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Perl CGl Programming: No experience required.
(Publisher: Sybex, Inc.)
Author(s): Erik Strom
ISBN: 0782121578
Publication Date: 11/01/97

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UNIX

UNIX has been around since the geniuses at AT&T’s Bell Labs invented it in the early 1970s. The operating system has been given a thorough, nearly 30-year going-over by everyone from computer scientists to data processing professionals to users. As a result of a lot of hard work and many contributions from a wide variety of sources, it is a very mature and stable OS. It is powerful, steady, able to handle any task your hardware can handle. It will run a Web server beautifully.

The thing about UNIX is that it was originally written by programmers. Its unadorned look and feel tilt heavily toward technical types; most hard-core programmers have at least some experience with it and many profess to love it.

UNIX is not user-friendly. If you’re not a technical type, or if you prefer the look and feel of a modern graphical user interface, you’ll hate UNIX. Figure 11.1 illustrates the bare-bones look of a UNIX system, and Figure 11.2 shows the contrast of Microsoft’s Explorer interface. On the other hand, if you enjoy playing with little tricks and gadgets, building systems with nifty tools, and you don’t shy away from a naked command-line interface, this OS will please you a lot.


Figure 11.1:  The UNIX user interface isn’t too friendly.


Figure 11.2:  The Explorer interface on Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0


NOTE:  Most of the standard UNIX distributions come with a generic graphical user interface called X-Windows. As with most everything in UNIX, people either love it or hate it. It’s definitely not Microsoft Windows, but the world is full of people who don’t like Microsoft Windows, either. Of course, real UNIX users sneer at graphical user interfaces and mice, preferring to pound away at the command line.

UNIX has the longest track record on the World Wide Web of any of our three operating systems and probably still runs more Web sites than any other OS. It is a proven product on the Web; its influence can still be seen in many aspects of the Web, despite the recent emphasis on graphical imagery.

Specifically for the Web, the standard UNIX distribution comes equipped with Web server software (sometimes several packages) and everything you need to run it.

The best thing about UNIX—or perhaps the worst, depending on your point of view—is that its creators had every expectation that you would want to take it apart and play with it, and this philosophy has followed the OS throughout its many revisions. A lot of distributions are free (see the discussion of Linux earlier in this skill) and many come with the complete C-language source code for the OS. Obviously, the UNIX source code is not something for the timid Webmaster to wade into, but it’s certainly there if you want it.

System security on UNIX has been controversial. It is generally possible to set up a system in a way that effectively keeps intruders out. However, there are many stories circulating about teen-aged crackers busting into remote UNIX systems as easily as opening the refrigerator.

It is likely that the victims of these break-ins didn’t take advantage of the many security features of their OS. Like the rest of UNIX, security is something that you configure entirely to your taste. You can make it tight or loose, whichever you want. Tightly securing a system is a tedious and painstaking job, however, and lots of Webmasters and system administrators don’t take the time to do it. But the tools are there.


TIP:  In Skill 13, you’ll learn about advanced Web site security and some of the things you need to watch out for.

Windows NT

Microsoft had three reasons for developing a new operating system in the late 1980s:

  The old, 16-bit Windows couldn’t take advantage of the advanced features of a new generation of 32-bit Intel microprocessors, starting with the 80386.
  Microsoft wanted the new operating system to break away completely from being dependent on the old MS-DOS foundation so it could be ported to machines using processors other than Intel’s.
  They wanted to knock off UNIX as the operating system of choice for big-iron system administrators and large businesses.

In the first two aspirations, Microsoft has succeeded admirably and then some. While NT was a little shaky in its first releases in the early '90s, Microsoft’s NT development team has done a generally creditable job of working out the bugs, smoothing the rough edges, and creating a sound, stable and very powerful computing environment.

Starting with the release of Version 4.0 in 1996, NT looks good, too. The earlier versions were saddled with Program Manager, the somewhat clunky graphical user interface left over from the old 16-bit Windows. As of 4.0, NT comes equipped with the Explorer interface originally developed for Windows 95.


NOTE:  It has to be admitted that some longtime Windows users actually prefer the old Program Manager interface and refuse to have anything to do with Explorer. It is possible to instruct NT to use Progman as the user shell. There’s no accounting for tastes.

As for Microsoft’s desire to replace UNIX with NT throughout the world, well, we’ll see. Windows NT has made significant inroads in the business world, it’s true, and the operating system certainly will continue to gain in popularity. But an OS that has been in existence for nearly 30 years, and in widespread use for nearly 20, is going to be difficult to dislodge. Besides, unlike its even older cousins that powered specific mainframe computer systems, UNIX isn’t tied to a particular system or computer. You would be hard pressed to find any computer system intended for large-scale use for which a version of UNIX hasn’t been developed.


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