Unix Subsystem in Vista Ultimate

[Ed]

I have Vista Ultimate, but I do not know how to activate the Unix Subsyste.
Is a download required? If so, what is it, and where can I get it?

Thanks,

Ed

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

Subsystem for UNIX-based Applications is an optional component
you can install by opening your Control Panel and clicking on
Programs and Features > Turn Windows features on or off

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows Shell/User

---------------------------------------------------------------

:

I have Vista Ultimate, but I do not know how to activate the Unix Subsyste.
Is a download required? If so, what is it, and where can I get it?

Thanks,

Ed

 

[Andrew McLaren]

Subsystem for UNIX-based Applications is an optional component
you can install by opening your Control Panel and clicking on
Programs and Features > Turn Windows features on or off

Ed,

Carey is spot-on. In addition, after you install the SUA, you'll want to
download the Utilities and SDK from the Microsoft website.

When you install SUA via Control Panel, a link to the download is added to
your Start menu.

The Utilities include most of the standard Unix/Posix tools, which you'll
probably want to use in conjunction with SUA - Korn shell, vi, etc.

Hope it helps,

 

[Chris Game]

The Utilities include most of the standard Unix/Posix tools, which
you'll probably want to use in conjunction with SUA - Korn shell,
vi, etc.

So what's the advantage over, say, Cygwin?

 

[Andrew McLaren]

So what's the advantage over, say, Cygwin?

Well, I don't want to get into a competitive analysis (debate?) of SUA vs
Cygwin They are both useful tools and users should use either of them,
if they meet the specific requirements for a project. But, some "features"
of SUA:

- it's a single-vendor solution, supported by Microsoft. That probably won't
affect individual users, but would be an important consideration for
enterprise customers who may have Premier Support agreements with Microsoft,
not to mention SLAs, formal IT mamangement methodologies, etc.

- performance. This will depend on the specific scenario; but generally, SUA
will be faster than Cygwin. The SUA Subsystem sits directly on top of the NT
Kernel; whereas Cygwin is a Win32 application. Cygwin tools call into
Cygwin.DLL which calls into Win32 subsystem which calls into the NT kernel.

- high degree of POSIX conformance. SUA fully implements POSIX 1003.1 2001.
As a rough generalisation, there's a better chance most packages will build
on SUA than on Cygwin (although this could be debated with example and
counter-example).

- no GPL. Whther this is an advantage or a liability, depends on your
situation You can always add a GPL to your SUA source code, if you wish.

- in the past Services for Unix (SUA's predecessor) also provided a range of
useful Unix interop tools like NFS, NIS and Pluggable Authentication
Modules. These features are now standard in Windows Server anyway, so a bit
moot.

The biggest *disadvantage* of SUA is that no X Server is included. I
believe Microsoft did not want to offend the X Server vendors by trampling
on their market (incredible but true). So you need to supply a 3rd party X
Server.

I guess the main thing is that SUA is the "normal", default, Unix-like
facility supplied as part of Windows. Why use a third party add-on, when you
can just use something which is built-in to Windows? But, as I say: if you
like Cygwin and it works well for you, then by all means, keep on using it.

 

[Chris Game]

Why use a third party add-on, when you
can just use something which is built-in to Windows?

Because SUA is only available in one or two versions of Vista?

 

[the wharf rat]

- it's a single-vendor solution, supported by Microsoft. That probably won't
affect individual users, but would be an important consideration for
enterprise customers who may have Premier Support agreements with Microsoft,
not to mention SLAs, formal IT mamangement methodologies, etc.

It doesn't include ssh. Or X11. Or bash.

OTOH it includes NFS...

 

[Andrew McLaren]

It doesn't include ssh. Or X11. Or bash.

True, although ssh, bash, Apache, PostgreSQL, Squid, FVWM, etc etc are all
available, free, via the Tools Community warehouse at
http://www.interopsystems.com

SUA includes X11 libraries, and X apps like xclock, xlogo, and xedit; just
doesn't have an X Server (for the aforementioned reasons).

 

[Andrew McLaren]

Because SUA is only available in one or two versions of Vista?

Yes, it was a very poor decison by Microsoft to restrict SUA to Enterprise
and Ultimate. But then, the whole Vista edition menagerie is a debacle,
IMHO.

SFU 3.5 at least had been freely available for *all* editions of XP and
Server 2003.