The lowdown on the latest 32-bit PC operating systems
Tom Yager
Shall I take the Ferrari or the Jaguar to the restaurant? Shall I have the lobster or the linguine calimari? Shall I go to the beach house or the mountain chalet this weekend?
No doubt about it, some types of problems are more fun than others. And the problem of choosing a desktop operating system has gotten a lot more fun lately.
Today, there's so much overlap in OS capabilities -- at least each vendor's
stated
capabilities -- that we're cursed with an embarrassment of riches. For any problem we must solve, several OSes promise a uniquely capable solution. And with the bundling that has become commonplace, OSes sometimes
are
a self-contained solution, applications and all.
So let's look at some operating systems to see what the
y're good at and not so good at. For this evaluation, we chose a common base -- a PC with an Intel or compatible CPU -- and five commercial PC OSes: Microsoft's Windows 95 and Windows NT Server, IBM's OS/2 Warp, Novell's UnixWare, and SunSoft's Solaris.
Using Windows 95
A user interface isn't simply a matter of drawing colored dots on a screen. Broader behavioral issues, commonly referred to as "look and feel," shape a user's feelings about his or her computer. We've seen that it can help make the difference between a productive worker and a disgruntled one.
On the benevolent-dictatorship theory alone, Windows 95 has a leg up. Microsoft is not only the sole supplier of the OS, it also sells the platform's most popular development tool (Visual C++) and the most popular suite of applications (Office).
There are passing similarities to OS/2 as well, but key features of both the layout and the behavior of Windows 95 are strikingly NextStep-like. A totem-pole stack of i
cons for frequently accessed applications sits glued to the desktop. Across the bottom of the screen is a list of running applications with a graphical representation for each. Both graphical and text-based applications can be launched from the command line.
Critics have taken Microsoft to task for its continued dependence on 16-bit and DOS code. These same critics would have had even more to complain about had Microsoft abandoned so-called legacy applications and devices, those programs and peripherals supported under Windows 3.x but which have no 32-bit native equivalent.
A user of Windows 3.1 should quickly feel comfortable with 95's interface. Every aspect, from installation to application launching, is easier than under old Windows. The famous Start button unravels a cascade of menus which, depending on your preference, will either catch your fancy or annoy the daylights out of you. For the latter group, Microsoft has included a version of the much-maligned (and deservedly so) Program Manager
called the Explorer.
The Windows user interface has gotten more than a cursory overhaul. (Some of the interface enhancements have been split out into a product called the Plus Pack, a $55 add-on.) The entire look is different, from window borders to mouse cursors. Font-smoothing drastically improves the appearance of larger text. When you resize a window, the window changes shape in real time. You can do a slow double-click on icon captions to change their names. Look-and-feel preferences now let you customize minute aspects such as the font used in title bars. Desktop Themes, including background images, colors, and font selections, can follow you around a network to make any machine feel like home. Even 16-bit Windows applications inherit Windows 95's look with regard to borders and common dialog boxes (e.g., "File Open").
TCP/IP support is standard, so if you're connected, you can use Windows 95 to run built-in apps and other Winsock (Windows sockets) software. Windows 95 also lets you connect
to Windows for Workgroups and other NetBEUI LANs, as well as NetWare servers.
Using OS/2 Warp
OS/2 Warp Connect
has become a popular choice for the desktop. Before Windows 95 came along, OS/2 Warp was the best way to coax 16-bit Windows programs into multitasking more efficiently. You can run a high-speed modem session with a native Warp application (included in the Connect bundle) and support several Windows programs in the background without bogging down file transfers.
Most of these benefits pale in a field that includes Windows 95. OS/2 Warp can't run Windows NT or Windows 95 applications, and its user interface, while perfectly functional, looks industrial compared to the sleekness of Windows 95. That's sizzle, not steak, and so it may not figure into your consideration. Like Windows 95's Start button, Warp's Launchpad eases access to common functions by placing them a couple of clicks away. You may prefer the Launchpad to the Start button's i
ncessantly cascading menu: Launchpad isn't quite as customizable, but it can save you digging through the Workplace Shell's deep hierarchies of icons for common functions.
Using OS/2 Warp to multitask Windows applications probably holds no appeal now that Windows 95 is out. It is worth running if you have even one critical native application. Warp also performs well as a nondedicated server for a Windows for Workgroups LAN; the demands of LAN print and file serving will take a lesser toll on a Warp machine than on Windows for Workgroups, and Warp's reliability is generally much higher.
