MS should take the source code of an older version of Windows NT that they no longer support (I'm thinking specifically Windows NT 3.51, since that was the version before MS integrated the GDI into the kernel), and RELEASE the source code for it..
That includes the tools used to compile the source code itself, so you get not only an older version of Windows NT, but also an older version of the C\C++ compiler used to compile the code itself.
Well, I stand corrected. I haven't done any porting between versions of UNIX and Linux, so I wouldn't know.
It still doesn't change the fact that being able to install and run Linux on commodity hardware is doing more "mainstream Unix-like Operating Systems" then what has been previously achieved.
If I'm not mistaken, Sun Microsystems is thinking about changing Solaris so that it run Linux binaries. I don't know if anything came out of that yet...
That's right. Linux is NOT UNIX. To get UNIX certification for an operating system, you have to pay a group of consultants that looks at the API and the shell and decide if it conforms to a specific set of specification.
To me, that's not a standard. Sounds more like "bribe a group of consultants to call it UNIX"...
The key here is where you said "Porting software between them is trivial (should be, at least)"..
That's right, it SHOULD be trivial. But it's not, mostly because Posix is a very loose standand (in fact, an older version of Windows NT does comform to a subset of this Posix layer).
Also, keep in mind what I mean by older, "proprietary" versions of Unix are ones that were NOT compiled for X86 architecture.
But you can get Solaris for X86. Not sure about AIX. In my opinion, X86 binaries does help compatibility quite a bit, since it forces the vendors to NOT do hardware "lock-ins".
And yes, Unix is loosing marketshare to Linux. Not sure if that's such a bad thing, but it certainly forces companies like IBM and Sun Microsystems to rethink their UNIX stratergies.
If you're talking about an older version of UNIX tied to a specific vendor, Microsoft MAY have a point... but the little secret that Microsoft doesn't want you know is that Unix in general is becoming more open-source AND is becoming more of a commodity rather than a specific that runs only on specific hardware.
I guess what I'm saying is that Unix is losing more and more market share to operating systems like Linux. (Linux is NOT unix, although it's quite similar) This is especially true administrators (rather than corporate commitees) get to pick the operating system to use.
A good case in point is the market share and mind share of Solaris and Linux. Sun Microsystems just recently released the source code of Solaris under a "community license" (which is NOT the same thing as GPL, but it's the best we can expect from Sun Microsystems). Did Sun have to release the source code? Not really. But it knows it would lose MORE mind share to Linux if it didn't.
And it's not an entirely inaccurate statement; the initial development of the Linux WAS on an Intel system (An early model of the IBM PS/2 system, if I remember correctly).. most of the cutting-edge development of the Linux is still geared specifically Intel..
And the truth, having Linux run on non-Intel systems have never really been the first priority.. some of the best development of non-Intel Linux are done by non-profit organizations such as Debian (Alpha development and Motorola developements are two good examples of this).. meanwhile, companies like Red Hat have recently de-emphasized keeping non-Intel offering on parity with Intel offering mostly because it not profitable enough to otherwise do so.
And dont forget, the kernel source code for Yellow Dog Linux (a distro of Linux geared toward MacIntosh) is VERY different than the kernel maintained by Linux Torvalds. I think the main reason for this is that Linux doesn't seem that much interested in doing testing and debugging on MacIntosh hardware, so Mac-only Linux development is always a step behind Intel development.
On an almost unrelated note, I've heard rumors that Linux runs faster on Sparc hardware than Solaris.. is there any truth to this? I haven't seen any hard benchmark numbers to confirm or deny this..
What effect would a pre-emptible kernal have on the scalability of Linux?
As far as I can tell, a particularly responsive kernal wouldn't scale very well, since there wouldn't any guarantees as how much "time" as being spent on a thread/process by the CPU.
Think of a large, multi-user environment based on Linux. Do you really want any user to pre-empt the processing in the kernal by CPU to the detriment of other users? A more logical answer to this is to have set guarantees as how much processing time is given to each user. It shouldn't matter if it's one user or 2,000 users, the speed of applications for each user should stay the same as much as possible.
Maybe I'm describing Solaris, or some other operating system like this.
Maybe once a month, or once a week, encourage geeks to stay home (and telecommute) for their jobs... saves wear and tear on them if they can code in their most natural environment once in a while..
