does this mean in a week I can go to Microsoft's website, download a .exe file, run it, and be able to mount NFS partitions off my linux file server? I could ditch samba? Yes no?
slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
Can you say, "embrace and extend?"
What a fantastic set of tools for people who are migrating thier windows boxes to a Linux/Unix envirornment. Glad they finally saw the light of day and are working to join us.
It's really "unix services" for "Windows". They can't even get the name right - what else did they screw up at the forge of Mordor?
--
make install -not war
Comment removed based on user account deletion
They include gcc, but most of the other utilities are from OpenBSD or other non-GPL sources (there are about 40 different licenses included). ActiveState perl is also included, though you can get that free anyhow.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
The idea is obviously to encourage migration from Unix to Windows, but it can just as easily be used to encourage migration in the other direction.
It is to be hoped that such opportunities are taken up by people wishing to get the out of MS lock in in a gradual manner.
An infinite number of monkeys will eventually come up with the complete works of
A shallow compatibility layer. I like it better than Cygwin, but that is just me.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Well heck, I guess to make this fair we are going to have to impliment SMB support.
Karma: SELECT `karma` FROM `users` WHERE `userid`=138474;
Something like this happen could mean that Microsoft is starting to have a slight change of heart about the presence of Linux/UNIX. Having this available for free could be great boon to people who have to run Linux alongside M$ - this ranks right up there with Samba, IMO.
Especially interesting is the addition of the pthread library to the Posix API package.
SCREW THE ADS! http://adblock.mozdev.org/ Proud user of teh Fox of Fire - Registered Linux User #289618
So now the answer is "free". I'm not saying I like Windows servers over Unix-style boxen - but this was a good business choice for MS.
Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
I guess it depends on what you use it for. But as I have to do development work in Windows, I thought I'd try it out. Searching through the million line source tree our company has took about 10 times as long with 'grep' that came with "Services for UNIX" as it did with 'grep' that came with a now ancient version of MKS. Both of these were slower that current GNU grep on a Linux box, but the difference between GNU and MKS grep is not dramatic.
The lesson stays, however. If you expect to basically start with all the power of your Linux box, you'll be sorely dissappointed, just as someone expected the ease of use of Windows coming to Linux will be sorely dissappointed.
Anyone know?
I'm not gonna use it unless I get the source. Period.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
for free, one word, cwywin. It even has emacs (let the holy wars begin), cvs and gcc, it is a attempted to have a full unix envioment in windows.
Microsoft based this product upon OpenBSD: http://www.deadly.org/article.php3?sid=20030927090 008
http://www.microsoft.com/india/indiadev/projects/s ervices-for-unix.asp
Wow, what a great acronym, and I'm quite surprised that they seem to be actually using it externall!
Anyone who disagrees with microsoft can just SFU! I mean, install SFU from microsoft.com.
(Just in case somebody missed it, SFU = Shut the F**k Up.)
I'm sure all of my fellow Eunuchs are also very pleased to hear this.
i was gonna buy it...
but now that i don't have to pay for it, it'll be even cheaper to move from IIS to *nix. Yay!
We are really starting to see the results of constant economic pressure in Microsoft. Once a monopoly has real competition - it is forced to either *gasp* innovate or lower prices! I think in the coming years, All computer users will benefit from Linux - even if they never use it. Windows users will see lower prices and a somewhat friendlier Beast, and Mac users are already getting a ton of great open source product integreted into OS X.
Correct me if I am wrong, but didn't Microsoft pursure licensing or incorporation of the Mortice Kern Software (MKS Toolkit) a while back (like their SFU 1.x release). MKS has had a nice set of tools for using Unix(like) commands in MS Windows. MKS is still is a pretty good product too IMHO.
What next? Will they start giving away web browsers for free?
I think the best way to get to the future, is together. Solaris web servers, FreeBSD app servers, Linux, BSD, OSX, and windows workstations, OpenBSD firewalls. This sounds like utopia to me. So, the sooner MS opens up it's doors and accepts the *nix world as a partner and not an advisary, the sooner we can got o my perfect place.
Way be to Microsoft!
Pretty Pictures!
Microsoft was giving tons of them away on their Windows 2003 Server promotional tour and as has been note elsewhere this is really just an OpenBSD distro with a few more LDAP-ish tools thrown in.
I think the message from Microsoft with all of this seems to be that Unix stuff is worthless and just a hassle to tie together with their products. Reality: Microsoft products are a huge liability. Ask anyone who has had their files randomly mailed due one of the thousands of email viruses. The security breaches that Microsoft products bring to the table far more than offset any of their claimed savings in techie hours. Typical BigCo at this points wants to be safeguarding what productivity they have, not tossing it away by opening up more holes than can be patched twice monthly over broadband. Bleh. Even if they gave away MicrosoftServer 2003, I still wouldn't bite. Put the Exchange stack on Linux, and then we'll talk.
http://tinyurl.com/4ny52
I wouldn't be surprised if it is based on Cygwin, and they're not going to distribute the source code like they are supposed to under the GPL until FSF makes a big deal out of it.
This great news for those windows users out there. It will be surely provide much needed apps for this upstart operating system. Now, whenever someone says, "Windows? But what can I do with it?" you can point out that they can run their favorite unix apps.
Know what I like about atheists? I've yet to meet one that believes God is on their side.
Overall, services for unix is good. It provides many of the common unix utilities, and it integrates them into the shell [even just cmd] very well. Much better, and 'cleaner' than cygwin. Cygwin has *many* more tools though, and they work 'well enough'.
In my experience, using the two together [having SFU's directory in the path before cygwin's] gives you the best of both releases.
This was speculated on in an article at Groklaw, that this was the intent (aside from financing the anti-Linux FUD campaign) in M$ paying SCO for a license.
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced. - Geek's corollary to Clarke's law
Why does Microsoft want to support Unix/Linux applications on Windows? It does not seem to make sense. Every deployment of a portable application on Windows creates an opportunity for moving to Linux at a later stage (vis. OpenOffice).
Presumably the "Unix" services will include extensions that make the migration a one-way affair. Presumably also Microsoft have some killer Unix/Linux applications in mind that they want/need to be able run on Windows. Apache? Hmmm...
Presumably also the goal is to turn Windows into something closer to what corporate IT centers actually want.
It reminds me a lot of IBM's drive to include Unix-like features in OS/370. An obvious thing, to make one's OS POSIX-compliant. But all POSIX compliancy drives seem to lead to Linux.
So... the very first thing I thought when I first heard about this, and the thing I still think today is that this is the first step in the direction of a Microsoft-branded Linux distribution.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
going between Windows and Linux boxes. I speak from first hand experience. An FTP transfer of the same (very large) file goes 10 times as fast on my gigabit network. I can't speak for NFS, but SMB is certainly not the be-all-end-all for serving files.
Impossible.
All anti MS rhetoric aside, this is a smart move for them to make. By making support for POSIX api's freely available, it allows someone to port a unix type app over with a re-compile and perhaps some changes to the make file.
People like to roast MS for not adhering to standards, among other things. This partly answers that.
Of course, this does not make MS a "Good Corporate Citizen" any more then donating money to a homeless shelter makes a tobbaco company a "Good Corporate Citizen". But it does show that once in a while, even bad people can do good things, even if the motives are questionable.
And I have no doubt that Microsofts motives will be questioned here.
END COMMUNICATION
Free SFU will likely cause some folks to do the following:
* Stop booting to Linux on their dual boot box,
* Stop buying VMware (for desktop use),
* Stop using that little OSS box on the floor.
Instead, they'll just SFU - it costs nothing, and it lets me run Apache/PHP/MySql, or whatever.
After enough of this behavior modification, they'll lower the boom.
And then SFU will stand for: So, Fuck You.
Jonathan
..as he mentions that "very few of our customers are going to have a pure Unix or pure Windows environment".
Previously, I used to think that at least half of the MS customers or so would have a pure Unix environment. Thanks for enlightening me, Dennis!
“Wait for Hurd if you want something real” –Linus
Oh boy. I wouldn't want to be a developer of Windows Services for Unix.
You're sure to be at the bottom of the caste system there at Microsoft...
-------
Warning: Slashdot may contain traces of nuts.
Windows SFU will require Office 2003 be installed for some inexplicable reason.
Remain calm. Put your hands in your pockets and grab ahold of your underwear. Pull your underwear forward and hold to make a pouch that will prevent any more goodies from escaping. Calmly walk to the bathroom. Remove your pants and underwear. Sit by gloryhole and await further instructions.
I don't quite understand how there is a "war" between Linux and Microsoft. Look at it from this perspective: Linux will always be there, will always be built by the community, and will always be an alternative choice for all businesses. Microsoft products, on the other hand, require the company to be intact for them to be maintained and offered.
Microsoft worries about losing business to a non-company entity, which is rightly should worry about. Microsoft trying to compete against a non-company entity like it is a company will not work, though. The only way that anyone could "kill" the Linux kernel is by way of IP and prosecution. This is already being attempted, and will probably not pan out for the ones pursuing that end.