The Warp Connect bundle, which includes many extra applications (a Web browser, for example), doesn't strike a decisive blow for OS/2 relative to Windows 95. Since most users have 16-bit Windows applications, they'll continue to run on whatever 32-bit OS they choose. IBM's bundling of personal productivity applications probably won't make a clear difference. IBM's anticipated shift to emphasize servers and vertical
applications, areas where Big Blue has proven strength, should gain OS/2 more ground.
Using Unix
Unix is an odd market, primarily because it means so many different things. We chose to evaluate two System V Release 4 Unix products: Novell's UnixWare and SunSoft's Solaris x86. UnixWare went through some serious changes in release 2.0, gaining considerable maturity and stability in the process. Similarly, Solaris x86 version 2.4 cast off the yoke of prior releases, which were roundly criticized as buggy.
As with OS/2, Unix suffers a lack of major-label commercial applications. That has never been Unix's strong suit. Sites looking to put themselves on the Internet should think of Unix first. Most of the tools you need are free, and there's plenty of good help available when you get in a jam. Unix is also a mature and highly functional choice for application servers. Everything from accessing remote databases to executing remote applications can be handled by commercial Unixe
s.
Solaris and UnixWare rely on the X Window System for a graphical user interface. SunSoft and Novell each created their own file-manager shells that implement drag-and-drop capability and otherwise approximate the behavior of other popular GUIs. You can run graphical applications remotely: The remote machine, even hundreds of miles away, runs the software, but the interface is presented to you at your desk. Any PC or Mac running a popular OS can be adapted to work as an X Window terminal. In this regard, Unix offers the widest latitude of remote access as a standard feature.
UnixWare is a strong system with a workable graphical shell and a suite of well-designed graphical administration tools. As an application platform, UnixWare is a good distance behind Solaris, but only when you compare UnixWare with Solaris' implementation of the Motif Common Desktop Environment (CDE). CDE's front panel (
see the screen shot
) nearly matches OS/2's Launchpad, but the front panel supports mul
tiple workspaces. Each workspace is a full virtual screen, and you can switch from one screen to the next with the mouse or the keyboard. Solaris' CDE brings the X Window System up to consumer standards with enhanced E-mail, text editor, calendar, image editor, and other tools. CDE's new help facility compares well with Windows and offers hope that Unix developers may take advantage of this powerful standard.
CDE's worth goes deeper than its glossy surface, and it isn't peculiar to Solaris. It's the product of the collaboration of Sun, Digital, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and Novell. Solaris is the first CDE implementation we've seen.
Solaris has two unmatched features: Display PostScript (DPS) and Wabi. DPS enhances Solaris' OpenWindows X Window software with a full PostScript interpreter. You can view PostScript documents on-screen and even embed PostScript functions in your X Window programs. Solaris' documentation comes on CD-ROM in "AnswerBooks" -- PostScript with embedded hypertext links. It's an
effective combination, and it makes a good source for printing, too. And when it comes to running Windows applications on your Unix system, Wabi does quite well. Even enhanced-mode Windows applications run under Wabi, and SunSoft has done a good job of simplifying the work of installation. Wabi supports many popular mainstream software applications, but before adopting Wabi, first check the compatibility list to make sure that the programs you use are on there.
Administering Windows 95
Testing is the key to deploying a fleet of machines with a new OS. You may find that devices you favor aren't supported by your new OS. In our tests, an Orchid SoundWave 32 sound card was not supported by
any
of the tested OSes. A Sound Blaster 16 ASP card proved problematic in Windows 95 (reportedly fixed now), and even Microsoft's own Windows Sound System card produced no MIDI music.
Running a 32-bit OS requires a powerful system. Vendor recommendations can be used only as an opt
imistic baseline. One Microsoft spokesman referred to the claimed 4-MB memory minimum for Windows 95 as sufficient "unless you want to run real applications." A more realistic minimum is 8 MB. Our testing proved that 16 MB offers enough slack to minimize swapping in a networked environment with typical applications.
Windows 95 Plus includes a 32-bit version of Microsoft's DriveSpace compression utility that can about quadruple the capacity of your hard disk. It's also flexible, letting you apply varying levels of compression to individual files or groups of files rather than to entire drives.