Another thing that geeks like (at least I do), is PEACE AND QUIET... get them an office of their own, one that's soundproof.
Let them take older hardware/computers home, so they can have something to play with without fear of destroying it. Chances are, it will become a server of some kind in their home.
Don't know how feasible these ideas are, but at least there's a couple of good suggestions.
It may be worth noting that one of the chief architects of Delphi (Anders Hejlsberg, IRC) has been working for Microsoft for some time (And if I'm not mistaken, is one of the chief developers of the C# language)..
Well, I'm wondering if the default installation of Windows 2000 is too lax as far as security goes... I'd imagine that disabling all scripting languages and setting up accounts that can't modify/append the registry or modify/append/write new any files except in certain directories (yes, it can be set up that way) would go a LONG way in making Windows 2000 less prone to viruses...
I also predict that some slashdot user will state that a better solution is to use a non-Microsoft operating system (such as OpenBSD or Linux).. well, that may be a good solution for you, but there's still some Windows software that don't run under OpenBSD or Linux (even with Wine Emulation)... such as the Goldmine licensing software that's designed to prevent more than X number of people using their software.
I predict that the first thing people will do is to benchmark this against other dual systems, such as Dual Athlons, or Dual Xeons, or something like that.. with all of the hardware components being the same as much as possible (with the exception of the motherboard and the chip itself)..
I guess the question is... how much of a performance will we see on the different systems?
I would think hot swapping would be one feature truely worthy of a mainframe operating system... especially if you can all of the different possible parts of a mainframe and still keep all of your applications running 24/7.
Can apache run ISAPI applications? (note: this is like CGI applications, except it stays in memory after each request, thus it could be faster than cgi applications)
Games on a server-type system
on
Athlon MP Reviewed
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· Score: 2, Interesting
How well does a system like this or a system with more than one processor (basically an SMP configuration) work with games? Assuming, of course, that the operating system is Windows 2000 or Windows XP. Linux has a few games, but the selection's not as good compared to Windows.
The reason why I'm asking is because I've heard that there are issues with games like Black & White not working correctly unless you "force" B&W to run only one processor (B&W may not be thread-safe could be a possible reason) I know other games like Quake 2 & Quake 3 Arena actually work quite well with the second processor, but doesn't "scale" to any processors than that...
Not too long ago, I seriously considered getting an SMP system like this... and decided that games probably wouldn't be too compatible with them.
Well, I tried that Grand Canyon Demo link; download some components required for it (I'm running Windows 2000 sp2), and no matter what I tried to do, it gave me a "Unexpected Error" at "java.nio.channels.FileChannel.map(IJI)Ljava/nio/M appedByteBuffer;"
According to my Java Web Start Application, I'm running 1.4.0-beta3... and it seems like I also had 1.3.0_03 already installed.
Using named pipes may not be fastest way to do interprocess communication. There's lots of ways to do interprocess communication. You could use Automation (used to be called OLE Automation, but it got folded into the COM architecture). You could also set up a shared memory page file.
There's some technique to do interprocess communications that worked pretty well in Windows 3.1 (using SendMessage, and Dynamic Data Exchange are a couple of methods that I remember).
I imagine there's even a way to do this using the TCP/IP stack. And in a worst-case scenario, you just have one application write to a file, and another application would read that file when it's done making changes.
So, the question is, is this REALLY the fastest way to do interprocess communication? Hmm....
I just read my own post and realized that it was a pretty insensitive thing to say...
Anyway, my heart and prayers goes out to the people who were stuck in that building when the two planes crashed into it. I'm sure there will be lots of fatalities as a result of this.
As for the stock market, hopefully it will just hiccup from this and recover fairly quickly. It'd suck if this was the trigger to make the recession even worse.
Slashdot Mirror
Uuum, you do know that Windows 2000 (or maybe even the Windows NT 3.x-4.x) kernel is based on BSD kernel source code?
Seriously. That is a fact and NOT an belated April Fool's joke.
MS should take the source code of an older version of Windows NT that they no longer support (I'm thinking specifically Windows NT 3.51, since that was the version before MS integrated the GDI into the kernel), and RELEASE the source code for it..
That includes the tools used to compile the source code itself, so you get not only an older version of Windows NT, but also an older version of the C\C++ compiler used to compile the code itself.