You need to restart your computer. Hold down the Power button for several seconds or press the Restart button.
how does the environment compare to Cygwin?
One is licensed under GPL, and the other isn't....
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit.
Now m$ is competing on the same level. Free software.
Face it. You will be assimulated.
POSIX environment... C compiler... you know, it should be possible to get my depenguinator to work here.
I'm not sure about being able to write the filesystem image to disk, Windows might not allow that.
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
Um, nobody missed it. HTH, HAND.
Wow, what a great acronym, and I'm quite surprised that they seem to be actually using it externall!
...actually it's STFU, but nice try.
Anyone who disagrees with microsoft can just SFU! I mean, install SFU from microsoft.com.
(Just in case somebody missed it, SFU = Shut the F**k Up.)
Now STFU.
Ah, yes. The Welsh-centric fork of Cygwin.
taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
And wouldn't the ease of using Apache on Windows cause people to switch from the security-hole ridden ISS?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Interix used OpenBSD as is evidenced at deadly.org
So like 95% of it is just OpenBSD, mostly pulled from theh 3.0 release tree.
http://tinyurl.com/4ny52
If your interested:
:-)) hompage is here. However, it appears that the free download hasn't been made available yet on the page.
The intro & specifications for this are available here. The SFU (anyone else wanna add a T there somewhere?
Nitwit.
This is going to be interesting. Microsoft is doing everything it can to hobble OSS projects from interacting with their systems (note the explicit anti-GPL clause in the SMB documentation licenses) and yet they're using OSS tools to try to draw people onto their platform.
It's dirty fighting - they're taking every advantage afforded by the very kind of freedom they're actively trying to stamp out.
That's one of the unfortunate costs of freedom - some will use it against you. The OSS community is an open book, theirs is a very closely guarded hand of cards..
Here's the million dollar question: Is there anything that the OSS community can do to compete with this kind of underhandedness?
I hear quite a bit of complaining on Slashdot about Microsoft and their software/business practices. The complaints may have some merit, but I think a no-cost tool that helps integrate Windows and *nix is great.
Diversity is the only way to survive. If Linux (or any OS) dominates to the extent Microsoft has we all lose. I think Microsoft is starting to see that. They may be simply acting like they want interoperability, but if it makes my job (mixed *nix/windows admin) easier without costing my employer more than I am all for it.
BTW I have a copy of v3.0 that I got for the cost of shipping. Those who must admin Windows systems but enjoy the tools availble on *nix should definately check it out.
the_crowbar
Have you read the Moderator Guidelines
FINALLY, an NFS client for win!
That said, I'm still looking for a network file system that I like. Samba gives me white hairs on our student network, as periodically domain browsing goes down (Does it come from the samba master? or from one of those diverse win (95/98/2k/XP) PCs on the network?
What's this Coda FS I see in the kernel, any user experience out there?
Misleading titles? Inflammatory blurbs? Keep in mind that Slashdot is a tabloid.
From the article:
Oldroyd says. "We want Windows to be the best platform for interoperability."
I think they have a LONG way to go. This would pretty much require destroying all their API's as they exist today, a complete rewrite of windows eliminating all proprietary protocols. Adding noncrippled and nonslow support for all the standard protocols and filesystems out there. Putting a stop to the automatic mbr clearing their OS does on the install.
And that would only get them IN THE BALLPARK of being close to equal to their competition in this respect.
MS has had a Unix toolkit around since NT4 first hit the market, what did it do for them then ?
Cygwin has its uses but I dont see many people running production apps under it , like sendmail or bind.
I guess the new toolkit would have its uses but mostly from people like me who are really *nixphiles at heart but have to use MS platforms for work.
I finally copied DIR over and renamed it ls just so when Im in dos mode I can still type "ls" anyone else keep typing ls in a dos window ?
They need to start offering "Windows Services for Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000", because this is where a lot of their customers hopped off the upgrade bus.
C'mon, raise your hands, how many of you are still administering a pair of Windows NT 4.0 domain controllers because Active Directory was overkill for your single-site 100 employee company? I know I am.
Blogging Weight Loss, Distance Education, and more at verlin.com
I'm trying to sort out the advantages/disadvantages of using NFS vs Samba-3.
From my understanding, NFS brings with it native file permissions on the remote machine, where Samba's permssions come from a config file.
I haven't done much research into Samba-3, but with past versions, this was the case.
up 12 days, 22:30, 2 users, load averages: 993.20, 994.21, 994.56
*makes note to limit user processes...
So could this mean I can ditch samba? Since this is version 3.5 there must be people out there who bought the previous versions. Anyone got experience if it is any good?
And exactly what is MS angle here? By including nfs support for free they are making it a lot easier to maintain Unix machines. No need to install samba anymore to allow windows users access to files on unix machines. If anything this makes unix machines more attractive. What am I missing?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
First it was OpenNT from a comapny called Softway Systems which provided a fully POSIX-compliant subsystem replacement for NT.
Later, Softway renamed it to Interix, and shortly after that Softway was bought out by Microsoft. At that time, the guts of Interix were used to make the 'Services for Unix'.
it is ported to Windows. (BTW... Got this from some other post on Slashdot a long time ago)
Sola Scriptura Sola Fide Sola Gratia Sola Christus
"The real driver behind this [pricing] change is this interoperability issue," Oldroyd says. "We want Windows to be the best platform for interoperability."
Since when? Does this mean Windows Whatever'sNext will be able to read Mac and ext2 floppy disks? Does this mean their APIs and protocals will be more open to allow for better communication and cooperation with other platforms?
Or does this mean "We don't want Windows apps kicked out of Unix dominated businesses, and thus begin a general migration away from Microsoft software?"
Or is this a very clever move to get Unix houses to set up one Windows box with this on it in order to be able to interface with the outside world better, and thus give them some targets for the marketing department?
Monopolies aren't interested in interoperability - they're usually out to destroy it. Look this gift horse in the mouth very carefully - Microsoft is not trustworthy and anything they say or do is suspect. This could wind up being just a nice candy piece tossed to the Unix world, but I am forced to wonder what Microsoft is getting from it, and in what situations a $99 fee would stop someone where free is a go-ahead price. Not any big shops, that's for sure. Remember, with any Microsoft move the first rule is to ask what they are expecting to get out of it.
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
(Just in case somebody missed it, Slacy = stupid mutherfukker. STFU == Shut teh Fuck Up, dillweed.)
Nitpick, but I think the generally accepted acronym for shut the fuck up is STFU, as evidenced here.
Geek used to be a four letter word. Now it's a six-figure one.
Students from Simon Fraser University might not be so impressed.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
I feel like a dumbshit for posting that. Wish I could go back in time. I'm sorry.
Reading the Microsoft End User License Agreement, the End User of the "Software" is hereby charged to indemnify Microsoft for ... et al.
.sig...
In effect, what value do we Linux and dwindling SCO users establish upon our service to indemnify Microsoft? What is the cost of us to indemnify Microsoft in a court of law, should Microsoft's "Software" cause any potential client or our employer to be damaged by a fault or feature of the "Software"?
That's pretty expensive software, if you ask me. I don't want to be charged by Microsoft for the obligation to indemnify them in a Court of Law. My time is priceless and I suggest any "End User" of this alleged "Charge-less" full-charge of indemnification duty End User License Agreement be agreed to Conditionaly and under a fictitious business name foreign to the "End User." Such as the following format as my
Secured Party, Without Prejudice, UCC 1-207: Creditor
Microsoft making something for free. Who would have thought. This goes further into Microsoft's new "we can't ignore this anymore" policy towards *nix
But don't get me wrong, there are still no warm and fuzzy feelings towards Redmond. With me, that whole matrix spoof thing killed it for them. Now they have to do something really significant to get on my good side. Like making Windows update easier to use with Mozilla, or releasing source to something (heh, where's the source for this?)
If my answers frighten you, stop asking scary questions.
...actually it's STFU, but nice try.
Hmm... Services Toolbox For Unix?
I bet all those posix libraries contain SCOde, code "copyrighted" by SCO.
Is this why MS obtained a liscense from SCO? If not, SCO should go sue MS.
half jokingly,
happyfrogcow... mrroobit.
Cygwin has been around for how long?
If this comes with a good X server for Windows, it might make it easy to set up a Linux Terminal Server in a Windows desktop shop. That might be a good way for people to get their feet wet.
Or does this thing only work on Win2k or XP Server editions?
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
I know this is Slashdot and research is not permitted so I'll excuse this.
g nu /
SFU is not based on Cygwin. It's built on top of Interix which was originally developed by Softway Systems until Microsoft purchased it. SFU does indeed include GCC and many GPLed utilities. You can get the source here:
ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/developr/Interix/sfu30/
Say a windows shop decides to introduce a *n(i|u)x fileserver. With samba they gotta make sure that any new windows version can talk to samba. Sure new windows versions don't appear every year but still often enough for it to be a concern. Especially with License 6.0 where you pay for the upgrade of windows anyway.
