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19991004: Unidata software support for Windows NT



>From: address@hidden
>Organization: University of Northern Iowa
>Keywords: 199910042014.OAA02011 Windows NT

Alan,

>       Greetings from the heartland.

Hi.  Both Don and I are in Madison, WI visiting SSEC right now, and I
was the first to see your message, so I will reply.

>Hope all is well with you.

Not bad, thanks.

>Our department is putting
>together a request for some new computers.  I'd
>like to replace my OS/2 boxes with GEMPAK and
>McIDAS-X.  There was an email from Matt Lazzara
>at SSEC back on 2 June 1999 announcing that
>McIDAS-X is now available for NT, after adding the
>third party software INTERIX.

Right.  That was for the distribution from SSEC.  Unidata has not yet
tested the NT port out, nor have we made a Unidata distribution.

>I would gather the
>most support from others in my department if the
>computers I propose to purchase could also be used
>for non-weather, NT type applications (the rest of 
>the machines in our computer room are running NT).

OK, so you are voting that Unidata should support McIDAS on
Interix/NT.  This may be a problem for GEMPAK, since Motif libraries
are needed to create a binary distribution.  The other thing that is
not known is whether or not other Unidata software (e.g. LDM, netCDF,
etc.) will run in this environment.  Given that the purchase of Interix
is a non-trivial expense (the cheapest Interix distribution is $299 per
machine), we don't know if Unidata sites will be beating down our doors
for support.

>First of all, is the NT version of McIDAS-X something
>that you support (it wasn't clear to me from your
>homepage that this is the case),

Not yet.  I did put the SSEC binary distribution out in the McIDAS FTP
area so that interested sites could download it; test it out; and give
us feedback.  So far, one site has done this.  He was lucky enough to
be able to get a copy of the Interix Personal Developer's edition for
$99, so the test was reasonably cheap.

The other issue is that Microsoft _just_ bought Interix.  We have no
idea what this will do to such important things as its long term
availability (Microsoft has been known to buy companies and drop their
products) or new pricing.  We will be keeping a close eye on this
situation as it evolves (and so will SSEC).

>and, if you do,
>would I be better to go the NT route for McIDAS-X
>or do you think having the McIDAS-X machines 
>bootable to both Linux and NT would work better? 

You may be forced into a dual boot configuration.

>I realize that the GEMPAK box(es) would have to go
>the dual boot route to make them multi-use machines.

Sorry I couldn't be more encouraging...

Tom