Well, I stand corrected. I haven't done any porting between versions of UNIX and Linux, so I wouldn't know.
It still doesn't change the fact that being able to install and run Linux on commodity hardware is doing more "mainstream Unix-like Operating Systems" then what has been previously achieved.
If I'm not mistaken, Sun Microsystems is thinking about changing Solaris so that it run Linux binaries. I don't know if anything came out of that yet...
That's right. Linux is NOT UNIX. To get UNIX certification for an operating system, you have to pay a group of consultants that looks at the API and the shell and decide if it conforms to a specific set of specification.
To me, that's not a standard. Sounds more like "bribe a group of consultants to call it UNIX"...
The key here is where you said "Porting software between them is trivial (should be, at least)"..
That's right, it SHOULD be trivial. But it's not, mostly because Posix is a very loose standand (in fact, an older version of Windows NT does comform to a subset of this Posix layer).
Also, keep in mind what I mean by older, "proprietary" versions of Unix are ones that were NOT compiled for X86 architecture.
But you can get Solaris for X86. Not sure about AIX. In my opinion, X86 binaries does help compatibility quite a bit, since it forces the vendors to NOT do hardware "lock-ins".
And yes, Unix is loosing marketshare to Linux. Not sure if that's such a bad thing, but it certainly forces companies like IBM and Sun Microsystems to rethink their UNIX stratergies.
If you're talking about an older version of UNIX tied to a specific vendor, Microsoft MAY have a point... but the little secret that Microsoft doesn't want you know is that Unix in general is becoming more open-source AND is becoming more of a commodity rather than a specific that runs only on specific hardware.
I guess what I'm saying is that Unix is losing more and more market share to operating systems like Linux. (Linux is NOT unix, although it's quite similar) This is especially true administrators (rather than corporate commitees) get to pick the operating system to use.
A good case in point is the market share and mind share of Solaris and Linux. Sun Microsystems just recently released the source code of Solaris under a "community license" (which is NOT the same thing as GPL, but it's the best we can expect from Sun Microsystems). Did Sun have to release the source code? Not really. But it knows it would lose MORE mind share to Linux if it didn't.
And it's not an entirely inaccurate statement; the initial development of the Linux WAS on an Intel system (An early model of the IBM PS/2 system, if I remember correctly).. most of the cutting-edge development of the Linux is still geared specifically Intel..
And the truth, having Linux run on non-Intel systems have never really been the first priority.. some of the best development of non-Intel Linux are done by non-profit organizations such as Debian (Alpha development and Motorola developements are two good examples of this).. meanwhile, companies like Red Hat have recently de-emphasized keeping non-Intel offering on parity with Intel offering mostly because it not profitable enough to otherwise do so.
And dont forget, the kernel source code for Yellow Dog Linux (a distro of Linux geared toward MacIntosh) is VERY different than the kernel maintained by Linux Torvalds. I think the main reason for this is that Linux doesn't seem that much interested in doing testing and debugging on MacIntosh hardware, so Mac-only Linux development is always a step behind Intel development.
On an almost unrelated note, I've heard rumors that Linux runs faster on Sparc hardware than Solaris.. is there any truth to this? I haven't seen any hard benchmark numbers to confirm or deny this..
I've heard that Linux runs faster on Sparc hardware than Solaris... is there any confirmation of this?
What about Bob? Did he write any software for Microsoft? Like, Microsoft Bob? 8)
Thanks for clearing that up.
As long as you don't change the priorities, it will work as I described.
That's something that you would have to keep in consideration when you have thousands of users (or processors) running on the same system.
What effect would a pre-emptible kernal have on the scalability of Linux?
As far as I can tell, a particularly responsive kernal wouldn't scale very well, since there wouldn't any guarantees as how much "time" as being spent on a thread/process by the CPU.
Think of a large, multi-user environment based on Linux. Do you really want any user to pre-empt the processing in the kernal by CPU to the detriment of other users? A more logical answer to this is to have set guarantees as how much processing time is given to each user. It shouldn't matter if it's one user or 2,000 users, the speed of applications for each user should stay the same as much as possible.
Maybe I'm describing Solaris, or some other operating system like this.
Maybe once a month, or once a week, encourage geeks to stay home (and telecommute) for their jobs... saves wear and tear on them if they can code in their most natural environment once in a while..