Now if the new windows can just talk for free to the nfs on the unix machine. Hmm, no longer an obstacle to upgrading. Then again no obstacle to using a unix machine either.
Mmmm, I think this may be a case were MS may neither lose nor win.
As for making it free. Did some NFS for windows maker piss of Bill Gates? If this is a good nfs and not one of ms'es standard embrace and break jobs then they are all out of business.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Salesman: I broke my cup holder.
IT Guy: Reboot and see if it gets better.
Sometimes, it's the clueless and the stubborn. Nobody wins in that situation, except Microsoft.
They are a shady company that isn't above immoral behavior to get ahead.
That is why this seemly good gesture is being scrutinized.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
As you can see.
1) WSFU is faster (IO/API/...)
2) WSFU is better integrated with win32 architecture (OLE/ODBC/...)
3) WSFU make a lot of things easier than cygwin with windows
BUT, i wouldnt trade cygwin for it, note that i have both installed here. I just isolated what i needed from WSFU and was better than cygwin and added them last in my path. I dont have any preferences, but cygwin is waaay more complete, and you have the +/- the same versions of the application that runs on linux. Same config files work fine, same behaviours (which isnt the case with WSFU), etc.
For me, WSFU is just a little + to cygwin.
-- search the web
I always thought it was So Fukkin Ugly
This has been a banner add on the top of slashdot for the last month or 2. *sigh*
/* oops I accidentally made a comment, sorry */
I've already heard it as STFU...
Anyway, it's still better than the Critical Update Notification Tool.
Providing a way to run Unix apps on Windows isn't exactly a threatening proposition. In fact, the open source community has done the same thing -- Cygwin has been around for years.
If anything, putting Unix API's on Windows provides one more way to write cross-platform applications. Remember, the Unix API's are open standards, so if you write your software to run on them, you've got something that now runs on Linux, Mac OS, and Windows. I personally have used Cygwin (SFU would work too) to avoid writing Windows native software. Just load Cygwin, bring over the standard build, tune, and ship.
Microsoft SFU also provides NFS and NIS implementations on Windows, which I have found useful for introducing Linux and Unix into previously Windows-only environments.
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I doubt it. More like they are finally able to see the writing on the wall. They are finally seeing that *nix has a presence, and they can't do a damn thing to stop it. So they will embrace it.
We all know what happens next...
Not that I don't see this as a good thing, but I think I'll go with what I know to be true and be extremely skeptical about their motives.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
All anti MS rhetoric aside, this is a smart move for them to make. By making support for POSIX api's freely available, it allows someone to port a unix type app over with a re-compile and perhaps some changes to the make file.
I agree that it makes it easy to port applications by almost just recompiling. I disagree that it is a smart move.
This represents how Microsoft has been successfully misdirected. They do not have their eye on the ball.
The real threat in the short term is not Linux. It is all of the cross over software such as OpenOffice.org and Mozilla. While these things run on Windows, they make it even more likely that eventually masses of people will find fewer hurdles in switching to Linux.
When GUI programs become as easy to port to Windows by just recompiling, it will be attractive to developers to write to Linux, because for very little additional effort, you get both platforms. And more cross-platform software appears. Making it even easier to eventually switch to Linux (for people using cross platform software).
I disagree that this is a smart move. What exactly were they expecting? That masses of servers are going to switch to Apache on Windows because it is so much better?
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
The SFU page still has a lot of pricing information, and the .exe you can download is a beta. Sure, they could have switched to the classic Mirabilis strategy of making every product a beta, but it's still not clear if it is to remain free-beer.
I heard a while back that the next version due out would contain code to either recompile X apps into native win32 calls, or actually have an X server..
Anyone know if this will include either?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
why would MS open themselves to liability when they have hordes of programmers at their disposal? For a small(ish) low priority project like this it would be much much cheaper for a company like MS to just devote a few spare resources to it than to run the risk of stealing.
I enjoy using the Win32 ports of some gnu utilities found here: http://unxutils.sourceforge.net/.
I thought about using the MS SFU, but didn't want to pony up $99. Now that it's free... maybe.
Can anyone shed some light on how they compare? I use mostly gawk, sed, grep, and general sh scripting.
Thanks!
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
All I had to pay was shipping, and that was weeks ago.
So now, according to SCO's way of thinking, Microsoft is not respecting the American copyrights since it is not charging for its product. It'd be funny to see SCO sue MS over this :p
You are more than the sum of what you consume. Desire is not an occupation.
I'm happy -- I can get rid of the "phony" Active Directory schema I've created for Linux/LDAP access, and move to SFU's schema and management tools.
All and all, I say this just makes Linux and Unix clients easier to integrate, so.. um... Thanks, Microsoft.
I'm going to go take a shower now.
If Microsoft wanted to change SMB (and lock out SAMBA), they would need some other network file system.
So, maybe, SFU is being released to allow claim that Microsoft based servers can share with NFS, and that SMB can now be modified to add additional (Longhorn) features, while locking the *nix world out (say, by encrypting the traffic and not telling how).
SAMBA becomes useless; and if executed properly, Windows shares become completely MS proprietary. Limited access to "competitive" OSs provided by NFS.
New features available to Windows ONLY.
If I were doing a strategy for MS, this is the path I would take. Also, ensure that NFS is available for a LONG lead time, and that it runs well.
But maybe I'm just a paranoid.
Ratboy.
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
Unless I can still browse, I only really see this being usefull in companies where workstations are pre-configured to mount shared volumes at boot. The benefit being you won't need to set up Samba on your Unix machines, or pay for a license to put this on one Windows box and then share it to the rest of the Windows boxes.
Combine this with WinInternals' pstools (which adds pskill) and you can now admin a Windows box with the majority of the tools you use to run *nix boxes. You get a shell that can run scripts, telnet, nfs, ls, grep, vi, and kill.
Course the kernel still sucks and you can't do squat that needs a registry edit, but you can get a lot done.
Wu-Tang Name: Half-Cut Skeleton Get your own Wu-Na
The supported platforms that are explicitly mentioned as being supported are NT, Windows 2000, and Windows XP. Does anybody know if this software works under Windows 98? After all Microsoft announced continued support for this product for a reason; theres lots of it out there. Or is this simply a ploy to get people to upgrade?
If you look a the letter on 6/24 from Novell to SCO (partly quoted below) they disputes SCO legal rights to enter into a new agreement with Microsoft.
As voiced yesterday a lawsuit by Novell against SCO is almost certain. They are currently trying to Audit SCO's records in an effort to bring their ducks in row, and presto. Once the suit over Copyright et al is filed SCO effort to get more money will be impossible. On an aside head over to Groklaw and read about SCO's effort o hire a sales manager for their non-existant IP in Linux.
Quote
It has come to our attention that SCO may have violated these provisions. In particular, SCO reported in a recent securities filing that SCO has established a program to review existing licenses, and enter into new licenses, relating to UNIX and that this effort "resulted in the execution of two license agreements" during the quarter ended April 30, 2003. The securities filing states:
The first of these licenses was with a long-time licensee of the UNIX source code which is a major participant in the UNIX industry and was a "clean-up" license to cover items that were outside the scope of the initial license. The second license was to Microsoft Corporation ("Microsoft"), and covers Microsoft's UNIX compatibility products, subject to certain specified limitations. These license agreements will be typical of those we expect to enter into with developers, manufacturers, and distributors of operating systems in that they are non-exclusive, perpetual, royalty-free, paid up licenses to utilize the UNIX source code, including the right to sublicense that code.
Help fight continental drift.
Services for Unix comes with a lot GNU software. It will help users to use free software even in proprietary Windows environments, and it's a clear statement from Microsoft that distributing GPLed software is consistent even if you want to closely guard your IP rights.
Keep in mind that SFU is a two-edged sword. It can encourage UNIX-to-Windows migration, but it also can prepare future migration in the opposite direction: You can run major UNIX-only free software applications, without having to switch the operating system at once or administrate two servers instead of one. And switching the application is the hard part, the underlying operating system is unimportant as long as it does its job and can support the applications.
This is probably more important for the free software community than some random vendor announcing a "Linux" port of a product that is still proprietary software. After all, it's not a huge difference if you run the proprietary Windows kernel or a Linux kernel enhanced with proprietary drivers.
UNIX services for Windows have been available for free under the Cygwin moniker for a long time. I guess no one noticed, though...
Of course, now that Microsoft is making their own version, we can be sure that our UNIX apps won't run on Windows.
I had a rather bad experience with this. I was trying to build a portable "safe" copy utility - one that wouldn't overwrite a file if the source date was before the destination's. And guess what? Microsoft's implementation of the set_time (or whatever it was called...) doesn't work - it returns -1 every time. Hence, every time I copied a file, the original date/time stamp was replaced with the current date and time, making a 3-way safe merge of directories impossible.*
So yeah, now Microsoft is offering buggy copies of the original UNIX API's, which don't work as advertised. How long will it be before the rest of the UNIX community figures this out, and Microsoft fails yet again to gain any ground against UNIX and the enterprise market?
