pdg@draci.cs.uow.oz (Peter Gray) (11/29/88)
After reading the recent spate of items about Apollo's implementation of unix under Aegis (and having used it slightly) it seems a good time to ask a question that has been bugging me for some time. Why has Apollo decided to continue to try to offer Aegis and Unix together rather than simply offer the alternative of a native unix port to the Apollo workstations? That way they could keep the Aegis community happy until they die or switch to unix and at the same time offer a complete unix system to those people (like me) who prefer it. As a unix user i can honestly say that in my opinion there is no substitute for a native implementation of unix. Here we run Pyramids (simulated sys V environment), Sequent (simulated sys V) and Apollo's (simulated sys V and BSD). These three vendors have had differing degrees of success in offering multi-universe machines. But in general I still prefer machines that offer a native single universe implementation of unix, whether it be sys V or BSD. Please do not take this as Apollo bashing. I would simply like to know why the concept of a native port was rejected. pdg Peter Gray ACSnet: pdg@draci.cs.uow.OZ.AU Professional Officer UUCP: ...!munnari!draci.cs.uow.OZ.AU!pdg Dept of Computing Science ARPA: pdg%draci.cs.uow.OZ.AU@uunet.UU.NET University of Wollongong Phone: +61 42 270770 N.S.W. 2500 Australia Fax : +61 42 297768
conliffe@caen.engin.umich.edu (Darryl C. Conliffe) (11/29/88)
Peter, I am curious about this, too. Why did Apollo, and from your article, Pyramid, and Sequent , to name the few you did, choose non-native Unix? Have you ever used Aegis? I operate in 4.2, but use Aegis and even V utilities all at the same time. This is great for me, with problems mostly in the areas of access control lists ( I'd rather Unix had the same power as Aegis - it's security seems rather hamhanded in comparison). I rather like having them all. What would you get out of such a change? As an afterthought, another Aegis feature I like is being able to use my Unix alias of lda, which is defined as pwd;/com/sh ld -a -lt. When I type lda -moa today, I get the files in the current directory that have been modified today. Since my home directory has a number of trees in it, I really don't like getting a report on everything at once. I don't see as simple an analog in Unix. I guess I'm glad the baby wasn't dumped out with the bath. I hope it won't be in the future. -- ___________________ Darryl C. Conliffe conliffe@caen.engin.umich.edu (313) 721-6069 -------------------
ronc@fai.UUCP (Ronald O. Christian) (12/15/88)
In article <3ff525ae.14df5@ulsoy.engin.umich.edu> conliffe@caen.engin.umich.edu (Darryl C. Conliffe) writes: > > Peter, I am curious about this, too. Why did >Apollo, and from your article, Pyramid, and Sequent , to name the few >you did, choose non-native Unix? I didn't get in on the beginning of this, but Sequent Dynix is native 4.2 (with some 4.3 stuff) with support for their parallel hardware. It also includes a SysV.2 environment layer. > Have you ever used Aegis? I operate in 4.2, but use Aegis and >even V utilities all at the same time. That's great for you, but we already have entirely too many dissimilar versions of Unix around here, and can't afford to add complexity by requiring our users (and administrator -- that's me!) to learn Aegis as well. We (still) have a couple Domain 3000's laying around -- no one wants to use 'em, because no one wants to learn Yet Another Operating System. The Apollo is a pretty box, and someday when they offer native Unix, we will definitely be interested. Ron -- Ronald O. Christian (Fujitsu America Inc., San Jose, Calif.) {amdahl, pyramid, sun, unisoft, uunet}!fai!ronc -or- ronc@fai.com
giebelhaus@hi-csc.UUCP (Timothy R. Giebelhaus) (12/17/88)
In article <1270@fai.UUCP> ronc@fai.fai.com (Ronald O. Christian) writes: > >That's great for you, but we already have entirely too many dissimilar >versions of Unix around here, and can't afford to add complexity by >requiring our users (and administrator -- that's me!) to learn Aegis >as well. > >We (still) have a couple Domain 3000's laying around -- no one wants >to use 'em, because no one wants to learn Yet Another Operating System. > >The Apollo is a pretty box, and someday when they offer native Unix, >we will definitely be interested. I have great news. You don't have to learn another operating system to use the Apollos. As mentioned here before, you can not load up Aegis at all if you do not want to. *** I personally would load up the Aegis, though. Not because the DOMAIN/OS UNIX is incomplete, but because I don't see are reason to deny myself all the extra tools Aegis provides the UNIX user. Of course I am careful not put put these tools into things I am going to ship to a non-Apollo shop, but for day to day work, they do add a significant amount of functionality. I still have only seen one native bsd4.3. That is the one on the Berkley tape. Everyone else changes UNIX. It is some major piece of marketing that can convince people that one vendor's box is "real" UNIX and that their competitor's box is some hack placed upon the propietary operating system that they would much rather sell because the competitor's only interest is to cheat the customer out of their hard earned money. The second someone says Apollo is not open or that Apollo does not have a real UNIX, you should be suspicious. You should contact Apollo and judge for yourself. I personally never believe a single piece of negative sales information until I have checked it out. In summary, I would take those DN3000's and load SR10.0 on them. You will not find inodes, but the transparent file system should more than make up for it. You will also find a registry system where Sun puts yellow pages (roughly speaking). The registry system should also make things much easier than if it were not there. -- UUCP: uunet!hi-csc!giebelhaus UUCP: tim@apollo.uucp ARPA: hi-csc!giebelhaus@umn-cs.arpa ARPA: tim@apollo.com Tim Giebelhaus, Apollo Computer, Regional Software Support Specialist. My comments and opinions have nothing to do with work.
