Draft: Changes to Unidata Platform Support
In order to make more effective use of scarce development and support resources
and to improve support for new platforms, the UPC is considering changes to the
set of platforms on which we support Unidata applications. For the near term,
we recommend dropping support for ULTRIX and SunOS 4.x, adding support for Solaris
x86 and Linux, and helping existing OS/2 sites convert to a supported Unix platform.
Below we provide more details on these recommendations.
In the longer term, we intend to provide development and support for platform-independent
Java applications, as described in Unidata's
Path to Platform Independence. A benefit of accepting these short-term recommendations
will be to free some development and support resources to help achieve this
longer-term goal.
ULTRIX
For some time, Digital has been encouraging its ULTRIX users to migrate to Digital
Unix on Alpha, and has not introduced any new functionality into ULTRIX since
1995. Ultrix lacks shared libraries, memory mapping, browser support from Netscape,
and Java. Also, we are not aware of any Unidata sites that are dependent on ULTRIX
as their only Unix platform. For all of these reasons, we recommend ending the
support of Unidata applications on ULTRIX.
SunOS 4.x
Sun has also been encouraging users to migrate from SunOS 4.x to Solaris (also
known as SunOS 5) for years. Sun will not support Java on SunOS 4.x. Although
Sun is still releasing security patches for SunOS 4.x, its future is clearly limited.
We do not believe any Unidata sites are still dependent on SunOS 4.x. Porting,
testing and building binary distributions of applications for SunOS 4.x has recently
become enough of a burden to justify dropping support for this platform.
Solaris x86 and Linux
Several UNIX-like operating systems are available on PC platforms. Two that are
popular in the Unidata community are Solaris x86 and Linux. The UPC has access
to these platforms for porting, testing and building binary distributions. So
far, UPC experience suggests that it will be practical to support Unix software
such as GEMPAK, McIDAS-X, and LDM on these platforms. We have acquired RedHat
Linux for testing, porting, and binary generation (versions from other vendors
may work as well). The UPC maintains additional information about our experience
with
PC-Unix platforms such as Solaris x86 and Linux that may
be useful in choosing an inexpensve PC-Unix platform for Unidata applications.
OS/2
SSEC has announced plans for making the November 1998 release of McIDAS the last
release for OS/2. Their plans for continuing support on low cost PCs include support
for Solaris x86. According to a
recent survey,
only a few Unidata McIDAS sites are dependent on the OS/2 platform. Given SSEC's
plans, it now appears prudent for Unidata to help current McIDAS-OS2 sites to
move to other PC platforms such as Solaris x86 or Linux.
Sites that make this transition would be able to run N-AWIPS, GARP, and LDM
as well as McIDAS-X. Many of these OS/2 users might be happier with the Graphical
User Interfaces available in McIDAS-X, N-AWIPS, or GARP than with McIDAS-OS2.
This document is maintained by Russ Rew
<russ@unidata.ucar.edu>
