Microsoft to Stop Releasing Services for Unix 296
lilrowdy18 writes "According to a recent article, Microsoft will stop releasing any new versions of Services for Unix. SFU 3.5 will continue to be supported until 2011 and will have extended support until 2014. From what the article hints at, Microsoft wants Unix interoperability integrated into the OS. Microsoft says that this integration couldn't be done with past architectures."
The full story (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Integrated (Score:3, Informative)
And, of course, samba.
Is this enough "Client for Microsoft Networks"?
Not really discontinuing SFU... (Score:4, Informative)
but reinventing it. By moving this capability into the OS instead of hosting it as a parallel OS on the same kernel, they will gain performance and increase integration.
This is actually just one more example of an acceleration of rumors of Longhorn features. The rumors were that Longhorn would be able to run Unix applications and, specifically, x86 Linux binaries without recompilation. It looks now like at least a portion of that capability will appear in SP2 for Win 2003 Server a full year before Vista release.
Re:Microsoft's bait and switch (Score:3, Informative)
Even still, some of the next-gen SFU functionality is being integrated [microsoft-watch.com] into Windows Server 2003 R2. It's not the end of unix interoperability from Microsoft, just this derivation of it.
Re:What happened to ten years? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Integrated (Score:5, Informative)
All user information (and host) on Unix is cached - and the cache is *not* a linear lookup.
Username/PAM lookup is *not* linear. If I call getpwnam for example it goes to pam -> active directory -> username lookup. There's no searching involved.
The trouble with cygwin (Score:3, Informative)
This makes certain things (most notablly select) rather difficult to implement and slow.
Re:Integrated (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Not really discontinuing SFU... (Score:2, Informative)
"I can confirm that the next-generation of several components of Services for Unix are being integrated into Windows Server 2003 R2. The Network File System (NFS) client, NFS Server, User/Name Mapping, Telnet Server & Client, Password Sync and NIS Server components of Services for Unix are all present in the Windows Server 2003 R2 builds[...]In addition, a revamped POSIX subsystem, the 'Subsystem for Unix-based Applications' or 'SUA' is also available as an optional install in R2."
Re:Integrated (Score:5, Informative)
I will agree that there are a lot of things that should be done with the Unix "directory services", but not that which you describe. The greatest problem is that Unix still uses numeric UIDs, whereas it should be using symbolic UIDs (such as Kerberos principles).
Never understood the name (Score:5, Informative)
BillG claimed in 93 that NT was UNIX (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Windows Vista to get POSIX subsystem (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Windows POSIX implementation (Score:5, Informative)
The current entity calling themselves "The SCO Group" is what used to be called Caldera. They bought *something* from Santa Cruz (definitely their Operating Systems Division) and some sort of assets (but they can't produce the purchase agreement), and changed their name from Caldera to SCO. Allegedly this was for name recognition/branding, but apparently was really to sow confusion for their lawsuits.
Re:Kill Interoperability? (Score:3, Informative)
Interix was the product name, which survives today as part of SFU 3.5. The original vendor was Softway Systems. They wrote Interix; Microsoft bought Softway and rolled Interix 2.2SP1 into SFU 2.0.
The confusion, I guess, is that InterOp systems bought the domain interix.com. They now sell util ports to interix and interix-related services. But AFAIK InterOp had nothing to do with SFU/Interix itself.
Re:The full story (Score:2, Informative)
Hardly shocking information since it was announced back on April, 26, 2005 in the Interix Forums (http://www.interopsystems.com/tools/forum [interopsystems.com]). So this has been known *publicly* for over 4 months now with a lot more detail than is in the other articles. The link is http://www.interopsystems.com/tools/forum/tm.aspx? m=5623 [interopsystems.com]
The real story is not that SFU is ending, but rather that it is becoming part of the regular distribution. Since January, 2004 SFU version 3.5 has been available as a free download from Microsoft (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/sfu [microsoft.com]) with no restrictions, etc. So this change has been expected for some time.
Complaints in other posting about "missing" applications are pretty hollow: two compilers are available (gcc 3.3 and MSVC {a free version of MSVC is available}, OpenSSH, bash, zsh, etc. They can be picked up freely from the Interix Tools site http://www.interopsystems.com/tools [interopsystems.com].
Re:Integrated (Score:3, Informative)
That's true, where "Unix" == "Linux with nscd installed and running". Don't feel bad, these kinds of assumptions aren't new [retrologic.com].
Re:Microsoft's answer to UNIX (Score:2, Informative)