conliffe@caen.engin.umich.edu (Darryl C. Conliffe) (12/17/88)
In article <1270@fai.UUCP>, ronc@fai.UUCP (Ronald O. Christian) writes: > In article <3ff525ae.14df5@ulsoy.engin.umich.edu> conliffe@caen.engin.umich.edu (Darryl C. Conliffe) writes: > > > > Peter, I am curious about this, too. Why did > >Apollo, and from your article, Pyramid, and Sequent , to name the few > >you did, choose non-native Unix? > > I didn't get in on the beginning of this, but Sequent Dynix is native > 4.2 (with some 4.3 stuff) with support for their parallel hardware. It > also includes a SysV.2 environment layer. I was merely noting what Peter noted in his original message. You'll have to ask Peter for a clarification of his comparison. Help, Peter? > > > Have you ever used Aegis? I operate in 4.2, but use Aegis and > >even V utilities all at the same time. > > That's great for you, but we already have entirely too many dissimilar > versions of Unix around here, and can't afford to add complexity by > requiring our users (and administrator -- that's me!) to learn Aegis > as well. > > We (still) have a couple Domain 3000's laying around -- no one wants > to use 'em, because no one wants to learn Yet Another Operating System. > > The Apollo is a pretty box, and someday when they offer native Unix, > we will definitely be interested. > Well, Ron, I do not understand how a talented system administrator such as yourself would have purchased unuseable equipment. I'd like to take them off your hands so they wont take up any space. Pack 'em up and ship 'em! Seriously! I guess I am missing something here, Ron. You do have the option to use either 4.2 or V (9.7 level), as well as Aegis. You would not have to "learn" a whole new operating system to handle the 4.2/Aegis or V/Aegis seams. Finally, you already make adjustments for different dialects and hardware dependent features. In many cases, Aegis offers things Unix does not, so it is not always a "step down" to use it. Of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but if you dislike Apollo workstations so much, why do you have them? (I am not being sarcastic. I am really asking for the basis of the decision that resulted in such displeasure.) > -- ___________________ Darryl C. Conliffe conliffe@caen.engin.umich.edu (313) 721-6069 -------------------
ronc@fai.UUCP (Ronald O. Christian) (12/20/88)
In article <404c3798.1285f@maize.engin.umich.edu> conliffe@caen.engin.umich.edu (Darryl C. Conliffe) writes: >Of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but >if you dislike Apollo workstations so much, why do you >have them? (I am not being sarcastic. I am >really asking for the basis of the decision that resulted >in such displeasure.) I can't tell you without blowing my next raise. I didn't make the decision. However, after it was clear that neither we nor Apollo could make them work correctly, I dragged a couple old Sun II's from another building and set 'em up in the same area. The programmers liked them, and before you knew it, there was a Sun on almost everyone's desk. (Not the II. They're being retired.) Look, you asked, ok? I don't want to waste everyone's time blasting Apollo in their own newsgroup. Every product has it's disgruntled former users. If the local reps had provided assistance rather than going into ignore mode, who knows? We might have been an Apollo house. Ron -- Ronald O. Christian (Fujitsu America Inc., San Jose, Calif.) {amdahl, pyramid, sun, unisoft, uunet}!fai!ronc -or- ronc@fai.com
ronc@fai.UUCP (Ronald O. Christian) (12/21/88)
In article <404beb83.b263@hi-csc.UUCP> giebelhaus@hi-csc.UUCP (Timothy R. Giebelhaus) writes: >I have great news. You don't have to learn another operating system >to use the Apollos. As mentioned here before, you can not load up >Aegis at all if you do not want to. Elsewhere in this newsgroup are other folks complaining that Apollo has made their "native" unix "better" in strange ways. No thanks. >*** I personally would load up the Aegis, though. Not because the >DOMAIN/OS UNIX is incomplete, but because I don't see are reason >to deny myself all the extra tools Aegis provides the UNIX user. This defeats the purpose: Consistency of interface is a key issue. For exactly the same reason, we are not considering the purchase of the X/News merge from Sun. News might be wonderful, but it only works on a Sun. In a heterogeneous computing environment, non-standard "improvements" by *any* one computer manufacturer is the ENEMY, no matter how nice they might be. Don't get me wrong, as you pointed out, everyone does it. It's only a matter of degree. But at some point one has to say "I don't have time to deal with this". We reached that point with the Domain 3000. Ron -- Ronald O. Christian (Fujitsu America Inc., San Jose, Calif.) {amdahl, pyramid, sun, unisoft, uunet}!fai!ronc -or- ronc@fai.com
