"The Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more fun!"

SCOldies Bragging Rights

From David C. Winters on Mon, 14 Dec 1998

In your response to Anthony's second message (re: a coworker teasing him about SCO's capabilities), you say:

I figured. About the only things the SCOldies can hold over us right now are "journal file support" and "Tarantella."

Abject curiosity makes me ask: What are these two capabilities?

D.

"Journaling Filesystems" and "Logging Filesystems" are those which store and utilize transaction logs (journals) of file operations until those changes are "committed" (synchronized).

Thus a set of small data structures on your filesystems are automatically synchronized (like in a "write-through cache") while the rest of the fs benefits from normal write caching.

The net effect is that filesystems can be quickly checked and repaired after a castastrophic shutdown. In other words, you don't have to wait for hours for 'fsck' to finish fixing your filesystems after someone kicks the plug on your server (or the power supply fails, etc).

This is likely to be added to Linux by version 2.4 or 3.x. Some preliminary work as already been done.

Many versions of Unix (such as SCO, Novell/SCO Unixware, and AIX) have their own implementations of these features. In addition there is a company called Veritas * (http://www.veritas.com/corporate/index.htm).

You can get some similar effect from Linux, at considerable performance cost, by selectively mounting your important filesystems with the 'sync' option (mount -o sync ....).

"Tarantella" is a unique feature of SCO's. It provides Java/Web based access to your Linux desktop. The closest match is the VNC package (virtual network computer) from the Olivetti/Oracle (Joint) Research Laboratory * (http://www.orl.co.uk/vnc/index.html).

VNC is a network windowing system (like X Windows, but more "lightweight") which allows you to connect to your systems remotely via an MS Windows (Win '95/'98/NT), MacOS, or Java client. VNC also allows you to remotely connect to Win '9x/NT system from it's X Windows (or other Win/MacOS/Java) clients.

Actually VNC might be close enough in features that SCO couldn't get much mileage out of touting it over Linux with VNC. VNC is under the GPL.

Copyright © 1999, James T. Dennis
Published in The Linux Gazette Issue 36 January 1999

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