Windows 95
takes advantage of multitasking by introducing agents, programs that run in the background. With Plus installed, standard agents watch disk space, defragment your drives during off-hours, and implement DriveSpace's higher compression levels. The DriveSpace agent will also look for files that haven't been accessed in a specified number of days and compress them for you.
For
administrators, an unpleasant aspect of Windows 95 is the VFAT file system. It gives you long filenames, but in most other ways, it's still the dumpy old FAT. Until native backup applications appear, you must resort to kludgey work-arounds to reattach severed long filenames to their 8.3 DOS equivalents after a restoration from tape. VFAT also has no notion of file ownership or file-level access control, so real security is impossible to implement. If a user can get at a drive, local or remote, he or she can access every file on that drive. In our opinion, that puts Windows 95 completely out of contention as anything but a casual, completely open workgroup server.
Microsoft did itself proud, though, in redesigning the administrative side of Windows 95. You need to grab a copy of the Windows 95 Resource Kit. This chubby package explains everything the scant Windows 95 manuals don't, and the kit includes three disks with management tools. Some tools, like the registry and policy editors, are included with
Windows 95, but they're hidden away. Policies limit a user's access to resources and applications. You can restrict a user from accessing his or her Control Panel applets or modifying desktop settings. These policies can follow a user around a network, or you can create policies that keep all users of a shared machine from messing up the configuration.
Windows 95 connects, out of the box, to NetBEUI (Windows NT, Windows for Workgroups, LAN Manager, IBM OS/2 LAN Server), TCP/IP (including PPP and SLIP), and IPX/SPX (NetWare) networks. E-mail support is standard, and a unified in-box for fax, Microsoft Mail, Internet mail, and Microsoft Network mail is provided through an application called Exchange. The Plus package adds the Internet mail capability. Exchange's decision to reach into our UnixWare E-mail gateway and move (transfer and delete) all of the test user's E-mail was unexpected and unwelcome.
Windows 95 supports dial-up networking through Remote Access Server (RAS). The OS supports one dial
-up client, so your users can set up their own modems to call their desktop systems for E-mail and remote networking.
Administering a network of Windows 95 systems is aided by the tools both in the OS and in the Resource Kit. It's made comparatively more difficult, however, because Windows 95 lacks both a competent shell language (for custom tools) and remote shell access. You can't easily send remote system commands through a network or dial-up connection. For that, you'll have to create your own tools, live with the limited access provided by Microsoft's standard tools, or buy Microsoft's System Management Server. Until native remote-access tools become available, managing a fleet of Windows 95 systems will be a hassle compared to OS/2 or Unix.
Administering OS/2
From a feature standpoint, OS/2 has most everything Windows 95 has except the ability to run the latest 32-bit Windows applications. Warp supports NetBEUI, TCP/IP, and NetWare networks. PPP and SLIP are standar
d. Tools for fax, Internet E-mail, and TCP/IP are standard. Network installation is supported. To its credit, OS/2 Warp also includes both a credible shell language (REXX) and the ability to run an OS/2 shell remotely through Telnet.
Unfortunately, OS/2's administrative interface starts to unravel when you set about configuring its many options. While Windows 95 keeps all its vital controls organized under the Control Panel, OS/2 spreads its administrative tools around. You must do quite a bit of hunting to bring together all the applications you need to get the system configured.
OS/2's implementation of TCP/IP is more complete than that in Windows 95, nearly rivaling Unix. Command-line tools, including essentials such as
nslookup
(name server lookup), are standard. If you have other TCP/IP applications you'd like to run, all of OS/2's supported modes (DOS, Windows, and OS/2) have network socket support. IBM includes code that adds socket support to the REXX shell language. Also, you ca
n use OS/2 as a router or a gateway. IP forwarding is supported (unlike in Windows 95), and the OS handles up to seven network interfaces. In this and many other regards, OS/2 Warp combines the requirements of both desktop and server. Expect the coming Warp Server product to strengthen the server side with features such as disk mirroring and remote administration.
RAM requirements for OS/2 Warp start at 8 MB. Plan on 16 MB for a "power desktop" configuration, 32 MB if you're setting up a shared server. OS/2's device support is dated. It worked with the ET4000/W32 display card in our test machine, but only in interlaced mode with no manual override. You can override the system's modem selections, but that device list showed its age by leaving out V.34 models. Very few sound cards are supported, and the NE2000-compatible network card we used for testing required a driver from the vendor. It's essential you check the latest list of supported devices.