Microsoft fails to understand that certain types of customers aren't fooled by the smoke and mirror show they're doing. We can't afford to bet our careers on the promises of a convicted felon. If you can't prove it works and back it up in writing, we can't/won't buy your software. It's that simple.
* - Yeah, I suppose cygwin might have worked. But since it isn't part of our standard package, it wasn't an option at the time.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Right; it's just too bad they change the name from first version they were planning; SNAFU. It was meant to convey even more information about package itself; SFU is just a recommendation for communication protocol.
It's just another API. Windows 2000 and XP actually support more than one API. Their native API, and the one most programs are written for, is Win32. However they also ship with a simple POSIX and OS/2 layer which can be loaded on request. SFU just installs a better POSIX layer. But it's real enough, it talks to the executive just like Win32 does.
You can actually, in theory, add any API you want to Windows. Applications are written to the API, which then talks to the executive API, which is NT's low level kernel mode API.
This story is similar to what happened to VirtualPC. MicroSoft are starting to carry some useful technologies, really. Too bad I get this eerie feeling they will embrace and extend, attempting to assimilate some works of the Free world into their system. I might just be overly paranoid, but their track record warrants it.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
I didn't know about that meaning. The first thing that came to mind when I saw it was Simon Fraser University (in Vancouver BC).
well atm it is very easy to get apache running on win ( just a mattor of licking 'next') and apache is running as a service. I belive the configuration is prity much the same between *nix and win versions. So i dont c any benifit in running apache through a added copadability layer instead of the native binary, unless there r some majour differences in the code between the two versions (which i doubt). Cat
Not all companies resort to immoral tatics.. some just do 'their job' and are happy with that.
Sure, any company *can* become evil, but doesnt mean they will..
Some people sitll have their boundries.. even when it comes to profit.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
At least, not nearly as much as you imply.
Just because windows now has the basic POSIX functions does not mean Unix / Linux is going to have support for, say, Win32 dialog boxes, the windows specific "Load File" commands, or the DirectX API.
It may be of use to corporate apps that arent intended for an end user, but it wont really manage to help port gui dependant user apps, which is where windows really does have its death grip.
END COMMUNICATION
Do you really want Microsoft to have access to your already stable system?
I've got an MSDN subscription at my company, so I was installing and using SFU for awhile. Other posters have noticed that SFU's version of grep is slow, though, so I did a bit of research and I've taken to installing the Win32 ports of the GNU utilities also. There's a SourceForge project called UnixUtils that ships a bunch of them in either a zip file (unzip to %systemroot%\system32\) or as a binary installer. They work natively within cmd.exe, so there's no need to use a separate shell as SFU does.
It is missing a few things, but between grabbing SFU for its commands like ls and cp, and the unixutils package, you get the best of both worlds.
got standards? --- http://www.w3.org/
I found your post really interesting. I was first shocked and thought I was myself a zealot. Which was negative by what you are saying. But after the complete read of the thing I understood I was enough open minded to not be a zealot. Its all about being open minded.
Dont think linux is the solution to everything or at least explain the way it is or it should be.
Like you said, zealots are more into a "linux religion" than anything else.
Now, how would you call the people who makes propangada for linux to the end users, in the way to make the end users use linux when it will be as user friendly as ms windows?
Because i really think open source softwares should be used by everyone, but only if everyone can use them easily.
Of course the coders who makes it can't work on it without getting paid, they must live. Here comes the touchy part of it. Softwares have a big and real economy around the globe and using open-source-only apps, would totally erase this economy. Which is totally the oposed as the current capitalism ideology, where the political and financiery power is.
But here comes too the fact that wanting to much to make money on the technologies can easily slow down its evolution. Capitalism is all about that.
People wants money at a point that they dont give a fuck about anyone else and anything else. Is that what we really want for any human society? When we know that the american governement is mostly formed by people who only wants to stay rich without thinking about how the technology could advance and helps a majority of person.
How do you think universities can make so brilliant discoveries? They share their intellectual proprieties.
Too bad that our society (north american) does not even work the same way that our highest education level institutions does!
I'm surprised, as MKS had released a press release saying MS had licensed MKS technology for the Services for Unix product a couple years back. The ancient MKS may be faster than modern MKS, or that tool may be crippled unintentionally in SfU.
I've always preferred MKS even though it cost $$ to Cygwin, since the MKS path and environment re-exports to non-Gnu programs launched from ksh, not just to other Cygwin scirpts.
If enough of the MKS toolkit is bundled in a free SfU, and it's reasonably up to date, I might be tempted; even at $99, SfU is cheaper than full MKS Toolkit.
Does anyone know if the free SfU includes a [] Click here to enable DRM in the license ? I don't want that.
Anyway, back to the product... the picture on its box cleary tries to illustrate Unix as confusing and obfuscated. It looks like they've written some nonsensical script in ksh, which starts like this:
It's like they want us to say, "...yeah, I'm glad that we're moving away from this confusing UNIX stuff. Windows is so much easier."So now I can run awk and csh in Windows? Couldn't I already do that with cygwin?
I'm surprised that MS is giving this away. I imagine they are still paying a decent price to mks to license this code since WSFU is really a subset of the MKS Toolkit for windows.
Yeah, I know, this is really for the corporate environment, not for us hackers - but come to think of it, my point probably applies in the corporate environment, too.
And not only that, but "IBM" was never an acronymn , but an initialism.
Java is the blue pill
Choose the red pill
Make that free plus $699 SCO tax and manhandling.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
One day I tried the Cygwin/KDE3 project at SourceForge. It works fairly well. Using the "minimal" login script works best for me. Why bother? I like to use Konqueror for testing HTML output in addition to Firebird and the required IE6 browser.
Cygwin gives me a familiar command line and KDE gives me more applications (though not all work well -- for example, KMail doesn't work for me).
It helps to have a P4 3.06 GHz laptop with 1GB RAM...but then I'm running (simultaneously): MySQL 4 with 1.5 GB database for development testing, JBoss 3.2.3 with Tomcat, Apache 2, Apache JAMES, WinCVS, 3 multi-tab sessions of Firebird, 3 IE6 windows, cygwin with xinetd services deployed (mainly to run hotwayd to automatically download Hotmail email), TextPad with 80-90 commonly referenced files in my workspace, 3 session of VIM (one holding HOSTS for switching between local and internet access on demand), a few memory-grabbing sessions of Acrobat for different documentation I commonly refer to, Outlook 2000 with SpamBayes plugin to filter the junk from Hotmail and my slashdot@rjamestaylor.com address, Gaim for my various IM accounts and IRC locations, pagent to allow easy forwarding to various systems, VNC, OpenOffice.org launcher, ACT Sidekick, and, when needed, KDE with Konqueror. I've cut down; until recently I also ran IIS, SQL Server 2000, GreatPlains 7.1 and .NET Studio 2003 Enterprise.
Yesterday I started looking to max out the RAM at 2GB....Dell is selling the 1GB PC2700 333MHz DDR 200-pin SODIMMs (128x64) for about $670 a piece...anyone know of a better deal?
And a MySQL query just failed with "MySQL Client out of memory" ("select * from blobs"). *Sigh*
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
It's marketed as a means of migrating NIS users to AD, but it works even better for LDAP, with suitable libnss_ldap.conf and pam_ldap.conf files. The only previous solution was AD4UNIX which no longer seems to be maintained, and is flaky on later service packs. For us, having this for free is good news.
Jon
Does it have vi? Screw you, Emacs users. Light, powerful, efficient and easy to use, vi is clearly the editor that intelligent programmers use. Written in a much more powerful programming language than the obviously dying Emacs, vi is the editor of editors. I mean, c'mon, imagine Emacs running under CYGWIN on a Win box! That's like running three kludges at one time!
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
"Version 3.5 of Services for Unix will be free."
Except for the $150 worth of Windows you have to buy to run it, of course.
Chris Mattern
While I'n not completely against you here...a few points.
But here comes too the fact that wanting to much to make money on the technologies can easily slow down its evolution.
Not always true. In fact, probably false just as often. Money is incentive, incentive means competition, competition means a real drive to innovate and evolve. It doesn't always work that way, no. But enough that it's a definite good thing.
How do you think universities can make so brilliant discoveries?
Actually, it's by only paying their professors and giving them tenure if they do research. I was actually just talking to a would-be professor just last week about that very subject.
But, I do agree that society's too focused on material goods...such are the trappings of capitalism, though, which I support wholeheartedly. After all, without capitalism, how much would software matter? You think you'd have a PC in your home?
But in a lot of ways, exactly true!
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
No.
some people would be clamoring for an OSS alternative to Notepad
Both Vim and GNU Emacs have been ported to Microsoft Windows.
stupid lameness filter...
We all should know by now that this is just the good
ole bait and switch. Unix services for windows is not free until we get the code. Only by owning the code can one ensure that you will not get pimped by MS.
Got Code?
One question:
On a dual boot machine, can I see the other ext3/Reiser etc. partitions and mount them with these tools?