pha@CAEN.ENGIN.UMICH.EDU (Paul H. Anderson) (12/22/88)
If computer users decide they want absolute consistency, and that they want 4.3 BSD, then they should really only be using Vax-780's through vt100's. Every other machine I have seen has made non-standard (where the bsd tape is defined as standard) extensions. It doesn't matter whether it is sun, dec, apollo, or whatever. Yes, there are varying degrees of closeness to bsd4.3. No matter which machine you choose that is different from that old vax, it shall be different. The vax standard is a standard in a similar sense that the 370 is a standard - one arch, one assembly language, one calling convention, one compiler, and so on. It used to be that people who wanted Unix were, in my opinion, best off with vax hardware, and second best off with Sun hardware. Again, this is if you define unix to be 4.3 BSD (or 4.2 awhile ago). Milage varies with other unix variants. Now, with SR10.1, Apollo Unix is sufficiently close to "real" unix (4.3 BSD) that the argument "but they aren't real Unix!" doesn't fly anymore. Yes, SR10.1 on the Apollos is not real Unix. It has significant enchancements that are absolutely imperative in maintaining a large network. Don't fool yourself otherwise. Our relatively small staff here at CAEN support close to 500 Apollos, each of which is fully backed up once a week, and incrementally backed up once a day, without bringing down the network or the machine. Each of our machines transparently, painlessly, quickly, and reliably access files on each other machine. We run probably over one hundred million dollars worth of software on these machines, if you count standard pricing for software (much of this is in the form of gifts, or grants, of course). Apollo still has shortcomings. CAEN still has shortcomings, in part due to Apollo, and in part due to local political conditions. However, both Apollo and CAEN are struggling to make a network of two to ten thousand nodes administrable by the same staff size that now maintains these 500 and still provide all the advantages we enjoy now. I apologize for being so blunt, but there is no way in hell that anyone anywhere is going to do that with Suns, MicroVaxen, PC/RTs, NeXt boxes, or any other box that is running "just Unix." Yes, there are networks out there that run custom software that attempt to overcome some of the problems, but they aren't running "real Unix" by a long shot, either. The real argument that should be made about Unix is how to properly address some of these issues, such as maintaining a huge network. Yeah, everybody is trying to come up with things and ways of doing this, and some certainly are suceeding. However, Apollo is really the only vendor that made the choice to dump a poorly designed system and replace it with something better. Now, everyone is struggling to do the same, and pretty much paying the same price. The initial price being paid is lower, yes, but it is stretched out over a much longer period of transition time. Yes, the Apollo system still has lots of problems, but getting a unix system that is as close to possible as that 4.3 BSD tape, and also, incidentally, scales up to thousands of nodes without requiring thousands of support people is going to be very, very costly. Apollo did the right thing in tossing Unix first, rather than the sun approach of tossing scalability first. These opinions are my own and sure as hell don't represent anyone else's... Paul Anderson CAEN Apollo systems programmer
benoni@ssc-vax.UUCP (Charles L Ditzel) (12/22/88)
In article <1304@fai.UUCP>, ronc@fai.UUCP (Ronald O. Christian) writes: > This defeats the purpose: Consistency of interface is a key issue. > For exactly the same reason, we are not considering the purchase > of the X/News merge from Sun. News might be wonderful, but it only > works on a Sun. NeWS is the basis for other machines as well. Look no further than the Silicon Graphics 3D workstations, Raster Technologies 3D, etc. Further, there are 66+ NeWS licensees...no doubt a smaller number than X ... yet NeWS is available on PCs and Macs also. X/NeWS will also be available on PC and Macs. X11/NeWS will be part of Unix System V.4 (the only *real* future Unix ;-) so it will not be "only" on