Slashdot Mirror
Windows Services For Unix Now Free Of Charge
pole writes "Version 3.5 of Services for Unix will be free. Previously, it was $99. This article at Information Week has the details. It contains an NFS client and server in addition to POSIX libraries and utilities including pthreads. Aside from the NFS utilities, how does the environment compare to Cygwin?" An anonymous reader adds links to coverage at News.com and at geek.com, writing "The reviews for these tools have been highly favorable. It looks like the next volley has been fired in the struggle between Windows and Linux."
Let's make this simple for simple people like me. Does this mean in a week I can go to Microsoft's website, download a .exe file, run it, and be able to mount NFS partitions off my linux file server? I could ditch samba? Yes no?
slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
Something like this happen could mean that Microsoft is starting to have a slight change of heart about the presence of Linux/UNIX. Having this available for free could be great boon to people who have to run Linux alongside M$ - 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
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. --
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
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
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
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...
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.
Would be fun to check out the NFS client - it's a much cleaner protocol than SMB.
Actually, in spite of comments below, I consider this an acquiescence on Microsoft's part that their customers really do want many of the features present in Unix-like systems that are not found in Windows systems. Naturally, Microsoft would never admit this, but I find it difficult to interpret any other way.
My biggest complaint about Microsoft products has always been the inherent insecurity of blindly executing code (whether it be macros in a spreadsheet, or an actual executable in an email message). But this product addresses a lot of my 2nd biggest complaint about them: lack of scriptability (i.e., hands-off operation).
The sad thing is, most Windows users have absolutely no concept of how useful this is -- until they are forced to use a Unix-like system. Then, when they see how powerful it can be, and go back to their Windows systems, they claim "Oh, Windows doesn't need that: all the apps just do the right thing when I drag&drop."
So sad....
RHCE; are you certified? Karma: ambiguous.
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 ----
Several people complained about Cygwin, but yours was the first to articulate a problem - lack of integration with the Windows environment.
.bashrc in the normal way.
... \Desktop and so on.
... I suppose if I wanted to do this I'd use Visual Studio.
For me, this was not an issue. I installed the complete system, started X11 and some Xterms, and live happily as if I were on a Linux system. The file structures, home directories, and password files were created properly and automatically by the installation. bash profiles went into
It is true that from windows you have to know to navigate to c:\cygwin\home to find the home directories, and from cygwin you have to know the arcane Windows pathnames like c:\Documents and Settings\
There are also Windowing system wars. I am happy enough using the Windows Window managaer (with the Power Toys setup to give me follow focus). From Cygwin I use some X11 apps (like xv, xterm) and also some Win32 apps (gsview, Word, etc.). I never try to compile Win32 apps from source
Anyway, I'm not entirely sure what I'd like Cygwin to do differently. But that's because I'm a *nix user grudgingly forced into the Windows world, not a Windows user. So all the stuff that people whose mother tongue is Windows find familiar, I find strange.
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.
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.
Like many large companies, the left hand of Microsoft often has no idea what the right hand is doing. Microsoft are even actively funding GPL code - see http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/Research/SRG/netos/xen/ - the Xen virtual machine monitor.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
The irony is that there would be a demand for this. Imagine if you have a windows box that you'd like to share a directory on with more than 5 people. Workstation versions of windows are crippled, and server versions make you pay per connection. Samba would let you share it with everyone, without setting up a dedicated server.
Obviously I'd just set up a linux box - but if you made a freeware program which you could download which would allow you to share a folder with an indefinite number of users, you'd get a lot of downloads.