OpenNT

Get the most out of your UNIX investment by extending UNIX capabilities to your Windows NT environment. OpenNT, from Softway Systems, creates an enhanced POSIX/UNIX subsystem within your NT system. The product includes applications and utilities that comply with UNIX, X/Open Portability Guide (XPG), and POSIX.2 standards. These applications and utilities operate within the POSIX/UNIX subsystem and interact with their NT counterparts. For example, on UNIX systems, Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) sockets provide network support. OpenNT provides an interface between BSD sockets and NT's Winsock library. If you compile and operate a UNIX program written for BSD sockets (such as a gopher search utility) on an OpenNT-enabled system, the program will make the appropriate socket call, and OpenNT will transfer the call to the Winsock system.

Adhering to standards is important in the UNIX world, and OpenNT conforms to most UNIX standards, including the POSIX.1, POSIX.2, and ANSI C interfaces. At the application layer, OpenNT's libraries support all POSIX and UNIX APIs.

The Core
OpenNT consists of eight core components: the UNIX shells and utilities, X11 runtime clients and applications, X11 display server, Open Software Foundation (OSF)/Motif window manager, remote logon Telnet service, UNIX software development tools, X11 software development tools, and OSF/Motif software development tools. Available OpenNT packages contain combinations of these core components.

Only the UNIX shells and utilities component is necessary to run OpenNT. This component includes the OpenNT system files, networking support for UNIX-style sockets, interprocess communications (IPC) message queues and semaphores, shared memory, memory-mapped files, and components that facilitate OpenNT's integration with NT subsystems, such as file systems, security model systems, and services. OpenNT's UNIX shells and utilities component also includes more than 100 character-based UNIX utilities, such as awk, sed, and perl. UNIX aficionados will appreciate this component's full versions of C shell and Korn shell, two popular UNIX shells that support command aliasing, job control, and history. And UNIX enthusiasts will enjoy editing files using OpenNT's full version of vi.

The optional X11 display server component includes an X11R6-compliant X server, which lets you run any X application on your NT machine. If you work in a multiplatform UNIX environment and your UNIX hosts have X administration utilities, OpenNT's X11 display server lets you run those utilities on your NT machine to remotely perform administrative functions. Screen 1 shows the X11 Server Control Panel, which lets you configure a connection to a remote X client program.

If you install OpenNT's X11 runtime clients and applications component, you can run your NT server's applications on the X servers on your network. The X11 runtime component contains more than 50 applications, including a port of xterm, which you can use to establish a shell session on your NT server.

OpenNT's software development tools help you build applications on your NT machine that are compatible with their UNIX counterparts. The tools supplement Microsoft's Visual C++ 4.0, which you must install on your system before you can use OpenNT for software development. The UNIX software development tools, which include utilities such as yacc, lex, make, and cc, let you compile generic text-interface utilities such as the trn USENET newsreader popular on many UNIX systems. The X11 development tools include additional utilities, such as xmkmf and imake, which supplement the UNIX utilities that produce X-related applications. The OSF/Motif development tools include utilities that help you build Motif applications. Each development system comes with a set of header files and function libraries you can link to your application.

The Installation
OpenNT's installation is simple. I installed OpenNT on my NT server, a Digital Prioris HX-590 with 96MB of RAM. First, I installed the base OpenNT product, which consists of the software's runtime components. I ran the Setup program in the X86 directory, and the installation proceeded smoothly. I had to select an installation location for my files and provide activation keys so that the program would install the proper components. When the installation was complete, I returned to Windows Explorer. I had to log off and then back on before I could use the software, but I didn't have to reboot my computer. After installing OpenNT's runtime components, I reran the Setup program to install the software development kit. Again, I had to answer questions regarding where to install certain files and provide a license key.

When I finished both steps in the installation process, I tested the software. Using OpenNT was a joy. I launched a Korn shell prompt through Explorer, and I ran shell scripts from my UNIX system after modifying them slightly. I ran multiple jobs simultaneously, in both the foreground and background. You can start background jobs by adding an ampersand (&) to the command line (e.g., runajob &). Using the fg and bg directives, I moved jobs from the background to the foreground, and vice versa. I used the jobs command to get a list of running jobs. The pipes are fully functional, and the shell lets you redirect both stdout and stderr.

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