Sun's ... especially at the rate that companies are joining Unix Intl (archer group). The X/NeWS server gives the option of whether you want to use one or the other or both...both run at native speeds ... and both understand their individual protocols...both will have Open Look toolkits (so the consistancy of interface IS preserved) and both operate under Open Look user interface rules (again consistancy of interface IS preserved)... The interesting thing, is that X/NeWS by operating under the Open Look interface will maintain window compatibilty between X and NeWS windows (things like cut and paste will work between X and NeWS windows) and it will be hard to distinguish what's an X and what's a NeWS window ... NeWS applications (the interior of the window frame :-) will be capable of doing a number of things much more easily than X applications - but that is due to programmatic interface and language advantages of NeWS. Thus, compatibility between other X-only systems and X/NeWS systems will be no problem, consistancy of interface will also not be a problem - as everything will have the same user interface (Open Look), and compatibilty between X and NeWS windows will also exist as they share the same window tree. Comparing Aegis (which resides on the Apollo only) with X/NeWS (which will reside on a host of machines and be part of Unix) and citing interface inconsistancies is probably not an appropriate comparison. Especially since the interface of X/NeWS will be similar across all Unix System V.4 machines. X/NeWS offers a valuable choice that is missing on Apollos, I would hope that Apollo will eventually see the light. ------ Naturally My Opinions Are My Own.
rimbold@apollo.COM (Robert Rimbold) (12/22/88)
In article <1304@fai.UUCP> ronc@fai.fai.com (Ronald O. Christian) writes: >In article <404beb83.b263@hi-csc.UUCP> giebelhaus@hi-csc.UUCP (Timothy R. Giebelhaus) writes: >>*** I personally would load up the Aegis, though. Not because the >>DOMAIN/OS UNIX is incomplete, but because I don't see any reason >>to deny myself all the extra tools Aegis provides the UNIX user. > >This defeats the purpose: Consistency of interface is a key issue. I believe that you missed the point. If you wish to have a BSD4.3 *ONLY* system, you can do that. The same also applies to SYSV and Aegis. You may configure the system with any combination of operating systems, and only the operating systems that you load will be available. Tim's point was that our hardware supports three different operating systems, which only makes it easier to use. If all three environments have been loaded, then you may pick which environment you wish to use on a per-shell basis. To make it even better, programs from one environment run transparently in a different environment. If, for some reason, you wish to limit yourself to BSD or SYSV - then load only that environment onto the disk. Enough Said. 'Rob
joshua@athertn.Atherton.COM (Sleaze Hack) (12/22/88)
In article <1304@fai.UUCP> ronc@fai.fai.com (Ronald O. Christian) writes: >In a heterogeneous computing environment, non-standard "improvements" >by *any* one computer manufacturer is the ENEMY, no matter how nice they >might be. I hope Apollo is paying attention to this. It is very true. Remember HP's UNIX slogans: STANDARD IS BETTER THAN BETTER! and BUG FOR BUG COMPATIBLE. I'm not connected to HP in any way, but these slogans are the only way to go in terms of UNIX. Josh -------- Mt. Xinu 4.1,4.2; SunOS 2.x,3.x; Apollo 9.x; NCR UNIX Addresses: Ultrix 1.x,2.x; HP-UX; SCO Xenix; IBM AIX, Tadpole . joshua@atherton.com OR Heterogeneous? Yep. (and thats just the UNIXes!) sun!athertn!joshua OR {backbone}!{decwrl!hpda}!athertn!joshua work:(408)734-9822 home:(415)968-3718
ced@apollo.COM (Carl Davidson) (12/22/88)
From article <259@olive.athertn.Atherton.COM>, by joshua@athertn.Atherton.COM (Sleaze Hack): > > STANDARD IS BETTER THAN BETTER! and BUG FOR BUG COMPATIBLE. > Or as a friend of mine likes to say (I wish I had thought of this): CROCK FOR CROCK COMPATIBLE. Sorry. I just couldn't resist. I'll go straight to my room now. -- --Carl Davidson "And all the science I don't understand. Apollo Computer Inc. It's just my job five days a week." Chelmsford, MA 01824 -- A Rocket Man ced@apollo.com
ronc@fai.UUCP (Ronald O. Christian) (12/23/88)