For supported devices, OS/2 seems smarter than Win
dows 95. When we changed the parameters for the network card, OS/2 queried the card and adjusted to the new parameters automatically. Windows 95 did not.
There are two more reasons to consider OS/2: its multiprocessor version and its coming support for the Power PC chip.
Administering Unix
It may take longer to learn to administer Unix systems, but once you've achieved the skills, you'll find the tools and capabilities of Unix unrivaled for many server applications. As we've mentioned, every variety of executable -- line-mode text, full-screen text, and graphical -- can be executed on any LAN, WAN, or dial-up node.
UnixWare includes
support for TCP/IP (with SLIP and PPP) and NetWare LANs. Solaris matches this, but it makes NetWare client support optional. NetBEUI support isn't standard, but a public-domain server called Samba runs on both UnixWare and Solaris. Clients must support NetBIOS over TCP/IP; check your clients' software.
Don't be mi
sled by all the talk about Novell merging UnixWare and NetWare: Novell currently has no NetWare server software that runs under UnixWare. Only client access is supported. Both UnixWare and Solaris do include NFS (the Network File System), and Solaris 2.4 (from Sun, which invented NFS) reportedly includes enhancements to NFS to improve performance. NFS has never been a top performer as a file-sharing system, but it is cheap to implement and easy to manage, and you can get NFS client software for all types of machines and operating systems.
UnixWare simplifies administration with a decent set of menu-driven tools. These tools are split between textual and graphical, but the most important functions are found in
sysadm.
This program's windowed textual interface makes fairly quick work of adding users, configuring dial-up lines, and other essentials. Solaris, inexplicably, discards this System V Release 4 standard in favor of its own graphical administrative tools. These tools, while prettier, don'
t cover the range of facilities covered by
sysadm.
Solaris administrators must navigate the jungle of command-line tools to do the work
sysadm
does for you in UnixWare.
UnixWare ships standard with a journaling file system from Veritas. Journaling limits loss of data on system failures and makes recovery after a power outage or other hard failure much quicker. You can purchase advanced file-system software for both Solaris and UnixWare to add support for striping, mirroring, spanning, and other server requirements. Unix has support for several installable file systems, all of which support ownership and detailed permissions. Most let you have long filenames and hard and symbolic links, or aliases for files and directories. Some Unix file systems support quotas, which track and limit each user's disk usage.
Machine requirements for PC Unix systems are comparatively steep, a strike against Unix as a desktop environment. We tested both Solaris and UnixWare on a Pentium 90 with 32 MB
of RAM; amazingly, both suffered marked performance degradation when running a short stack of applications in a graphical environment. Solaris' performance hit was worse, but the CDE software was still in beta. If you plan to deploy PC Unix systems as servers, consider whether you really need to run the X Window interface. X eats RAM like crazy. Also, both UnixWare and Solaris automatically start NFS at boot time. You can save resources by turning NFS off if you won't use it.
Without the graphical environment, you should give both UnixWare and Solaris a minimum of 16 MB to 24 MB of RAM. With X Windows running, 32 MB becomes the minimum. If you don't often use the display, as with an unattended server, Unix will reclaim the memory occupied by unused graphical applications. Performance will be slower at launch, but it will improve as idle data gets swapped out of RAM.
Everything you need to put your site on the Internet, as a client or a server, is provided or freely available. Both UnixWare and So
laris work as gateways and routers if you have multiple network interfaces running. Both support demand-dialed PPP and SLIP for modem Internet connections, and both allow you to set up your modems to accept user log-ins, PPP sessions, and UUCP (Unix-to-Unix copy, a modem WAN variant). You can even pick up free fax software from several sites on the Internet. These Unixes work as DNS servers, and both support Sun's Network Information Service (NIS) for distributing user and network configuration databases among groups of systems.
Both UnixWare and Solaris have symmetric-multiprocessing support built-in.
Administering Windows NT
Windows NT Server 3.51 seems to have everything. While we're all bored to death with NT's user interface, which Microsoft plans to update with the Windows 95 look and feel, the services provided out of the box by Windows NT Server have no equal. TCP/IP, NetBEUI, and even AppleTalk are all standard. NT will act as a gateway to NetWare files and print
ers, and it will link multiple NetBEUI and TCP/IP networks as well. The administrative interface is clean and centralized, and the three-volume Windows NT Resource Kit gives administrators not only the essentials but a well-rounded schooling in the OS's internal structure as well.
