Vol. 15 No. 4 December 2002 $2.50 MUUGlines The Manitoba UNIX User Group Newsletter December 10, 2002: Solaris 9 For x86 Gentoo Linux Sun has announced that it will, after all, release Gentoo Linux is a modern distribution that focuses Solaris 9 for the x86 architecture – sort of. As you on performance and features. Its packaging system can see from http://wwws.sun.com/software/solaris/ was inspired by the BSD ports tree, but with many x86/earlyaccess/index.html, the Solaris x86 Oper- enhancements. In this presentation, Shawn ating Environment is available through their Cus- Wallbridge will briefly cover the install, how the tomer Early Access program. So, for US$20, you Portage system works and other neat things about too can test and evaluate Solaris 9 on x86. this distribution. What’s the big deal? Some of the features are: • Integrated Sun ONE Directory Server: the Sun January 14, 2003: ONE Directory Server has been integrated into Solaris™ 9 OE to provide native LDAP Mac OS X Update services. This month, Douglas Hamilton, Apple Product • Improved performance and scalability: an Professional at the University of Manitoba, returns improved threading library and multiple page to give us an update on Mac OS X, a year after his size support improve both the raw last presentation. Many changes have occurred to performance and the ability to use additional Mac OS X over the past year (the current version is CPU resources, particularly for large, multi- now 10.2.2). These changes include a revised ker- threaded applications nel, greater security, improved development tools • New security features: Kerberos 5 and Secure and greatly improved printing & networking tech- Shell for sysadmins, new APIs — including / nologies (including a new open standard). dev/random — for developers The presentation will cover the significant • Solaris™ Volume Manager: fully-integrated changes pertaining to the Unix underpinnings of volume management software for setting up Mac OS X, and how they have improved this and maintaining concatenated, striped, and operating system. This presentation will also cover mirrored disk volumes the user interface changes which have been made to • Solaris 9 Resource Manager: integrated enable consumer (as opposed to power-user) ac- resource management features for controlling cess to the new Unix services included in Mac OS and allocating system resources X. The hardware requirements are listed as 64 MB RAM minimum, and 600 MB (desktops) to 1 GB Meetings are held at the IBM offices at 400 (servers) of disk space. Sorry, the free binary Ellice Ave. (between Edmonton and Kennedy). license is limited to one CPU. Presumably, it will When you arrive, you will have to sign in at the run on a Pentium. There is a hardware compatibility reception desk, and then wait for someone to take list (HCL) for those concerned. you (in groups) to the meeting room. Please try to arrive by about 7:15 PM, so the meeting can start New OpenOffice Installer promptly at 7:30 PM. Don’t be late, or you may not get in. Project Limited parking is available for free on the By Christof Pintaske, OpenOffice.org/Sun street, or in a lot across Ellice from IBM, for $1.00 Currently the installation of the OpenOffice.org for the evening. Indoor parking is also available suite is done by running the setup application, nearby, at Portage Place, for $2.00 for the evening. which provides a cross platform graphical user 1 December 2002 Vol. 15 No. 4 interface that wizards the user through all phases of proprietary or complex. SAP sees that the time is the setup process. Though this has been proven to right to drive open-source development of data- be as painless as possible, even for novice users, it base technology and contribute to this effort by does not integrate very well with the different making SAP DB Open Source. Open-source devel- installation standards found on the various operat- opment is revolutionizing the way software is cre- ing systems. It is neither possible to install or ated, as shown by the success of Linux, and SAP - uninstall OpenOffice.org using the systems in- which is already providing the first comprehensive staller nor does it appear in the list of installed e-business solution on Linux - wants to encourage packages. this development. To make OpenOffice.org a well behaved citi- SAP DB is a state-of-the art, SQL-based, indus- zen on your hard disk we want the systems native trial-strength database management system. SAP installer to become the default way to install, modify, DB is platform-independent, so users can deploy it or uninstall OpenOffice.org on your computer. Just for a wide array of projects. SAP DB is highly like any other package you install. scalable, easy to use and maintain, and provides Beyond that we expect the installation process full transaction support. Companies can deploy to become more robust. Relying on the native SAP DB together with SAP applications for