In article <4064e4b7.87ad@apollo.COM> rimbold@apollo.com (Robert Rimbold) writes: >In article <1304@fai.UUCP> ronc@fai.fai.com (Ronald O. Christian) writes: >>In article <404beb83.b263@hi-csc.UUCP> giebelhaus@hi-csc.UUCP (Timothy R. Giebelhaus) writes: >>>*** I personally would load up the Aegis, though. Not because the >>>DOMAIN/OS UNIX is incomplete, but because I don't see any reason >>>to deny myself all the extra tools Aegis provides the UNIX user. >> >>This defeats the purpose: Consistency of interface is a key issue. > >I believe that you missed the point. If you wish to have a BSD4.3 *ONLY* >system, you can do that. I did not miss the point. Tim said (right up there) that I should load Aegis anyway because of all the nifty extra tools. But I can not provide those tools, no matter how nifty, on just one type of machine. You see an office environment with row upon row of Apollos. I see an environment with a *very* mixed bag of hardware and Unix flavors, of which Apollo plays (used to play) a very small part. >The same also applies to SYSV and Aegis. You >may configure the system with any combination of operating systems, and >only the operating systems that you load will be available. But according to folks in this very newsgroup, even if I only load BSD, I have to use Apollo designed utilities for things like password administration and backups. Do you deny this? >Tim's point was that our hardware supports three different operating >systems, which only makes it easier to use. If all three environments >have been loaded, then you may pick which environment you wish to use >on a per-shell basis. No, that's *your* point. Tim likes the Aegis utilities, and recommended I load them. I explained why that would be an administrative nightmare. Ron -- Ronald O. Christian (Fujitsu America Inc., San Jose, Calif.) {amdahl, pyramid, sun, unisoft, uunet}!fai!ronc -or- ronc@fai.com
daveb@geaclib.UUCP (David Collier-Brown) (12/25/88)
> From article <259@olive.athertn.Atherton.COM>, by joshua@athertn.Atherton.COM (Sleaze Hack): >> >> STANDARD IS BETTER THAN BETTER! and BUG FOR BUG COMPATIBLE. >> Well, better is well-defined only if you say what your criteria are. Seriously, though, its a trade-off: you choose a lowest-common denominator if you want portability as your highest priority, and bang on your suppliers to improve the lower bound... eventually you have usefull, portable programs. On the other hand, if you need usefullness first, you have to give up some degree of portability. And wait for the lcd to catch up with you. I tend to think that the competition between two Unix variants an a Mutlix-clone or two is healthy, and drives the lcd upward! --dave -- David Collier-Brown. | yunexus!lethe!dave Interleaf Canada Inc. | 1550 Enterprise Rd. | He's so smart he's dumb. Mississauga, Ontario | --Joyce C-B
pdg@draci.cs.uow.oz (Peter Gray) (12/27/88)
In article <4068750b.13e2d@apollo.COM>, ced@apollo.COM (Carl Davidson) writes: > > Or as a friend of mine likes to say (I wish I had thought of this): > > CROCK FOR CROCK COMPATIBLE. > > Sorry. I just couldn't resist. I'll go straight to my room now. This typifies the attitude at apollo. Instead of concentrating on the good things in UNIX its the "not invented here" approach. I would feel much happier about buying apollos if I did not see this sort of attitude *ALL* the time from apollo staff and devotees. You can not talk to these people without them trying to tell you how bad UNIX is and how great Aegis is. It turns me (and a lot of other people) off. Many suppliers like to point out how they have improved UNIX, but apollo is the only one who seems to think they can single handedly improve every feature and rewrite every utility to be better than the original. pdg
fink@nucthy.physics.orst.edu (Paul Fink) (12/27/88)
In article <1304@fai.UUCP> ronc@fai.fai.com (Ronald O. Christian) writes: > >This defeats the purpose: Consistency of interface is a key issue. >For exactly the same reason, we are not considering the purchase >of the X/News merge from Sun. News might be wonderful, but it only >works on a Sun. > Consistency of interface is NEVER the issue. Closed minds are ALWAYS the problem. Why not just get rid of all your machines and go back to Unix ver 7 on a PDP? Then you don't have to worry abut anybody making improvements that would force you to read the manual. Paul J. Fink Jr. Internet: Oregon State University fink@PHYSICS.ORST.EDU Department of Physics Phone: Corvallis, Oregon 97331 (503) 754-4631
tyager@apollo.COM (Tom Yager) (12/29/88)
