Saya kutipkan dari PCQuest, majalah Komputer di India
IMW
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From the OS Warfront
The year was supposed to belong to NT 5 and its Active
Directory.
But Linux stole the show with unprecedented corporate,
media and software vendor attention
Writing this piece last year I had said that two things could determine
the way
operating systems would develop in the long run-the US department of
Justice
investigations against Microsoft and the evolution of Java.
Of these, the first has just started getting active, with the hearings
in the district
court into its third week as I write this. Java is present on every
operating system
you look at, and the Java bandwagon seems to be gathering speed and
momentum.
Whether it evolves into an independent, standalone entity seems to be
seen.
Meanwhile-to parody the communist manifesto-a new specter is haunting
commercial OS vendors-the specter of Linux. The freeware operating
system
that was once written off as nothing more than a hacker's OS is fast
gaining
acceptance from all spheres. Users-large multinationals to single
users-are
acknowledging that they are running critical backend tasks like mail,
gateways,
and routing on Linux. And the number of software vendors porting to
Linux is
increasing by the day.
One of the biggest complaints against Linux was that it lacked
enterprise-class
applications. That is being laid to rest in grand style with a plethora
of application
rollouts. Oracle, Informix, Sybase, Computer Associates, and IBM-all six
of them
have announced ports of their database servers to Linux. Betas of
Oracle, Sybase
and Ingress are already available. Lotus has announced the formation of
a
development team to "look at" porting Domino (Notes) to Linux. On the
desktop,
Corel has announced Word Perfect for Linux. Native productivity software
like
Star Office and ApplixWare are also gaining significant following.
Adding to the
bandwagon, hardware vendors like HP and Compaq have also gone public
with
their interest in the operating system.
Linux users, like Mac
users are generally very
passionate about their
operating system. The
second question that is
currently raising the
maximum passion in the
Linux world (the first
is-which distribution is
best) is whether KDE is
better or Gnome? Simply
put-and Linux aficionados are not going to like this-both are GUIs for
the
operating system, with management functionality built-in, a la Windows.
At the
very core of the argument is the basic philosophy of open source
software. Gnome
is completely open source, while KDE uses a set of libraries called QT
from a
company called Troll Tech. While QT is free for individual use, it is
not
GPL-GNU public licensed like the rest of Linux. Currently, KDE is ahead
of
Gnome in terms of development, but many of the major distributions like
RedHat
do not bundle KDE, because of the restrictions on QT.
Coming back to Microsoft and NT, last December, we were working on the
first
Beta of NT 5 in PCQ Labs. Almost a year later, we got the second
Beta-the big
differences from NT 4-active directory, lesser reboots-are just
beginning to show
in this one and were not there in Beta 1. NT 5 was to have shipped this
year. But
like with most other Microsoft Operating systems, this one also has been
delayed.
The official date for shipping is now the first quarter of 1999.
Meanwhile, in
preparation for combining the desktop and the Server operating systems,
MS has
announced that NT 5 will be renamed Windows 2000.
SCO, Solaris, AIX, Digital Unix, HP-UX, Linux, UnixWare... If you
thought that
there were enough Unixes around, you are mistaken. Late in October, Big
Blue
announced plans for a new operating system. One more Unix! IBM together
with
Intel, SCO and Sequent will develop this new Unix (code name Montgomery)
which will get together parts of IBM's AIX, SCO's UnixWare and Sequent's
PTX.
Now what is Intel doing here? The new operating system, due in about a
year and a
half, will run on Intel's 64-bit chip, the Merced, as well as on the
Power PC. IBM
and Intel are reported to have earmarked millions in a fund to persuade
software
vendors to develop products for this operating system.
And that is not the only Unix move that Intel made this year. Earlier,
Intel along
with Netscape invested into the equity of RedHat, the most successful of
Linux
vendors. In September, the chip giant announced an initiative to work
towards
common standards among the different Unixes. This again is seen as part
of
preparing the ground for its 64-bit chip and the foray into the high-end
enterprise market. Together with Unix and peripheral vendors, Intel is
developing
the Uniform Driver Interface (UDI), something that will enable a single
device
driver to work across different versions of Unix.
Another Unix vendor, Sun, launched Solaris version 7. 7 after version
2.6. With
most other operating systems crossing the 5th revision, Sun probably did
not want
users to feel that Solaris was not as modern. Solaris 7 is 64-bit, and
its other high
points are increased inter-operability with NT and the ability to manage
Windows-based PCs.
