Non-Microsoft Desktop Operating System - Research Paper Example

? Non-Microsoft desktop operating system Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 3 Introduction 3 TYPESOF UNIX OS 4 Hewlett-Packard HP-UX 4 Sun Solaris 4 IBM AIX 5 Reference 7 Abstract The ability of UNIX system to offer its customers with early technologies, prior to its competitor makes it to remain relevant in the market. Even though it offers non-Microsoft operating system, UNIX system has always maintained its customers because of the services. Apart from its stunning compatibility to the technologies, UNIX system offers a wide variety of Operating systems that makes it suitable for the users. The variety includes Sun solaris, AIX, HP-UX with each one of them making UNIX a success story. This article describes each of the operating system based on their emergence and the subsequent enhancements to make them significant to the users. Introduction The use of UNIX among the computer owners has remarkably increased over the last 25 years. Its popularity arose due to its contribution in the launching of the internet and worldwide web. Most of the people shifted from the Microsoft operating system during this phase when UNIX system associated with launching of the internet and World Wide Web. This triggers the need to establish the use of the different UNIX operating system even though they are not product of the popular Microsoft. There is a stiff competition existing in the market due to the variety of operating software existing in the market for the users. The UNIX system being a non-Microsoft desktop operating systems have integrated various categories of its product in order to increase its use among the consumers. Each of the commands available for the UNIX system can be found along with the three major types: Sun solaris, AIX and HP-UX. These three types of the operating system represent the various modifications that have been made over the years. TYPES OF UNIX OS Hewlett-Packard HP-UX The emergence of Hewlett-Packard Unix in the market largely relied on the System V release 3. A platform of PA-RISC HP 9000 supported the full running of the product before the introduction of the Version 1. The year 2001 marked a milestone for the system following the introduction of the reinforcement of Itanium systems. Further, the HP-UX acted as the first system to allow the users to incorporate the Access Control List (ACLs). The Access Control List (ACLs) is useful in managing file permissions. The incorporation of reinforcement for the Logical Volume Manager in the system also made the HP-UX be a success story. It represents the first product from the Unix Systems, which availed choice for the customers to purchase a certain type of operating environment. This is different to the other systems, which offered the customers with general operating environments. The HP-UX also allows the users to access to the file system used by a third party, in form of Veritas, unlike other systems. The system also avails the users with many choices based on virtualization, for instance, Vpars, resource partitions, and nPartitions (Ritchie, 2003). The users can also run the system on HP 9000s thereby illustrating the ease of use. Further, the HP-UX can also run on Integrity Itanium systems. The system is also able to run on 128-processor cores without any failure. The properties of HP-UX, from its ability to use Veritas to variety of virtualization, make the product popular among the users who would like to associate with a strong command line. Most of the OS users also prefer HP-UX because of the inclusion of a menu base system, which allows for efficiency during use. Sun Solaris This is an operating system meant for the non-Microsoft desktops introduced as the result of modification to the SunOS. The modification of the SunOS to the Sun Solaris arose due to the need of doing away with the BSD flavor. The BSD flavor was the major component of Unix before the year 1992 followed by the SunOS versions 5.0. The Sun Solaris came into being after the rebranding of the Unix System V. Before the introduction of Sun Solaris, the SunOS version used to boast of the virtual file system and NFS that many users, by then, used to love. However, the togetherness brought about by AT&T and Sun led to the incorporation of system V within the BSD, under the branding of SVR4. This led to the development of the Solaris 7, a 64-bit ultra Sparc release that was more of modification to the initially known SunOS (Ritchie, 2003). The significance of the Solaris 7 was in its ability to add reinforcement to the file system especially during loggings involving the metadata. Further modification to the Solaris to Solaris 9 in 2002 also makes the product to be suitable for additional reinforcement to the Solaris Volume Manager. The Solaris 9 also has considerable effect in influencing support for the Linux capabilities. The last modification to the Solaris led to the introduction of the Solaris 10, which offers support for the ZFS files, Solaris Container and Logical Domains (Peek et al, 2002). IBM AIX The year 1986 marked the introduction of IBM AIX in the market amidst the notion that it was a hybrid system. People considered the system hybrid because it incorporated both the elements of Unix System V and BSD roots. Its introduction marked the emergence of the journaled file system (JFS). The system also presented the platform for the incorporation of Logical Volume Manager (LVM) and Advanced Power Virtualization (APV) during the years of its modification. The system presents a better functionality than the Solaris because of the modification done on the workload partitioning. Unlike the Solaris that has Solaris Zones, the IBM AIX contains WPARs, which helps in partitioning the workload. Among all the OS presented by UNIX and other operators, IBM possesses the best virtualization called the PowerVM. The PowerVM is a virtualization product, which allows for functionality within the midrange. The system has also incorporated other unique application mobility, which permits a user to fail over managing partitions without taking downtime (Liu et al, 2011). Further, the IBM also offers the user an Active Memory Sharing, which helps in avoiding complexity during the various operations. The users of IBM also has the ability to share the processor pools multiple of times making the system to boast of best virtualization features. The OS also remains powerful among the other UNIX flavor because the users can only run it on IBM Power Systems. Reference Liu, Y., Yue, Y., & Guo, L. (2011). UNIX operating system: The development tutorial via UNIX kernel services. Beijing: Higher Education Press. Peek, J., Todino, G., & Strang, J. (2002). Learning the Unix operating system. Beijing: O'Reilly. Ritchie, C. (2003). Operating systems incorporating UNIX and Windows. London: Continuum. Read More