In article <33@draci.cs.uow.oz> pdg@draci.cs.uow.oz (Peter Gray) writes: >In article <4068750b.13e2d@apollo.COM>, ced@apollo.COM (Carl Davidson) writes: >> CROCK FOR CROCK COMPATIBLE. >This typifies the attitude at apollo. Instead of concentrating on the >good things in UNIX its the "not invented here" approach. I would feel >much happier about buying apollos if I did not see this sort of attitude >*ALL* the time from apollo staff and devotees. You must be talking to the wrong people. Yeah, there are folks here who are resistant to change, but that problem's not specific to Apollo. >You can not talk to these people without them trying to tell you how >bad UNIX is and how great Aegis is. Aegis is OK, but I don't have it installed on MY node. And, yes, I did have a choice. >Many suppliers like to point out how they have improved UNIX, but apollo >is the only one who seems to think they can single handedly improve every >feature and rewrite every utility to be better than the original. "Improve every feature" and "rewrite every utility" are silly statements, to be sure, and they just don't reflect reality. Most of what we put into our BSD and SysV environments gets compiled right off the source tapes. What you see as added features and enhancements are often changes to commands in order to accomodate the unique (and excellent) aspects of the Apollo OS like ACLs, full transcript pads and symbolic links. They don't get in your way if you don't use them. And Apollo is not the only vendor who finds a need to change things in Unix now and then. We are responsive to our customers, and when enough of them ask for an enhancement, we do it as long as it doesn't break anything. I think that speaks in our favor. I'm all for freedom of speech and such, but articles like this one only promote a negative attitude--they serve no constructive purpose. If Unix were promoted by Apollo as a second-class OS (as DEC once did with Ultrix), I could see cause for a fuss. However, there isn't any doubt that, as a company, we're proud to offer Unix, and feel that our OS compares well against anyone's. If anyone feels a need to comment on what I've written, please do so via E-mail. (ty) -- +-Tom Yager, Apollo Computer R&D----------------------ARPA: tyager@apollo.com-+ | I speak only for myself. -or- tyager%maxx@m2c.m2c.org | | "I've always said, there's nothing an agnostic can't do if he really | +-doesn't know whether he believes in anything or not."-----------------------+
brian@apollo.COM (Brian Holt) (12/30/88)
In article <33@draci.cs.uow.oz> pdg@draci.cs.uow.oz (Peter Gray) writes: >I would feel much happier about buying apollos if I did not see >this sort of attitude *ALL* the time from apollo staff and devotees. >You can not talk to these people without them trying to tell you how >bad UNIX is and how great Aegis is. Sure you can! Feel free to talk to me any time you'd like. I may not always be able to help you, but I will certainly tell how glad I am we are finally getting away from Aegis, and all about the good things in Unix. >It turns me (and a lot of other people) off. Many suppliers >like to point out how they have improved UNIX, but apollo is the only >one who seems to think they can single handedly improve every feature >and rewrite every utility to be better than the original. > >pdg Although I suspect we will continue to try to improve some things, I am sure you will see more and more stuff that comes straight off the tape. You're right, *nobody* can single handedly improve every feature and rewrite every utility. (Besides, we all know that 'cat -v' is considered harmful! :-) Just as an example, at sr10 we made the commitment to allow Unix users to have access to Apollo enhancements if they wanted it, without having to use Aegis. So how do you manipulate Access Control Lists? Rather than add seventeen new options to ls and chmod and chown, we made one change to ls (ls -l now shows you a '+' if there is an extended ACL, just like AT&T suggested to the POSIX security committee), and added some new commands in /usr/apollo/bin (lsacl, cpacl, chacl). In fact, chacl's syntax is just a superset of chmod, so it should be pretty easy to pick up. Of course, if you don't want ACL's, then just ignore them and the Unix permissions will work the way you expect them to. I've probably gone on too long, but as a Unix hacker, I'm sort of proud of what we've got now. And no, I don't have Aegis installed on my node. In fact, I don't even have the DM... =brian -- Internet: brian@apollo.COM UUCP: {decvax,mit-erl,yale}!apollo!brian NETel: Apollo: 508-256-6600 x5694 Home: 617-332-3073 USPS: Apollo Computer, Chelmsford MA Home: 29 Trowbridge St. Newton MA (Copyright 1988 by author. All rights reserved. Free redistribution allowed.)