Microsoft's NTFS file system delivers the advantages of UnixWare's journaling Veritas file system. It provides long filenames and POSIX-compatible links, as well as ownership and extensive permissions. Mirroring and striping are standard components of NTFS, with a simple, capable volume manager easing management of even huge numbers of drives. NTFS permits mirroring at the partition level, so mirrored pairs don't have to be of equal size. NTFS still uses backward FAT drive lettering, but striping makes it possible to combine multiple drives into a single lettered volume. Microsoft thoughtfully allows several versions of each file. This clears the way for uncomplicated handling of the Macintosh file system's resource and data f
orks, and it also lets you use the file system for versioning and on-disk archiving. Microsoft throws in a graphical backup utility that captures all this extra data.
Windows NT Server's power comes at a price: RAM. On our 32-MB test system, running TCP/IP, NetBEUI, and AppleTalk services together left only 6 MB of RAM free. If you run additional software, 32 MB might prove insufficient. However, if your machine is operating solely as a file and print server, 32 MB should be adequate. Once you start leaning on Windows NT's Unix-like strengths as an application server, plan to raise the bar to 48 MB or higher. While you might rely on virtual memory to provide headroom on a desktop system, it's a bad substitute for real RAM on a server.
We Live in a Political World
With all the hype and legal controversy swirling around Windows 95 at the time of its release, no one can deny that politics and marketing play as pivotal a role as technology in the OS market.
Microsoft hop
es to secure more than just every desktop PC in the universe. The Redmond giant is aggressively pitching Windows NT as the premier server environment. The NetBEUI network protocol, now most often identified with Windows for Workgroups, can serve up files inside, while TCP/IP and SPX/IPX set up hooks to the outside. Meanwhile, Windows NT's user interface gets more Windows 95-like, showing Microsoft's intent to position NT for power desktop users as well.
Whether by luck or by design, Microsoft's strategy locks out other OS players. Commercial software developers must now target three systems -- Windows for Workgroups, Windows 95, and Windows NT -- each with its own foibles and strengths. Why write a compute-intensive application, for example, that doesn't take advantage of threads as supported by NT and 95? Meanwhile, can you afford to neglect the millions of Windows for Workgroups users who can't or won't upgrade? Developers wind up crafting specially tuned editions of the same code to run on two or mor
e flavors of Windows. Then it all needs to be tested. Who has time for OS/2 or UnixWare?
IBM's OS/2 is, by the standards of most industries, a success. With some nine million copies sold worldwide (according to IBM), there are more machines running OS/2 than any other 32-bit OS. And IBM's OS/2 LAN Server is the second-most-used network OS in the PC market. That's all according to IBM, but it makes sense: OS/2 was there when Windows 95 was not. Each slip in Microsoft's schedule signaled a predictable burst in sales of OS/2. Many IS managers got tired of waiting for an environment competent to drive the 100-MHz 486 and Pentium systems landing on desks.
While not conceding defeat on the desktop, IBM is busy remaking OS/2 Warp into a competitor of Windows NT. The dearth of native OS/2 applications would have eventually been OS/2's undoing in the broad commercial market. So IBM will focus on OS/2 Warp Server, a new product slated for release in the first quarter of 1996.
Commercial Unix and Unix
variants have always been around to take up the slack. Failing (so far) to reach agreement on source-code compatibility, each Unix vendor still sells its special recipe. As it's impossible to write one piece of code that runs well on all Unix systems, most commercial developers choose not to bother. Interestingly, this problem doesn't exist on non-Intel Unix platforms, such as Sparc/Solaris, where the manufacturer (Sun) exercises tight control. We've seen something comparable with the Macintosh: Apple helps developers by imposing and enforcing standards on its systems. (There is such a thing as a benevolent dictatorship.) So most mainstream Unix applications, such as FrameMaker, are targeted for vendor-specific workstations (e.g., Sun) instead of PCs running Unix. That's not likely to change.
Commentators have frequently predicted the death of Unix, then marveled as it survives one seemingly fatal blow after another. A fanatical following is often credited, but other, more interesting factors are in evi
dence. Most of the better universities teach part, or all, of their computer curriculum with Unix as a foundation of study. It's easy to find skilled programmers and administrators among the ranks of college graduates.