Talking of Unixes and versions, I had written last year about the many
variants of
Linux, and had mentioned "more than a dozen distributions." The latest
count
seems to be more like 50. Finally, an effort was started to work towards
compatibility between the various versions. Bruce Perens, one of the
lead
developers of Debian Linux started the Linux Standard Base Project.
Soon, a
second effort-the Linux Compatibility Standards Project was started off
by Dale
Scheetz of Debian and Erik Traon of Redhat. The First effort (LSB) has
since
been folded into the second. Further progress is awaited from this
effort.
Another development that Linux users and developers are looking forward
to is
the 2.2 kernel. Expected in the December/January time frame, kernel
version 2.2
is expected to bring improved multiprocessor support and RAID support-a
must
have if Linux is to gain full acceptance for mission critical
applications.
Meanwhile, NetWare 5 had a quite launch, a week ahead of schedule. The
high
point of this version is the enhanced directory services, based on NDS.
In fact,
Novell has gone to the extent of repositioning itself as a Directory
Services
Company, as against being an operating systems company. In fact, it is
not just
Novell that is going the directory way. The Internet is adapting LDAP
(Light
Weight Directory Access Protocol) in a big way, and Microsoft is going
all out
with Active Directory Services. Novell has got a clear head start, and
capitalizing
on the delays in NT 5, have launched NDS services for NT also.
Initially, this
requires a NetWare server, but apparently in the works is a version that
runs
natively on NT. It remains to be seen how much they can cash in on this
and the
head start they have with version 5. The battle of directories will kick
off in reality
some time in the middle of 1999 if NT keeps to its launch schedule. But
the war of
words and hype is already reaching an all-time high. Another operating
system
vendor who has a directory in place is Banyan of Vines fame. I wonder
how many
Vines installations are currently running in the country.
Apple continued their elusive hunt for a new operating system. If last
year, they
gave up Copland for Rhapsody, this year, they have folded in the
Rhapsody effort
into something new called Mac OS X. Talligent, Pink, Copland,
Rhapsody...
Frankly, I have lost count. One of the biggest issues with Rhapsody was
compatibility with existing Mac applications. Apple is trying to assuage
concerns
of developers by combining Rhapsody into OS X, and providing the
compatibility
along with the advanced Mac look and feel. OS X, which seems to be aimed
more
at servers is expected to be out next year (if there is no change of
hearts yet
again), and will be available for both the Power PC and the Intel
platform. On the
desktop, Apple came out with Mac OS 8.5, the first major upgrade to OS 8
(Os 8
was launched last year) OS 8.5 features an interesting search engine
called
Sherlock. Sherlock can query multiple search engines on the Internet,
directly,
and provide you with the answers, without your having to go to each one
individually.
What was to be Win 97 finally shipped as Win 98, and sold in large
numbers.
Many system vendors still continue to ship Win 95 on their business
systems,
while shipping Win 98 on home systems. Windows CE is gaining increased
acceptance with the re-emergence of the sub-note or the hand held market
in
strength. Win CE is also being extended to fit automobiles and other
industrial
uses.
That brings us to an exciting new world that is rapidly opening up for
operating
systems in particular, and software in general-smart cards, embedded
devices,
appliances... In short, non-computer devices.
It is not as if smart cards and embedded devices were not there before.
They have
been the domain of vendors who do not belong to the who-is who of
computing.
Have you heard of Radisys? They make iRMX III, an operating system for
embedded computers based on Intel chips. Or Wind River, who makes
applications like Web servers, browsers, and GUI builders for embedded
applications?
With smart cards and embedded applications all set to become big time,
the big
league players are eyeing this segment, and readying products for it.
Microsoft has
announced plans for an embedded version of NT, while Sun has debuted the
Java
Embedded Server, which can work on a variety of embedded operating
systems.
On the smart card front too, MS is making its moves, with an extension
of
Windows to fit smart cards. There, it will take on the JavaCard API from
Sun and
the MultOS from Mondex, a subsidiary of MasterCard. The JavaCard API is
for
applications that will run on Java complaint smart cards, while MultOS
is a
full-fledged operating system for the smart card, that will allow
multiple
applications on the same card.
In conclusion, I will add a new one to my list from last year to watch
out for: In
the long-term, operating systems will evolve around how the current
anti-trust
case against Microsoft develops, how Java evolves, and how the market
for
embedded systems and smart cards shape up.
Till next year then.
Krishna Kumar
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