a installer means that the setup process cannot fail for complete out-of-the-box business solution. SAP bootstrapping reasons. We hope that this eases DB also goes beyond relational processing by porting and testing of new builds as well. A further offering object orientation as well as support for motivation for this move is to simplify unattended managing unstructured data. This comprehensive installation. set of features and their availability as Open Source We are investigating the possibilities to build will benefit the entire database development com- installations based on: munity. • Microsoft Installer (MSI) on Windows For more information, visit www.sapdb.org. platforms • RedHat Package Manager (RPM) packages on Mark’s Adopts Linux Point-of- Linux • Solaris Packages (PKG) on Solaris Sale Mark’s Work Wearhouse, a 320-store Canadian Nevertheless, we expect our new 'yet to be retailer of apparel and work-related clothing, is built' setup tooling to be open to support all other replacing and centralizing its point-of-sale (POS) package formats including but not limited to: system and reducing operating and maintenance • Debian packages costs with a new Java-based Retek Point-of-Serv- • FreeBSD packages ice (RPOS) solution running open-source Linux on • Generic packages (tar / tar.gz) IBM SurePOS 500 systems. • MacOS X packages Mark’s Work Wearhouse, a wholly-owned sub- sidiary of Canadian Tire, has successfully com- We want to make all this happen based on the pleted the initial phase of the project with 64 stores OpenOffice.org Trunk (src66x, see http:// live. “Our previous POS software required a server tools.openoffice.org/releases/ at each location,” said Robin Lynas, chief informa- OpenOffice_org_trunk.html) codeline. Some more tion officer, Mark's Work Wearhouse. “We needed information can be found here: http:// a scalable, flexible solution that could handle all installation.openoffice.org/servlets/ our current and future POS processing require- ProjectDocumentList. ments without the need for an in-store server. Our pre-holiday pilot of Retek Point-of-Service run- ning on a Linux-based POS platform has delivered SAPDB Open Source impressive results. We are now running RPOS live SAP believes that times have changed, that in 64 stores, and have realized substantial operat- databases are becoming part of the basic technol- ing improvements by leveraging its Java-based, fit- ogy infrastructure, and as such, they need not be client architecture. We brought our first store live in 2 Vol. 15 No. 4 December 2002 only four months and have reduced POS store “With hundreds of thousands of users world- opening costs by 30% and maintenance costs by wide, in less than a year Ximian Evolution has 50% with dramatically improved customer and emerged as the de facto standard for e-mail, calen- employee satisfaction within our pilot stores.” dar and information management on Linux and Retek's Point-of-Service solution delivers one UNIX,” said Nat Friedman, Ximian vice president of the most powerful, scalable, flexible and stable of product development and co-founder. “Version point-of-service solutions available. RPOS offers 1.2 reflects the tremendous feedback and contribu- comprehensive point-of-service solutions includ- tions from the open source community, corporate ing point-of-sale, labor management, cash man- customers and extensive usability testing. Its im- agement, inventory management and customer proved ease of use and enhanced interoperability management. RPOS adapts to retailers' business with rich standards support make Ximian Evolu- style, operating seamlessly with existing networks, tion a critical piece of a cost-effective Linux desk- data repositories, hardware and operating systems. top for companies of every size.” The Java-based architecture of RPOS is en- Ximian Evolution is the premier personal and tirely open and flexible and is hardware and oper- workgroup information management solution for ating system independent. “Retek Point-of-Service Linux and UNIX-based systems. It uniquely inte- has proven what until now has only been theory,” grates e-mail, calendar, contact and task list man- said Peter Baskin, vice president of retail customer agement in one powerful, fast and easy-to-use relationship management solutions with Retek. “In application. Advanced e-mail capabilities, such as the mission-critical store environment, retailers now threaded mail view, text and HTML mail, auto- have proof that Java POS can not only be deployed matic message indexing, and the unique vFolder™ easily but can also reduce overall costs. The im- contextual views provide the needed power and pressive RPOS results achieved by Mark's Work flexibility to manage large e-mail boxes. Broad Wearhouse provide retailers a quantified, proven support for data exchange and communications business case for Java POS.” standards enables integration with corporate net- Mark's Work Wearhouse Ltd.