Also helping Unix along is the Internet. All the information servers -- FTP, Gopher, Archie, and the Web's Hypertext Transport Protocol (HTTP) among them -- were born on Unix. In most cases, their most advanced implementations exist on Unix. TCP/IP, the unifying protocol that ties thousands of sites together via the Internet, started with Unix, and most TCP/IP networks have a Unix core. Being first doesn't ensure victory, but Unix made a name for itself as a server for everything from dumb terminal sessions to distributed objects. Even Bill Gates has admitted that Unix is a primary target for Windows NT development.
Where It Leads
Windows 95 blends a picture-postcard graphical interface with a fairly brainy OS. It provides good, but not foolproof, compatibi
lity with 16-bit applications. Resources, while still limited, have been raised well above the limits imposed by 16-bit Windows. In short, Windows 95 is a good compromise: It fixes many of the things we hated about Windows, maintains reasonable compatibility with older applications, and, with the Plus option, adds worthwhile new functionality. It will certainly replace Windows 3.11 as the most popular PC desktop environment, and it just as certainly will maintain a solid lead in the quantity of available applications. Whether you think that lead is fairly won or not, Windows 95 is a safe bet for both users and developers. Administrators should arm themselves with the Windows 95 Resource Kit.
OS/2 Warp has grown to be the only credible competitor of Windows for Workgroups, even though IBM didn't add peer networking until the recent Connect bundle. It still has some clout, being a full 32-bit implementation and having a file system superior to Windows 95's FAT. If you're running any native OS/2 applicatio
ns, or if you're developing your own code for in-house use, OS/2 Warp is worth a look. Until vendors get their Windows 95-certified applications out, Warp may still be a good way to mix 32-bit and 16-bit software. But that window is closing, and IBM is opening another one. OS/2 Warp, as it exists today, makes a great host for Lotus Notes, a BBS, or a small department server. The server edition of Warp, when it's released, should boost OS/2's file-serving power.
Windows NT Server presents administrators with a rare treat: a robust, self-contained server environment. It installs effortlessly; features central, graphical administration; and serves Mac, PC, and TCP/IP networks out of the box. NTFS is based on a marvelous file-system design, and the standard graphical volume manager simplifies management of complex array techniques, including striping and mirroring. Its weaknesses are the FAT-like drive-letter structure for disks and near-absolute dependence on graphical tools that make remote administration
more challenging. Some POSIX (Unix-like) command-line tools are standard, and others are included in the Resource Kit, which, again, is a necessity for administrators. The re-made Windows 95 interface may help push Windows NT into Unix's accustomed niches.
That's assuming, of course, that Unix doesn't advance just as quickly.
After working with UnixWare 2.01 and Solaris x86 2.4, we find that Unix is still just as worthwhile for that which Unix has always done well: If you want to put data -- terminal sessions, files, objects, you name it -- on a network, Unix remains an obvious choice. But it's still not for the faint of heart. An administrator with scant knowledge of Unix will find OS/2 Warp and Windows NT easier to install and maintain. However, once learned, Unix's standard tools and quaint (but effective) ASCII configuration files ease administration in ways no other server environment can match.
The Common Desktop Environment look-and-feel you get with SunSoft's Solaris adds some spar
kle to what was becoming a millstone around Unix's neck, the comparatively ugly X Window System. Ugly though it is, X Window's standard ability to run all classes of applications remotely, even through WAN links, endears X and Unix to builders of enterprise networks.
One of life's certainties is the inevitability of change. Maybe what you're running now is doing the job for you. But in time, perhaps soon, you'll find yourself forced to choose from among the field's 32-bit players. We hope we've given you a healthy head start on the homework you should do before settling on the OS you'll run for the next several years.
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Windows 95 is an operating system that's pretty easy to use and fairly powerful. But don't expect it to jump through all the hoops you expect Unix to go through.
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UnixWare is Unix with a fairly attractive face. Front ends to the Unix file system, the system administration tools, and mail are built in. You will find yourself at a command line once in a while, though.
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Solaris includes the AnswerBook, a very souped-up version of the man pages. It also features the Common Desktop Environment (CDE), which is the "new" look and feel of Unix.
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OS/2 Warp Connect comes with many useful network services -- more, in fact, than rival Windows 95. But the user interface can sometimes be somewhat confusing.
Tom Yager used to be a
BYTE technical editor covering Unix and multimedia. Now he's a freelance writer and consultant who runs his own research lab in North Texas. You can E-mail him at
tyager@maxx.net
.
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