What about cygwin?
how are they going to get back the money the spent on licenses from sco if they are giving it away free?
now that's a business model.
Dave Scott, of Microsoft is talking about this tonight at the St. Louis Unix User's group.
His talk is entitled:
"Running UNIX Applications on Microsoft Operating Systems
by Dave Scott, Microsoft"
Here is the web site http://www.sluug.org
There is a location link on the main page. Starts at 6:30 or 7:00.
Ed
No disassemble number 5!
Slashdot is proof that Sturgeon's Law applies to mankind.
The GPLed code in question _must_ be available to the user, per the GPL. A particular person may charge you to give it to you, but they must give you the _source_. Therefore, the software is unleashed from any one master. That's a valid definition of "free", and the one in which most Free Software supporters are interested.
Not all OSes are the same, because some manage computers more efficiently, and most do so in differing and incompatible ways outside a small family of related OSes. A Yugo and a Porsche are both cars, but they are not the same. A farm tractor and a bicycle are even less the same.
Using an OS and changing the source are two different things. You don't have to have the source to use an OS. Having the source does, however, make it much easier to improve it or customize it. No, you don't have to be a programmer to want to make a change to your OS. You can hire someone who is a programmer to make the change for you. Again, this is not necessarily an economic freedom (as in free beer), but a freedom to do something (as in free speech).
Stallman (often referred to as RMS), founder of the free software Foundation, never asserted that a thing cannot be property of its creator. He merely stated that when the cost of making a duplicate of that thing is essentially nil (as in someone being allowed to redistribute the source for a program) that in the long run it is better for society if the author doesn't charge for the additional copies. The value of the work should be covered by the impetus to create it in the first place. If you need it, write it. If you are paid to write it, write it. Then the code was paid for, and additional copies, taking no resources to make, could cost nothing. The body of software available to everyone could then be multiplied by the number of such releases. There of course are people who think it's outright wrong to patent or copyright anything. There are also people who believe in Scientology.
You make many assumptions and generalizations which are unfair. One of them is that everyone who supports Linux is a zealot. Frankly, I don't care if you use Linux or not. I do support the efforts of those who choose to use it and develop it. It's a choice. After all, "free" is about choice.
Think 'unbound', not 'gratis'. Go ahead, call RMS a hippy. He doesn't care. You can call me what you will, too. You are free to do that.
I tested it out the other day when it came out, and the first thing I noticed through the installation was that it required you to either have a local /etc/passwd or /etc/group file *already* created, or you had to specify an NIS server to use. I just aborted the installation because I didnt have time to craft a passwd and group file by hand or copy one off some other machine and have it possibly be rejected by the installation script. I also noticed that specifying an empty file or one that did not exist the installation would complain and not go any further.
I dont know about anyone else, but I'll stick with Cygwin (http://www.cygwin.com) for now or until they get their act together and write a cleaner install script.
I dont know if anyone else noticed .,but the banner ad on this article is the same annoucement and link back to microsoft for download...
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Why are people all excited about this, say things like "gee, Microsoft is finally feeling the heat from Linux"? This is nothing more than a Linux-to-Windows migration tool!
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Dave Korn gave a talk a few years back at Usenix about Cygwin's security, and it doesn't seem to have changed from the "big global common" model.
Interix is something I have been following and using for some time now, and it is based on the POSIX subsystem... the company that developed it licensed the POSIX subsystem code from Microsoft and basically fixed it. It doesn't run under Win32, though you can call into Win32 from it. And it gives real UNIX file system semantics on NTFS including "lazy locking".
It's MUCH easier to port code to, and you don't have to care that there's NT somewhere under the hood most of the time.
One of my complaints about Windows for years is that it has no equivalent for many of the tools we take for granted under various flavors of Unix. It isn't that the don't exist, but you can safely assume that any Windows box you walk up to won't have compilers, make, etc. That makes distributing source targetted at Windows as well as Unices difficult. Having this available for a free download means that we can write code that is targetted at something Joe User can download and install.
BillG: Great! It looks like we have another winner on our hands. People sure do want that Unix stuff. Oh, wait...
SFU PM: erm...
BillG: You're fired.
I would imagine that unlike cygwin, the average user would be able to install MS SFU and have the slightest fucking clue what was going on during the installation progress.
Sorry, pet peeve of mine ;)
I've used both, SFU more extensively than Cygwin, though. SFU's NFS stuff is flaky. That's just the bottom line. I would much rather export shares to Windows clients with Samba than NFS. (I suppose it doesn't help that I'm not a big fan of NFS, either, but that's just full disclosure. It's the only thing I've seen that can reliably lock up a *nix machine. Now, of course, there are circumstances where you want this, but usually not.) Also, if you want all the features of their command line, you'll have to switch your Windows machine into a case-sensitive mode. It made me nervous to change something so fundamental to Windows. Maybe they'll fix that in this upcoming version; I dunno. On the other hand, using Cygwin is nice, but it's like a big tease. Most of it works like you want. It's just that if you're used to using Linux and ALL of it's tools, you're going to hit the wall pretty quick. (I just ran into this a couple weeks ago, and I've already forgotten what it was I was wanting.)
Acts 17:28, "For in Him we live, and move, and have our being."
Argh. I bet you were one of these people too:
:) :-)
<joe> Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side
<dave> ROFL!!!!!11
<SonicBurst> Sorry I dont understand what you mean dave, what is ""rofl"" ? Although it does bear a passing resemblance to another acronym I know, "ROTFL" (Rolling on THE floor laughing), is it something similar?
<dave> yeah
<SonicBurst> What???
"It looks like the next volley has been fired in the struggle between Windows and Linux."
Or maybe more like a peace offering.
Access Other People's NFS Home Directory HOWTO
Thanks a lot! I actually burst out laughing when I read that. My girlfriend wanted to see what I was laughing at. After seeing your post, her comment to me was "Gee, you ARE boring!"
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
You have to read 3/4 of the MS whitepaper for this product before it spells it out. For enterprise-wide single-login support they advocate the use of a NIS server. The NIS server needs to run Windows Server of course. SaMBa might not be perfect but it does run as a primary domain controller for a Windows network.
http://download.microsoft.com/download/6/9/0/69096 da8-c88c-40b5-a4f1-5fd0847f9435/SFU35BETA_EN.exe
NFS/Samba works just fine for me w/o Bill's bad code.
Microsoft was very smart... They're offering it for free which is a positive move for everyone assuming the EULA is sane.
However, they're also making it incompatible with 9x and XP Home meaning that all of the geek hobbyists on here who have a mix of *nix and windows machines and wanted to use it from home might need to upgrade their windows os to use them.
Microsoft's Site on 3.5 beta
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
I have 3 windoze boxes on my network atm. My daughter has one, my wife the other - both their primary work/play stations, and I have a juiced up P4 as my game box (that is all it does - the only thing running on it is 'systray', and whatever game I happen to be playing, most likely WWIIonline)
I have 3 other machines that are all Linux machines (Redhat - soon to be Debian file server, Debian workstation, and a Slackware network analysis machine).
I've played with Cygwin, Hummingbird etc. over the years - and found the emulation of the unix environment Kludgey, and not transparent enough for my tastes.
Basically I wanted a bash compliant shell that was transparent enough to run the standard set of unix CLI tools (ls, ps, grep, df etc...) - but also allow me to kick off native windows and dos applications without switching modes of operation (i.e. type in the path and have it run the application). I did not need to be able to compile binaries - my main purpose for this tool would be to write utility scripts for system administration on the boxes. I wouldn't need remote access (although I might implement that as a seperate capability with freely available tools if needed - outside the scope of my project).
Then a thought hit me - why not implement this in python? I already have python loaded on most of my windows machines - why not make it universal? Python would serve as the abstraction layer I needed - and provide a built-in scripting capability to boot. All of the unix tools will be implemented in python either as built-ins or as seperate '.py' scripts.
Additional functionality - such as 'crontabs' would need to be implemented, as well (haven't worked out the details of that yet).
Ideally, you would drop python and this package on the windows box -- and presto! Instant CLI... And the nice thing about it is that it would be using native windows APIs - so would be faster than some of the emulators that attempt to be a complete source compliant emulation environment.
I haven't seen any drawbacks, yet. The cron functionality might be a bit of an issue - but it doesn't look insurmountable.
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
The article and a few of the posters are indicating that this will increase MS marketshare by allowing interoperability in UNIX environments... if I read them right. I don't understand how MS could greatly benefit from greater interoperability. Windows is usually picked for 2 reasons... 1. It's easy to use and everyone knows how and 2. saturation; you crap won't work with anything but Windows.
It seems that increased interoperability would steal far more people who have been avoiding the switch to *x because of interop issues than the UNIX people that can't figure out how to play well with Windows. Seriously... how many times have you heard "Damnit, we'd sure be switching to Windows if it weren't for all of these UNIX boxen we already have."
LilMikey.com... I'll stop doing it when you sto
Damn...I'm running apache now, but I can't seem to find mod_spacestation. Do I have to compile it separately?
