OT: OS/2, Linux and Windows (was Re: TZ)

[Simon Bowring]

>Ummm, yes, to a point.  Yes, they are all done under OS/2.  But the
>discussion was about rewriting OS/2 as an open source OS.  

No, read ahgain, the question was:
>>>And, since this has already been done for Linux, why not just bite the
>>>bullet and move over to Linux?

and I explained why, but you followed up with a catalog of things that 
are going to be implemented, have been badly implemented or are only 
half implemented on linux (samba, dos emulation, SMP, GUIs).

Samba implmenets the bare minimum of SMB networking with no management
implemented at all, and no operation at all over the *native* and 
more efficient netbeui protocol (samba only does "tcpbeui").

OS/2's SMP may not support the latest chipsets as quickly as linux,
but when it's supported it works well cos it's well implemented, 
linux can do it badly on more chips.

Glad to hear that Dosemu may oneday catch up with OS/2s VDMs
(which can run a variety of 80x86 os's, not just DOS, and run
mulitple particular DOS versions if required).

>There is an equivalent amount of work involved in order to
>>duplicate OS/2.
>Much more in fact - OS/2 is much bigger than linux!
>In many ways, OS/2 is bloated.  Size doesn't mean it's good.
What? I was commenting on the amount of effort to duplicate,
OS/2 and you fire back with a change in the argument!


>>OS/2 is more networking neutral than Unix or windows (which
>>prefer their own "native" networking to a greater extent than
>>OS/2)
>Define what you mean.  All TCP/IP networking these days is based on the
>original Unix networking support.  Since TCP/IP seems to be the
>standard, I would think that Unix is more networking neutral than any
>other OS.

Your own question answers it partialy, not all networking is 
tcp/ip based you know!

Linux insist's networking be done on it's own native tcp/ip network 
transport - OS/2 can run multiple entirely different network transports 
concurrently and independently it supports simultaneous connectivity
LAN Server, Warp Server, Windows NT Server, Novell Netware, Netware Directory 
Services, PCLAN Program, IPX-SPX, LANtastic for DOS or OS/2, Warp Connect, 
Windows NT Workstation, Windows 95, Windows for Workgroups, TCP/IP (including 
DHCP, DDNS, FTP, TFTP, Telnet, SLIP, PPP, SMTP, and SNMP), SNA, NetBIOS.
3rd party drivers allow others like ARCnet and DECnet. No other OS does this!

Unix's NFS assumes a unix inode directory system which is very costly to 
emulate on non-unix systems (in RAM and performance), etc etc.

Windows can do tcp/ip and other protocols, but supplies little or nothing in
the way of the standard tcp/ip apps, and it embraces and extends ip 
to the point  of incompatility with other systems (WINS, CHAP, PAP, FTP are all 
protocols they have "broken"), and provides minimal compatibility with 
non-windows systems (e.g. Win9x does long filenames, but carefully avoids exposing 
them to OS/2).  OS/2's networking just allows you to get along with other 
systems, not forcing them work the OS/2 way as unix and windows does. 

I program all these systems and I do (mainly!) know what I'm talking 
about!

Simon