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h o m e s c h e d u l e a r c h i v e s f o r u m c h a t f a q t o o l s a b o u t dr. dobbs journal |
TechNetCast 1998-10-09 Windows NT and Unix 
• NT and Unix:
Windows NT and Unix machines are increasingly called to interact in today's
interoperable, networked environments. As a result, system administrators and
programmers need
to be familiar with both platforms. Bob Williams compares both
platforms and explains how to cross-administer and integrate Unix and NT machines. • Unix over NT: Interix (formerly OpenNT) provides a POSIX subsystem that makes it possible to run Unix apps over NT... Stephen Walli, Interix, gives us the details. Dr. G. Robert Williams, president of PDS Advanced Technologies, a computer services company and division of Inc. magazine's top 200 fastest-growing corporations. Previously the president and founder of Decathlon Data Systems, Inc., he has been a senior executive at UNISYS and System Development Corporation and a dean of research at the University of California, Los Angeles, and California State Polytechnic University. His depth of experience in UNIX and Windows NT coexistence was recently acknowledged by Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard when they selected him to keynote at the International Windows NT and UNIX Training Tours--Integration '97 and Integration '98. Dr. Williams is the co-author --with Ellen Beck Gardner-- of "Windows NT & Unix: Administration, Coexistence, Integration and Migration", Addison Wesley, 1998. Stephen Walli, Co-Founder & Vice President of Research & Development, Softway Systems Inc. is a recognized industry leader in design & implementation of X/Open conforming operating systems. Prior to co-founding Softway Systems, Stephen was Leader of InterOpen Projects at MKS (1991-94), and a standards and systems engineer at EDS Canada (1987-91). He is the author of multiple publications on open systems, including "Go Solo", X/Open’s guide to XPG UNIX 95, and "Migrating Applications to Open Platforms", another X/Open guide published by Prentice Hall. He was the key expert witness retained by Unisys & Microsoft to support Windows NT in the highly publicized Coast Guard Standard Workstation III award trial. Stephen has been an active participant in the IEEE POSIX process since 1990, serving as Vice-Chair of Technical Editing for POSIX. Post and read messages about this interview on the TechNetCast forum |
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Transcript Excerpts Full transcript available to mailing list members. TNC: Can you tell us a bit about your background and your motivation in writing this book? BW: As you indicated, I come from a Unix environment and have worked with Unix for well over twenty years. And as you also indicated to your listeners, many of us who work with operating systems almost have a religious zeal related to which operating system we’re dealing with. I was president of a software company that specialized in Unix office automation products. For a while that company, along with our competitors, were doing very well in the marketplace until one day, quite very frankly, the steamroller from Redmond came down and there was a determination that office automation by and large with Unix would not take place, but in point, in fact, it would take place on the Windows environment. TNC: What were your first impressions of NT after you started working with NT systems? BW: Quite frankly I did not like or want to like NT when I starting actually writing this book. The reason I decided to write the book, was to try and reflect and compare and contrast the two operating systems. But the more I dug into NT, the more I realized that NT 4.0 had become a very robust, ready for prime time environment for many, many uses. TNC: We hear a lot about the differences between Unix and NT, but they also share many characteristics. A lot of technology that is in UNIX systems found its way into NT. BW: Yes. NT is in many ways a hybrid of some of the best aspects of some of the more robust legacy existing operating systems. VMS is certainly a foundation for NT. In terms of user interfaces, Microsoft’s Windowing environment is a big part of NT. And there are many base level similarities with Unix. FORUM: Post/Read feedback about "Windows NT and Unix" Back to TechNetCast Home |
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