So my Linux apps will now seamlessly port to Windows? Great! Nobody will ever need to develop for Win32 again!
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?Fa milyID=019139c0-16ff-4de5-bba3-7e2515f0f7a9&Displa yLang=en
Can be found from Interix. You can change the crappy KSH to Bash and get a nice build system up and going in no time. I normally use Cygwin but I'm going to give this a try, even if it isn't GPL'd.
I have UNIX Services 3.0 and I personally love it. I was NT-only until 4 years ago when I started adopting UNIX/Linux, and now I routinely use vi instead of notepad, just out of habit. Things like pwd are small utilities, but really useful when I need it.
I use the NFS feature to mount my W2K box to NFS mounts. That part is simple.
I also mount from Linux to NT. If you give the NT share anonymous, read-only access, then it's simple. If you want more refined security, then it gets more complicated.
You need to do mapping between NT usernames and UNIX user names via a User Name Mapping proxy. I'm sure it works well, but it's kind of hard to understand how to use, and after 30 minutes, I gave up and made the shares from NT anonymous read-only access.
I'm sure if I spent maybe 2 hours on this I could get everything to work, but since this is my home network and I don't have a whole lot of user accounts, I figured I didn't need it.
Now I don't have to run samba just so I can look at the pr0n on my fileserver from my work laptop at home.
This is the first line in the Overview of the product on MS' website: "Before you continue, it is important to understand that the Beta release of any product will not display the stability of a shipped Microsoft product." I'm not sure how to take that....
Anonymous Cowards suck.
The thing I miss most when forced to sit at a
windows box is an x-server.
In Soviet Russia, YOU bore good-or-whack trolls.
Wow, English is not your first language is it?
Ya know you can get a whole lot of awesome OpenSource tools to work with SFU on Win2k3! http://www.interopsystems.com/tools/warehouse.htm Apache Version 1.3.27 for Interix ftp.interopsystems.com/src/apache/1.3/ binary: /pkgs/3.0eng/apache-1.3.27-bin.tgz
Updated: 2002-09-30 This is the popular Apache open source HTTP server. (more)
Apache Version 2.0.44 for Interix
ftp.interopsystems.com/src/apache/2.0/
binary: /pkgs/3.0eng/httpd_2.0.44-bin.tgz
Updated: 2002-02-16 This is version 2.0 of the Apache open source HTTP server. (more)
autoconf Version 2.56 for Interix
ftp.interopsystems.com/src/autoconf/
Updated: 2002-11-18 Autoconf is an extensible package of M4 macros that produce shell
scripts to automatically configure software source code packages. Download m4-gnu first. (more)
automake Version 1.7.1 for Interix
ftp.interopsystems.com/src/automake/
Updated: 2002-11-22 This is Automake, a Makefile generator. It was inspired by the 4.4BSD 'make' and 'include' files, but aims to be portable and to conform to the GNU standards for Makefile variables and targets. (more)
atk Version 1.2.2 for Interix
ftp.interopsystems.com/src/atk/
binary: /pkgs/3.0eng/atk-1.2.2-bin.tgz
Updated: 2003-02-25 This is the GNOME Accessibility Toolkit and libraries. (more)
awk Version 20021213 for Interix
ftp.interopsystems.com/src/awk/
binary: /pkgs/3.0eng/awk-2.12.13-bin.tgz
Updated: 2003-01-03 This is awk as described in "The AWK Programming Language", by Al Aho, Brian Kernighan, and Peter Weinberger (Addison-Wesley, 1988). It contains fixes to the version of awk that ships with SFU 3.0. (more)
bash Version 2.05b for Interix
ftp.interopsystems.com/src/bash/
binary: /pkgs/3.0eng/bash-2.05.2-bin.tgz
Updated: 2003-02-25 This is GNU Bash--the GNU Project's Bourne Again SHell, a complete implementation of the POSIX.2 shell spec, plus many other features. (more)
bdes Version 1.0 for Interix
ftp.interopsystems.com/src/bdes/
binary: /pkgs/3.0eng/bdes-1.0-bin.tgz
Updated: 2003-01-03 BDES is a utility for encrypting and decrypting bytes using the
DES (Data Encryption Standard). (more)
bison Version 1.35 for Interix
ftp.interopsystems.com/src/bison/
binary: /pkgs/3.0eng/bison-1.875-bin.tgz
Updated: 2002-08-01 This is the YACC-compatible parser generator. (more)
bison Version 1.24 for Win32
ftp.interopsystems.com/Win32/bison/
Updated: 2003-1-15 This is a Win32 version of bison (see above). (more)
BSD Pkg Version 1.1 for Interix
ftp.interopsystems.com/src/bsd_pkg/
Updated: 2003-03-26 BSD Pkg is a software packaging tool from the BSD group of Operating Systems. It is divided into utilities for creating, adding, deleting, querying and signing packages. Included is a Tcl/Tk program that provides a graphical interface that is useful once a package is created. (more)
bzip Version 2-1.0.2 for Interix
ftp.interopsystems.com/src/bzip/
binary: /pkgs/3.0eng/bzip2-1.0.2-bin.tgz
Updated: 2002-08-01 This is bzip2, a block-sorting file compressor. (more)
caesar Version 1.0 for Interix
ftp.interopsystems.com/src/caesar/
binary: /pkgs/3.0eng/caesar-1.0-bin.tgz
Updated: 2003-01-03 Caesar is a utility for decrypting caesar cyphers (rotations). This is the utility often used to perform "rot13" for newsgroups. (more)
catman Version 1.0 for Interix
ftp.interopsystems.com/src/catman/
binary: /pkgs/3.0eng/catman-1.2-bin.tgz
Updated: 2002-08-07 Catman is a script used to translate a large number of raw man pages to their "cat" form so that the Interix 'man' utility will find and output them. (man -k will work too.) (more)
chcase Version 1.0 for Interix
ftp.interopsystems.com/src/chcase/
binary: /pkgs/3.0eng/chcase-1.0-bin.tgz
Updated: 2003-02-11 Chcase was written as a helper utility when dealing with Win32 filenames. By default the utility acts as if the '-l' option has been given. It accepts one filename and converts that name into low
Am I the only one that thinks MS needs to rename this product. Lets think about it Windows Services for Unix, doesnt that sound like it should be samba.. or something that runs on a unix machine that provides windows services? Really the kit should be called Unix Services for Windows, that makes it sounds like what it is nfs and the rest of posix that windows is missing. The only way it makes sense with their wording is Windows: Services for Unix, but that requires punctuation that everyone has seen fit to drop
Subj.
...
One only has to take a step back for a second and realise whats possibly going on here.
Remember when Microsoft renewed its license to SCO for Unix?
I am curious to know if they are now giving it away for free because they don't want to be the company that provides licensing royalties to SCO, or at least keep them to a bare minimum.
Perhaps the side effects of SCO's legal action is free microsoft software. Who knows.....
They should just call it Windex instead Unix Services for Windows, and then they should release all their source code, contribute to the OSDL Linux defence fund against SCO and hire Richard Stallman
sucks to be them.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I FEEL YOUR PAIN MY BROTHER!
Wow, a lucrative publishing contract! I don't have to be evil anymore. --Meteor
I thought it meant Shit For UNIX...
Given Microsoft's attitude, and all.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Think you have it bass ackwards...
or smussed up...
STFU or Shut The F*** Up
but still funny just the same.
SFU
Microsoft SFU (system's fool Unix) - kinda like fool's gold I suppose.
(cringe!) I hate it when people mention "production" and "sendmail" in the same breath.
We criticize businessmen who ignore security concerns and stick with Windows because it's what they know.
Then we stick with sendmail and bind for precisely the same reason.
There is NO REASON to run sendmail. Not when qmail, and courier, and postfix, and exim, and Zmailer, and just about any other smtp server written in the last ten years, all have it beat for features, performance, and security.
Ditto for bind and djbdns/powerdns/etc.
The Web is like Usenet, but
the elephants are untrained.
...do you think there is enough of the API to get PostgreSQL to run under this without Cygwin? Maybe RedHat is wondering too?
"This is the taco hour on K.U.N.T. radio."
I wouldn't be surprised if they offer this for free, get people in mixed UNIX/Windows environments to begin adopting it, then make it incompatible with a future version of Windows, requiring a fee for an 'updated' version. Another scenario is that they just break its compatibility with future versions of Windows altogether, and offer no upgrade path, free or not.
This almost looks like the beginning of their buy another company's technology to destroy it tactic. This phase is where they deem the software mostly irrelevant (because Windows is supposedly superior) then abandon it. Dragging the whole process out a few years makes it look less evil. Won't be surprised if something similar happens to VPC for Mac in a couple years.
My question because I use Cygwin at lot at work is can Cygwin embrace and extend (assimilate) this to speed up some of its core functionality?
Cygwin always had to use its own dll to emulate functionality, but now it has another path directly the core...
209MB to download this? Holy cow. By the time the download is finished, I could have installed Samba and considered ways of rewriting it!
I would guess that the majority of users are running linux on here but 50% or so have some version of windows they use to play games or let the rest of their families use etc.
