Date: Thu, 1 Nov 2001 12:43:49 +0100 From: "Anthony Atkielski" <anthony@atkielski.com> To: "FreeBSD Questions" <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: Tiny starter configuration for FreeBSD Message-ID: <008201c162ca$7a813b10$0a00000a@atkielski.com> References: <00ca01c162c6$79481ba0$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com>
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Ted writes: > NT is NOT a multiuser system. It's a > multiprocess system. It's both. NT supports multiple user identities, thus making it a multiuser system; multiple users can connect to the system sequentially, with full isolation of their enviroments. In this respect it is even more advanced than UNIX (which also provides user identities, but not with the same flexibility as NT). However, Windows NT is not a timesharing system, whereas UNIX is--where a timesharing system is defined as a multiuser system providing identical system access to an arbitrary number of users at local or remote locations. Windows NT doesn't even come close to that, and Windows Terminal Server is really not a significant step in this direction. > The only multiuser functionality it has is if > you put Terminal Server, and add-on, onto it. The only timesharing capability, yes--but I think are disagreement here is only one of semantics. For what it's worth, Terminal Server has never impressed me. I'll take a UNIX or other dedicated timesharing system over WTS any day of the week. > Just because NT has ACL's and all that doesen't > make it multiuser. ACLs would be of no use if the system were not a multiuser system. And NT's ACL support is orders of magnitude better than that of UNIX (in fact, UNIX has no notion of ACLs at all, except in some proprietary versions of the OS). > If you were to claim that it was multiuser just > because you can have different ownership of > files then a Novell Netware server would be > multiuser. A Netware server _is_ multiuser. It's not really a timesharing system, however. UNIX is a timesharing system in the grand tradition of such systems; indeed, other than Multics and a few other niche operating systems, UNIX is probably the best of the lot. The fact that UNIX was designed that way from the ground up has a lot to do with this superiority. > UNIX is multiuser because it can have multiple users > using user interfaces into a UNIX system simultaneously. Multiuser = supporting multiple user identities, sequentially or in parallel Timesharing = executing in multiple user contexts, with users located either locally or remotely, and all with equal status Multitasking = able to execute multiple independent non-system tasks in parallel Multiprogramming = able to execute multiple tasks, system or otherwise > ... but NT has no real multiuser capability in it. Insofar as you are using multiuser in the same way that I use timesharing, this is true. It's one reason why NT is unlikely to replace UNIX for many types of server applications. When you actually need to connect to a server remotely, with full access to the server's capabilities, NT is a waste of time; whereas UNIX is built for this. I've cursed NT servers on many occasions when I've had to do important things on the server and simply could not do them without physically walking over to the machine and sitting down in front of it. There is virtually nothing on a UNIX system that _must_ be done at the system console (although, for security reasons, additional restrictions are often applied by a site to remote operations). To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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