ross@sword.ulowell.edu (Ross Miller) (12/30/88)
From article <33@draci.cs.uow.oz>, by pdg@draci.cs.uow.oz (Peter Gray): > In article <4068750b.13e2d@apollo.COM>, ced@apollo.COM (Carl Davidson) writes: >> Or as a friend of mine likes to say (I wish I had thought of this): >> CROCK FOR CROCK COMPATIBLE. >> Sorry. I just couldn't resist. I'll go straight to my room now. > This typifies the attitude at apollo. Instead of concentrating on the > good things in UNIX its the "not invented here" approach. I would feel > much happier about buying apollos if I did not see this sort of attitude > *ALL* the time from apollo staff and devotees. You can not talk to these > people without them trying to tell you how bad UNIX is and how great > Aegis is. It turns me (and a lot of other people) off. Many suppliers > like to point out how they have improved UNIX, but apollo is the only > one who seems to think they can single handedly improve every feature > and rewrite every utility to be better than the original. I disagree. The librarian was trashed for the obviously inferior ar interface. But, Apollo did insert the crock as requested. I've noticed that in this group people are very quick to flame an attitude that existed in Apollo two years ago, but I have seen that attitude is very different today on the part of the people within Apollo, whom make it up. 9.7 is no longer "the" OS. Running 10.x for a while confirms that unix is here to stay on the apollos, but where unix does not provide the functionality necessary a problem, like large networks of workstations, then Apollo fixes that problem. Jumping down a level for a second, yellow pages from Sun has mutual exclusion problems when passwords are updated, amongst other problems. YP is not standard unix and "in my opinion" would be a bad standard. Registries sitting on top of NCS however work, and work well. The problem is that while NCS runs on many machines, the registry code does not. Should we go with YP because it runs on many more machines, and put up with a bogus solution, or spend the time porting, learning, and using a better solution? Of course its easy to say that philisophically the port should be done, and economically YP should be used. But, if the advanced system can survive long enough eventually it will win. A perfect example is unix, look at the kludges that were excuses for operating systems it replaced. But, we must not stop at unix, we the technical community must continue to progress, or technical communities outside our own will succeede us. Ross
pdg@draci.cs.uow.oz (Peter Gray) (01/04/89)
In article <408722ea.6bad@apollo.COM>, tyager@apollo.COM (Tom Yager) writes: > > You must be talking to the wrong people. Yeah, there are folks here who are > resistant to change, but that problem's not specific to Apollo. > > stuff deleted....... > > Aegis is OK, but I don't have it installed on MY node. And, yes, I did > have a choice. > > more stuff deleted..... > > I'm all for freedom of speech and such, but articles like this one > only promote a negative attitude--they serve no constructive purpose. > If Unix were promoted by Apollo as a second-class OS (as DEC once did > with Ultrix), I could see cause for a fuss. However, there isn't any > doubt that, as a company, we're proud to offer Unix, and feel that > our OS compares well against anyone's. > This article is encouraging. Maybe I did "promote a negitive attitude" with my previous article but the motive is/was to try to convince Apollo that there are lots of people out here who think UNIX is a nice OS and dislike it being constantly "badmouthed" (I get enough of that from the popular press). I wish Apollo every success (competition is healthy). If enough people at Apollo feel as Tom does, there should be no problem. On a different but related issue, I would like some comments on ACL's. People at Apollo and lots of other places feel they are great. I feel they are an unnecessary complication I can well do without. And don't give me that stuff about "if you don't want to use them they can be ignored". The complexity exists in the software so I pay the price in speed, size and reliability. Now it may well be I am old fashioned so I am asking for civilised comment on the benefits of ACL's over the more "traditional" rwx type permissions. Who knows, I may be convinced. pdg
krowitz@RICHTER.MIT.EDU (David Krowitz) (01/06/89)