My copy of windows is legit.
Disclaimer: These numbers are pulled out of my butt.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
We've been using SFU 3.0 and its predecessor for 5 years now to provide our Database Engine and Tools on Windows Boxes as well as our usual Solaris, AIX, Linux, Unixware and SGI. I woudl like to think that by now I am one of the more experienced Interix developers kicking round. I have to say, It's really very good and keeps getting better. MS are moving to being Unix by stealth, SFU is a unix on the NT Microkernal and it doesnt suffer from Win32 issues. Fork works, You can delete a file thats in use (yes inodes work !!), create a new one with the same name and open that in a different process. I've seen Interix 2.0 evolve info SFU 3.0 and 3.5 and I've had MS fix bugs in the allocator part of MMAP within days and release a private patch. Somehow I think there is a little group of diehard Unix lovers in MS working to turn everything on its head the same way Apple got OSX. Anyway waffle over - Try it as a build environment it's geat. What I want to see is Wine on SFU - then All windows apps work over X - whoopee.
I didn't need that first born child anyway!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Everyone is acting like these services are new? I remember them from years and years ago. They weren't free, but you could always find them with a couple of clicks on google or yahoo.
I don't think that Microsoft is really acknowledging Linux... when was the last time that you mounted your ext2/3 under windows?
And seems like cheap options have long been available DOS/Windows NFS clients for a long time. In 1994, this summary mentions XFS (shareware NFS client from Germany, not the SGI filesystem) TSoft and Sun's PC-NFS.
Nowdays you also have at least these option, and you are right, many are not cheap.
- HummingBird $300 My past impressions were always of good quality and features.
- Reflection $88 I know this name.
- ProNFS $40 (shareware?)
- DiskAccess $179
- SuperNFS $160 Found with google.
I only heard of the first two. The rest found with Goggle.I went to the microsoft site to download this thing but it's only beta. The real deal still cost $99, so the question is WHEN WILL IT BE FREE? Microsoft SFU download
Say I want to write an X11 server. Can the POSIX API speak to GDI, the Windows graphics layer? Or can only Win32 do that?
Netscape. At least, that's what they're hoping to repeat. Of course, this time, it's not a particular company with assets that they wish to defeat.
// file: mice.h
#include "frickin_lasers.h"
I use NFS under Linux for /home mounts and such and have found it to be extremely reliable in over five years of daily use, but NFS won't let go of removeable drives, so it doesn't work well for sharing automounted CD-ROM, floppy, or zip drives. For those, Samba is the way to go, and with pre/postexec settings, Samba will automatically mount/umount the drives so autofs is not needed on the server side.
It's not entirely a misnomer if there's an NFS server in it. (I'm still downloading it, haven't tried it yet.)
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
Yeh this is quite OK as far as I've used it. According to the search for downloads I've done this is a beta (see below). i wonder if the "free" will change with the "prod" version.
Also whats interesting is that the viral/pakman nature of the GPL can't be scaring Bill that much as it includes GPL'd software. Perhaps it comes with a warning.
Search Results for "sfu 3.5"
Category: All | Product/Technology: All
1 results found, 1-1 shown below. Sorted by Popularity.
1.
Windows Services for UNIX Version 3.5 Beta
This download is a self-extracting archive of the beta copy of the Windows Services for UNIX 3.5 product.
Date: 7/27/2003 Popularity: #367 English download
#include "/dev/tty"
Isn't SFU Stupid FuXing User?
Badass Resumes
As an example, you can change all registry entries pointing to a user's home directory by running
A Usenix technical conference paper describes the tools and a number of applications.#include "/dev/tty"
http://www.doxpara.com/apps/cdcygssh/
/bin/bash --login -i ...can do to your unix experience. Look, ma. Windows has a shell :-)
Go there in IE.
It's amazing what:
C:\cygwin\bin\rxvt.exe -sl 20000 -rv -fn "Lucida Console-10" -e
--Dan
Finally a good example of "Free as in beer".
Been looking all over for that.
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
I would perfer to be exclusively Linux but I have software packages that require windows and Wine just doesn't cut it.
REad there is a lot of cool development going on in OpenSource and it is hard to backport to Windows. We must make this easy so there is less reason to move to Linux.
Personally I love the idea. I have to break nice clean C code all the time to make it compile on Windows again. I wonder if they implemented file locking in POSIX manner?
By offering this derivative work of SCO's IP free of charge, Microsoft are deliberately undermining the value of all Unix licensees' products. Any bets on whether Darl & co will start threatening the Borg?
Are you high?
NTFS has much finer grained permissions than rwx.
And how many Unix systems have ACLs with [b]dynamic[/b] inheritance?
Pfft. Unix features my left nut.
Opportunity knocks. Karma hunts you down.
So to those who are working with User Mode Linux (UML) - would this make getting User Mode Linux under Win32 easier to accomplish?
Now those who want to run obsolete print servers like LPR, but can't find a UNIX system that uses it, can finally run it under Windows!
Actually, this would be GREAT in terms of administration and linux migration.
/etc/smb.conf files until one day you reimage all the member servers and BDCs to Linux/SAMBA and restore the configs. It would be a bit more involved, but MUCH safer than just commandeering existing hardware and putting Linux on it.
You cold slowly move services to SAMBA-on-Windows, carefully saving your
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
SFU is lame.
I've tried ver 1 & 2.
Incredably poor doc on the NFS stuff
(see the intergraph NFS doc, it better {M$ NFS is
a warmed over version of intergraph NFS])
The commands stuff was a trial version of MKS,
get cygwin instead, much more stuff, lower cost, and if you needs changes you don't have to deal
with a company whose objectives don't match yours
[ie. they won't make your enhancements]
It is certainly interesting that they are using MKS. The difference may be attributable to the command line argument passing. For example, doing the following literally creates a command line of several thousand parameters in my environment:
grep SOMETHING */*/*.cpp
As someone else said, no one's perfect. Doing the above literally in Linux actually causes bash to fail with too many arguments. However, Linux also has a recursive option that makes it much faster because the files do not have to be passed literally on the command line.
Whether the extra time taken by SfU is in the actual grep program, or breaking down the globular expressions for parsing, I don't know. But I do know that what I was doing with MKS became much longer with SfU.
But, does it come with ed, the standard text editor?
ed, man! !man ed?
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
Microsoft's NFS server doesn't support changing the owner of a file to a numeric UID. We spent close to a thousand dollars in support calls before they finally admitted to that. This makes Microsoft's NFS server useless for most environments, because there is no easy way to sync-up the passwd file from the UNIX machine to the NT server. Unless you have a trivial # of users or accounts that don't often change (uhhh, does anyone not have a large turn-over now?), it's very hard to use the NT server as an NFS server. Once again Microsoft screws-up the simple things. I wasted two weeks of my life dealing with that garbage.
They should be a good evil company and stop selling windows, cashout all their money to the stockholders and die!!!
Microsoft is reminding me of a heroin dealer more and more.
.Nyet. I can guarantee that it will not be that 3 years from now. (Or it will not be compatible.) They have to have something to keep you buying the latest version. Developers get led by the nose just like anyone else in the Windows world.
"The first one is free."
I suggest that anyone who is planning on moving apps to Microsoft check on how much all those additional licenses will cost you. Microsoft is the master of the hidden cost. "Client Access Licenses" for every service you want to use eventually adds up to a big chunk of change.
And then there is the shifting nature of development in the Windows world. Every year or two it is a different set of prefered developer technologies that you are expected to use. This year it is
Anyone who ports applications over to Windows either has a fool for a client or is a fool himself.
"Trademarks are the heraldry of the new feudalism."
LOL - truly great humour! Not a lot of things make me laugh, but this comment truly did.
Or use BSD code, appearantly.
Stupid like a fox!
Anyway, it's still better than the Critical Update Notification Tool.
As opposed to the Super Highway Information Tool?
The best UNIX tools I've used for windows is UWIN, from AT&T. It's written by David Korn, of ksh fame. It does really well with the subtleties of UNIX semantics that Cygwin and MS miss. It's not free unless you're in research/academia, but well worth the money.
See Bill's open letter to hobbyists
Can MS afford to do professional work for nothing?
How can MS put X-man years into programming, finding all bugs, documenting the product and distribute for free?
"IT'S A COOKBOOK!!!!!!!!"
(This is partially to wonder how many people remember the Twilight Zone reference, partly to defeat the lameness filter).
I thought you could get just the command-line compiler (.net era) for free.?
I thought that the compiler that Microsoft has made available at no charge understood only the C# language. Do you claim that somebody has rewritten the MySQL database engine in C#?
And there is always GCC.
There exist two popular GCC distributions for Microsoft Windows operating systems: Cygwin and MinGW. (MinGW is GCC that uses Microsoft Visual C++'s C runtime library.) I wrote my comment in the context of Chanc_Gorkon's belief that people who port MySQL to Cygwin waste their time. Or do you claim that the port of MySQL to MSVC compiles cleanly in MinGW?
