[Coco] Re: OS Vulnerabilities

John E. Malmberg wb8tyw at qsl.net
Sat Feb 28 16:57:02 EST 2004


Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote:
> 
> Educate me. I know nothing about it. The last VMS system I saw was running
> email at a college, and was replaced a few years ago because nobody knew
> how to run it anymore.

They must have been looking for an excuse.  OpenVMS is one of the 
easiest operating systems to learn how to administrate, unless you have 
to have a GUI based management system, and even those are readily available.

The complete documentation is available from a link on the it's home 
page www.hp.com/go/openvms

> Is it more than networking platform?   Yes.

> Does it have a GUI?   X-11/ Motif 1.3

> Graphical browsers?  Several including Mozilla which I am using right now.

> Can it do audio editing and production?

Probably, but I am not aware of any large applications of this.

There is a sound card in the system that I have, and open source 
applications are available for it that have already been ported to OpenVMS.

> Graphics, photos?

Yes.  There are a number of packages available, but I have not done 
anything personally in this area.

> Video production?

Possibly, but if so, I am not aware of any specific application.

> Desktop publishing with access to Type 1 or OpenType fonts?

Not being a desktop publisher, I can not fully answer that.  I would 
have to search the archives.  LaTex/Tex and a few other document 
processors are definitely available, but I assume that you are 
referencing a GUI based system.

> Does it have a MSWord-compatible text editor?

WordPerfect is available commercially, and I have heard reports that a 
couple of the open source products have been ported and are available on 
   the web.

> Read standard spreadsheets?

Do not know.  There are a few spreadsheet packages.

A port of OpenOffice is underway, but I do know it's progress.

> Does it burn CDs and DVDs?

It can.

> Have an OS-resident spell checker? 

Various add-ons are available.  There is a spill chicken built in to 
this version of Mozilla.

> Is there a musical notation program for it?

I do not know.

> Are there disabled-access methods?

Yes.

> Can it run off-the-shelf scanners

There is a currently a weak point.  In the good old days, a vendor would 
provide a product and tell you how to have your computer talk to it.

Now they provide a product and a Windows driver, with sometimes a Mac or 
Linux driver also, but no information on how to do it your self.

> and color printers

Several PostScript printers have been supported for many years.

> and plotters?

Several Plotters are supported by many plotting packages.

> Is it USB-compliant?

Limited device support.  Keyboard and Mouse are directly available, and 
I am running a pre-release USB disk driver, and have access to a 
pre-release joystick driver.

> Do it do CAD? 3D?

Yes.

> Wireless networking?

That it transparent to the operating system.  Plug a wireless access 
point into the network jack and you are wireless.

> Run on laptops?

There was a limited production run of Alpha laptops, but those were very 
expensive.

Now there are VAX emulators both freeware and commercial that will run 
on a X86 based system.  Either LINUX or Microsoft Windows can be used as 
the base operating system.

> Have access to AIM or ICQ or MSN?

The AIM java client works.  I have not bothered to see if any of the 
open source instant messaging programs have been ported or can be ported.

> Have digital camera interfaces and software?

I am not specifically aware of any.

> Firewire?

No.

> Streaming media clients like Real?

Not aware of any.

> Can it play MP3s?

Maybe, I would have to search the audio archive.

> Interface with iPods?

Do not know what it takes to interface with an iPods.

> Rip CDs? Copy DVDs?

Yes.

> I'm gonna guess that only Windows and Mac can do these things. Linux can do
> 75% of them, 50% at a pro level. Specialized clients like Irix are used for
> graphics, Sun for audio. If OpenVMS can do these things, then it is the
> best-kept multi-purpose OS secret in computing history!

You forgot web serving. :-)

Rumors of it's death have been greatly exaggerated.

A large part of the UNIX programming API is available, with more parts 
of it being added all the time, and recently a BASH shell environment 
with GNU tools is available as an add on.

Right now, the low end new OpenVMS workstation with commercial licenses 
would run between 5 and 10K.  It is not viewed practical that it will 
compete with most personal desktop applications on Windows/Mac/Linux, so 
commercial vendors are not targeting their desktop applications to it.

Server applications are a different case.  Either they are turnkey where 
the end user does not really know or care what is in the box, or they 
are custom implementations.

So most open source "desktop" applications have been ported have been 
done like any other platform, by someone that wanted to use them.

As IA64 volumes ramp up, this could lower the price of new equipment, 
but probably not enough to move the desktop market.

But OpenVMS is free for home use on new or used equipment, and used 
computer equipment drops rapidly in price.  My 3 year old AlphaServer 
DS10 is now getting ancient in it's 600 Mhz and 256M of RAM, but I will 
probably run it for quite a few more years.

And the emulators allow running it on even more platforms.

OpenVMS is probably lagging behind LINUX on new consumer/desktop 
applications for obvious reasons.

-John
wb8tyw at qsl.net
Personal Opinion Only





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