ACL's don't give you that much of a penalty in speed, and they allow the rest of us a great deal of flexibility that doesn't exist in BSD4.3/SYS V. Our network consists of a conglomoration of several loosely related research groups. People in one group frequently colaborate with people in other groups on certain projects but not on others. We also run a number of seminars for undergraduate students who are associated with different professors. If we had to rely soley on the Unix owner-group-world protections we'd have to have a completely open network. There are too many inter-group projects going on all the time in a constantly shifting environment. Since the SR10 ACL's exist as an *extension* to, not as a replacement for, the usual Unix protections they cause the devoted Unix purist little, if any, problem. Here is my real gripe with Unix purists -- as shown by this discussion ... anytime anyone (Apollo, DEC, HP ...) makes an extension to improve the capabilities of their system they are criticized for not being "standard". It doesn't matter that the extension can be ignored -- they not only want their programs to run exactly as they do on a VAX 11/780 running BSD4.3, they want them to *fail* exactly the same way. We bought Apollo machines precisely because we did not want our programs to fail the way they do with a Unix system. We did not want to live with the limitations imposed by a fixed paging area, lack of memory-mapped I/O, lack of typed files, lack of network-wide login registries, lack of true transparent file system, and an inflexible file protection scheme. Much has been learned about operating systems in the 15 years since Unix was conceived, and very little of it has been incorporated into either BSD or SYS V up to now. Carnigie Mellon, with their work on MACH, are the only people who are actively trying to shove a standard, non-vendor specific, version on Unix forward into the 1990's. If Apollo were to abandon their kernel in favor of a native BSD or SYS V port (and I don't see them doing that), we would have to abandon them in favor of Steven Job's NEXT machine running MACH. Our research can't afford to wait for BSD / SYS V to catch up to the capabilities of our current software. -- David Krowitz krowitz@richter.mit.edu (18.83.0.109) krowitz%richter@eddie.mit.edu krowitz%richter@athena.mit.edu krowitz%richter.mit.edu@mitvma.bitnet (in order of decreasing preference)
frank@CAEN.ENGIN.UMICH.EDU (Randy Frank) (01/07/89)
you want an argument for acl's over std unix permissions? Try running an enviornment with 6000 users. We'd have to hire a couple of full time people just to manage traditional unix groups. Everytime someone wanted to add or delete someone from a group some "wizard" would have modify the groups files. Also, every time you JUST wanted to let one other person look at a file you'd have to created a group just for that purpose. (Come to think of it, aren't GIDs only 16 bits? Let's see, that would let each user have about 5 groups on average. So if you wanted to let 6 different people individually see six different files, you're S.O.L....) Now, let say you want to let some group of users just read a file, another group of user read and write a file, and everyone else have no access. I could hire a thousand people to manage the group file and they couldn't come up with a solution to that one. Of course, I could always implement a "permissions" deamon which you go thru to get at files which had a facility to allow users to specify complicated permissions on top of the existing Unix rwx mechanism, but gee, isn't what I just did to implement an ACL facility on top of unix, and, by gosh, isn't that exactly what Apollo has done??? Randy
ronc@fai.UUCP (Ronald O. Christian) (01/08/89)
In article <8901061437.AA06662@richter.mit.edu> krowitz@RICHTER.MIT.EDU (David Krowitz) writes: >Here is my real gripe with Unix purists -- as shown by this discussion ... >anytime anyone (Apollo, DEC, HP ...) makes an extension to improve the >capabilities of their system they are criticized for not being "standard". >It doesn't matter that the extension can be ignored -- they not only >want their programs to run exactly as they do on a VAX 11/780 running >BSD4.3, they want them to *fail* exactly the same way. This is wrong. My main point continues to be that in some areas, even in the celebrated SR10, you can *not* ignore the extension. You *must* live with it. The standard answer to this is "gee the extension is soooo wonderful you must be a real putz not to want it". Pfui. Here's an example: Dump(8) is on the BSD tape, but is not included on the Apollo. We have over an hundred machines running dump, and two that don't. (The apollos.) Rbak is only one example of an extension I can not ignore. This is not "being a purist". This is complaining about a company providing "Unix" with parts missing. Ron -- Ronald O. Christian (Fujitsu America Inc., San Jose, Calif.) {amdahl, pyramid, sun, unisoft, uunet}!fai!ronc -or- ronc@fai.com