Aside from the kewl factor, it would be incredibly useful for me since I could run Linux at near native speeds side by side with Windows on my laptop - download a Debian image configured to run X / vnc and away I'd go.
I imagine it would even make a fantastic 1-click to run demo to distribute on CDs and so forth.
yeah, but is the source of the package which microsoft releasing available, including all mods?
thats what i want to know. clearly, if its 95% openbsd, then theres 5% other stuff, and i want to see that.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
One of the Neatist features of SFU 3.0 was that when you changed your win2k domain password you could also pass the password change to NIS/NIS+
However SFU 3.0 did not support LDAP for passwd replication.
I'm crossing my fingers that SFU3.5 will support LDAP password sync.
XX
My favorite light editor:
http://uemacs.tripod.com/nojavasc.html
Heck, I used to run it on a 64K, 8bit machine. Sure beat ed.
- dave f.
By the size of things, maybe there putting a whole linux distro in there!
File Name:
SFU35BETA_EN.exe
Download Size:
214772 KB
Date Published:
7/27/2003
Version:
3.5
How about... Eat fascist death flaming media pigs!
But that's just me. I mean, it's hardly rational. But since you asked...
My other car is a 1984 Nark Avenger.
Easier to read, but much harder to type in.
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
... I have only two comments to make:
-MS should stop those un-American activities and remember the "viral" and malevolent nature of this license which will kill the software industry.
-I would not get involved with a convicted peddler of sub-standard software, no matter how many sweets he offers new prospective victims.
Oh, yes, allow me a third: hypocrates, good to see they are using GNU software and eating, slowly and one by one, all their food, I mean FUD. It is up to us, tehcnical literati, to make this point as often as possible to non technical people. If MS is embracing FLOSS, why should not my company, firends, grandma not do the same?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I really thought this meant:
Stupid f#*king user
Does anyone else here see potential to "un"-port a huge number of *NIX applications from the Win32 APIs?
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
NFS shares show up under the network neighborhood, and you can mount them to a directory or drive letter just like you can SMB shares.
(Score:5, ffunny)
IDEs are the single thing that microsoft got RIGHT.
In fact, microsoft usually does a great job of buying^w developing third party software; it's their operating systems that you have to beware of.
But their IDEs are fine, much better than any of the alternatives (note: anyone who suggests VI is an macho idiot who cannot be trusted, emacs is functional but still fairly shitt. Come out of the the 1980's, guys.).
Embrace and extend... Unix.
Sorry, forgot to sign!
~Morosoph
Think about it.
Microsoft releases an NFS server for windows. Everybody starts using it. People stop paying attention to Samba. Some people stop working on Samba. Samba starts to lag behind Microsoft's SMB.
Then, Microsoft releases Windows 2005, and drops support for their NFS server. All the Unix people scramble at their lack of recent Samba development. Managers get pissed. Heads roll. Microsoft wins again.
(this message brought you by the illuminatus)
The Right Reverend K. Reid Wightman,
He's probably a bin MINIX fan and didn't want to leave it out!
Otherwise, why would anyone go to the trouble of writing a semi-complex regex in place of text? It couldn't possibly be for geek points...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I've used NFS in work environments with Linux for 10 years. It never really worked that well. NFS gets very unhappy if the network happens to have any congestion at all. And 1.2 to 2.0 kernels hang badly when there are NFS problems. 2.2 to 2.4 just hang your process indefinently. Although lazy umounts help a great deal:
/your/mount/point
:(
umount -l
and then you have a chance at killing some of the tasks that are blocked in system calls. (not always though).
QNX handles NFS much more cleanly than Linux btw. Of course QNX has so many other problems that it's not worth installing just to fix NFS.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
I was almost half wondering if they didn't release it for free to compete with OS X which gives away a real shell with every box!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Am I the only one who, at first glance, saw STFU? As in what is sometimes offered in a nice, big cup? It gave me a bit of a start when I saw that . . .
This deal has been offered since October 2003 from http://www.microsoft.com/windows/sfu/unixproresour ces/freesfu30.asp. It is not free -- the shipping comes to about $11. Very, very old news !
NFS on Windows clients is a poor proposition.
1: Linear increase in administrative effort with increasing numbers of clients. It has to be installed, configured and managed on each client system. Samba only has to be installed and configured once on the server.
2: UID mapping to Windows accounts is an extra layer of administration. NFS uses integers to define the user ID, Windows uses some weird hashing function.
3: Security: IP based security and UID numbering don't work particularly well with Windows networks, you don't really want your NFS clients on DHCP and you need to be able to guarantee that users can't modify UID mappings.
I've been there and done the Windows NFS thing and Samba is easily the better option.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Anything they can do to make it easier for you to replace linux with one of their products is the wedge in the door to convert you lock stock and barrel.
You put this on, recompile your linux/unix app and run it. Makes the barrier they have to get over to convert you lower. Now that you have that MS machine there, are you going to write more linux/unix apps for it? No, you will probably buy MS tools and write native.
emt 377 emt 4
Yeah... it is definately in your best interest to not neglect that.
Hold it, hold it. Let me get this straight: Microsoft is distributing code under the GPL license??!??!
The same licence they have been warning businesses about? The one they told the their customers, and the world, "We recommend you obtain counsel from your lawyer" before using?
The licence they called "viral?" The one they warned could "infect" your code?
"Have you considered the risk that GPL code might infringe on third party intellectual property rights?" Isn't that what they asked? Couldn't "the author of a GPL program unilaterally withdraw your right to distribute the program?" Weren't they so, so, worried about all this before? It's all in their GPL analysis FAQ.
I don't know if this is the first time they have distributed code under the GPL or not. In any case this shocks me. How could Microsoft be so irresponsible as to expose their customers to a licence that could lead them to disaster? And if it did, couldn't the customers hold Microsoft financially accountable? Why would they take such a risk?
It almost makes you think that Microsoft wasn't being honest when they said those things about the GPL... that they were simply trying to frighten people from what they knew, in fact, to be a very good, safe licence for their customers.
But that couldn't be... could it?
Here's where you bump your head: if your sending process is a windowed app with a message pump, and your receiving app is a straight console tool without a message pump, then you need an intermediate app which both has a console and a message pump window, hidden from the user, to receive the signal request from one and to (re)send it to the other.
That's because you can send a signal to a console app, but it will have no effect unless the sending app is also a console app. Neat, huh?
There are plenty of other, similar difficulties. Given that these really are architectural problems due to fundamentally different underlying OS design decisions, I bet the unix layer has lots of infuriating quirks which make the POSIX interface look like it's all working, but only delivers 60%.
Anyway, given the well known problems with NFS in general, it's hard to see how they'll be able to fuck that up even more. So I guess that'll work as expected, although I'm open minded ;-)
On the Services for UNIX homepage it says prominently in the upper right corner: "SFU 3.0 captures Open Source Product Excellence Award at LinuxWorld", complete with a LinuxWorld logo. This must surely win the irony of the year award...
You need to register and get it in a few weeks by mail.
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
I'm currently exporting a few directories with samba. What are the (dis)?advantages of switching to SFU?
Can I expect a speed increase? At least NFS can run on non-standard ports, letting me access it remotely more easily.
"Smoking helps you lose weight - one lung at a time" -- A. E. Neumann
This move by MS may draw or keep customers in the short term, but it may also be a bridge for migration to *NIX systems in the long run. My reasoning is that, once customers integrate *NIX components into their Windows environment (using the tools provided by MS), they are only firming their dependency on *NIX, so the next logical step for many would be to completely migrate away from Windows-based products.
Are MS shooting themselves in the foot?
The 5% other stuff is from cygwin (stuff like glibc, gcc, you get the drift). Basically all the core development stuff you need.
You'd be better of with cygwin.
OK, It's now Thursday morning at 8:30 on the East Coast. Where's my free stuff? When are those lazy West Coast hippies going to get up and give me my free stuff?
I think Microsoft is getting scared of Mac OS X. OS X has been getting a lot of good press lately. One of the reasons people are using OS X is it has a great desktop but it has UNIX underpinnings that allow the use of UNIX tools/software and a UNIX development environment.
OS X also has the ability to "talk" to many different systems, providing SFU gives Windows more of that than they had.
I don't think Microsoft views Linux as a desktop threat (maybe in the future), it is a _current_ server threat. OS X presents a challenge to Windows on the desktop, that is Microsoft's home turf.
Maybe they do listen sometimes
Yes this does mean that with this you can connect using file:// to get you files with this addon.
This doesn't mean that I am giving up the LInux workstation I am typing this on. My Linux workstation is still the best email virus control I've found and I just plain like it. This does mean I can get my files off of the Winders file server without using Samba of FTP! YEA!
UGH! Will not work on WinXP Home. Must be either XP Pro, Win2000 Server or Pro, or Server 2003. WTF? Why not make it available for XP Home as well?
You know, the scary part is that yeah, I would say "IT'S ROTFL DAMN IT!", but I'm just anal. ;)
Geek used to be a four letter word. Now it's a six-figure one.