Another thing that geeks like (at least I do), is PEACE AND QUIET... get them an office of their own, one that's soundproof.
Let them take older hardware/computers home, so they can have something to play with without fear of destroying it. Chances are, it will become a server of some kind in their home.
Don't know how feasible these ideas are, but at least there's a couple of good suggestions.
It may be worth noting that one of the chief architects of Delphi (Anders Hejlsberg, IRC) has been working for Microsoft for some time (And if I'm not mistaken, is one of the chief developers of the C# language)..
Well, I'm wondering if the default installation of Windows 2000 is too lax as far as security goes... I'd imagine that disabling all scripting languages and setting up accounts that can't modify/append the registry or modify/append/write new any files except in certain directories (yes, it can be set up that way) would go a LONG way in making Windows 2000 less prone to viruses...
I also predict that some slashdot user will state that a better solution is to use a non-Microsoft operating system (such as OpenBSD or Linux).. well, that may be a good solution for you, but there's still some Windows software that don't run under OpenBSD or Linux (even with Wine Emulation)... such as the Goldmine licensing software that's designed to prevent more than X number of people using their software.
That's a little bit like asking if a country like Russia can successfully change to capitalism from socialism...
If they can, fine.
If they can't, there's hell to pay and they just revert back to the old system.
So, the question is, can a company like Apple succesfully change to software-only from proprietary hardware/proprietary software?
I predict that the first thing people will do is to benchmark this against other dual systems, such as Dual Athlons, or Dual Xeons, or something like that.. with all of the hardware components being the same as much as possible (with the exception of the motherboard and the chip itself)..
I guess the question is... how much of a performance will we see on the different systems?
Does it support Hot Swapping?
I would think hot swapping would be one feature truely worthy of a mainframe operating system... especially if you can all of the different possible parts of a mainframe and still keep all of your applications running 24/7.
Until they want to play that exists ONLY on Windows and Wine doesn't support it too well.
Can apache run ISAPI applications? (note: this is like CGI applications, except it stays in memory after each request, thus it could be faster than cgi applications)
How well does a system like this or a system with more than one processor (basically an SMP configuration) work with games? Assuming, of course, that the operating system is Windows 2000 or Windows XP. Linux has a few games, but the selection's not as good compared to Windows.
The reason why I'm asking is because I've heard that there are issues with games like Black & White not working correctly unless you "force" B&W to run only one processor (B&W may not be thread-safe could be a possible reason) I know other games like Quake 2 & Quake 3 Arena actually work quite well with the second processor, but doesn't "scale" to any processors than that...
Not too long ago, I seriously considered getting an SMP system like this... and decided that games probably wouldn't be too compatible with them.
Well, I tried that Grand Canyon Demo link; download some components required for it (I'm running Windows 2000 sp2), and no matter what I tried to do, it gave me a "Unexpected Error" at "java.nio.channels.FileChannel.map(IJI)Ljava/nio/M appedByteBuffer;"
According to my Java Web Start Application, I'm running 1.4.0-beta3... and it seems like I also had 1.3.0_03 already installed.
I can tell you with confidence that games like Half-Life and Black & White doesn't work unless they have read AND write access to the registery.
For that reason, I can't log on a guest account on my Windows 2000 computer to play these games. Black & White is particularly bad about this...
Using named pipes may not be fastest way to do interprocess communication. There's lots of ways to do interprocess communication. You could use Automation (used to be called OLE Automation, but it got folded into the COM architecture). You could also set up a shared memory page file.
There's some technique to do interprocess communications that worked pretty well in Windows 3.1 (using SendMessage, and Dynamic Data Exchange are a couple of methods that I remember).
I imagine there's even a way to do this using the TCP/IP stack. And in a worst-case scenario, you just have one application write to a file, and another application would read that file when it's done making changes.
So, the question is, is this REALLY the fastest way to do interprocess communication? Hmm....
I just read my own post and realized that it was a pretty insensitive thing to say...
Anyway, my heart and prayers goes out to the people who were stuck in that building when the two planes crashed into it. I'm sure there will be lots of fatalities as a result of this.
As for the stock market, hopefully it will just hiccup from this and recover fairly quickly. It'd suck if this was the trigger to make the recession even worse.
Will this affect the stock market????