Latest version of Microsoft’s Windows UNIX interoperability product offers customers enhanced performance and new functionality that extends investments in UNIX-based systems; SFU 3.5 is finalist in LinuxWorld Product Excellence Awards. Download for free from here.
Microsoft’s Windows Services for UNIX Now Available Free of Charge
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Eugenia Loli
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Could somebody give a direct link, as I don’t want dotnetpassword.
I second that request!
I don’t have the direct link but i am now re-download it because I hit “cancel” in the download window by mistake near the end of the first download (217 MB)
I am happy to say that despite my review of Windows Services for UNIX 3.0 I am very pleasantly surprised by SFU 3.5. It is a much better release and is much more impressive I will be doing a review of it as soon as I finish exploring it.
http://download.microsoft.com/download/a/1/c/a1ca7af1-a6e3-46e7-874…
Thanks! SFU has gotten rather hefty (220MB) hasn’t it?
http://www.interix.com/tools/warehouse.htm
I’ll be looking forward to your review. SFU/Interix is a product that I have a lot of interest in (I’m currently still on version 3.0).
http://www.interopsystems.com/tools/Docs/SFU%203.5%20New~*~…
Windoze SFU 3.5 should make a dandy migration tool from Windows to Unix. I’m quite curious about what `chmod 777` would do under NTFS.
Will gcc that ships with SFU generate binaries from C++ that will work with existing DLL’s? I know cygwin can’t…
MSFT’s Services for Netware 5.02 is now also a free download…
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/sfn/default.mspx
5.02 looks like it is a fairly new version.
It costs $149.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/techinfo/overview/sfnpri…
Would SFU 3.5 completely replace my need to use samba to share file with my linux server? Could I just use NFS after I install SFU 3.5?
Madmartigan:
This might help you (Interix and COM):
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/…
Roger W:
If you have SFU 3.5 it replaces the functionality of Samba. In fact, I don’t think there is even an existing port of Samba for Interix at this point.
This looked somewhat interesting for ports from *nix to Windows until I dived down into Interex and discovered that it does not support multithreaded processes. That’s a big showstopper for a lot of serious porting efforts.
“In SFU 3.5 the Interix SDK has been enhanced to support multi-threaded applications with the addition of a full set of pthread APIs. Pthreads are POSIX-compliant threads, a standards-based mechanism for providing concurrent code execution in a single program. The Interix SDK includes nearly 100 new APIs—those beginning with “pthread” and “sem” in the /usr/include/pthread.h header file—that support pthreads and semaphores.”
“Would SFU 3.5 completely replace my need to use samba to share file with my linux server? Could I just use NFS after I install SFU 3.5?”
Yes, it is a Bill Gates’s gift for linux 🙂 Now we can put our legacy windows workstations making authentication on a linux/unix NIS server and using NFS shares of a linux/unix file server.
I think that community should make a free (as freedom) NIS/NFS client for windows instead of making reverse engineering of obscure SMB protocol to make Samba. Network Neighborhood is a joke as distributed filesystem…
The microsoft website points to precompiled binaries of apps such as bash, but it also has xft and xrender see bottom of the page.
http://www.interopsystems.com/tools/warehouse.htm
So can I use this for a free X11?
It must. The older Interix version 3.0 had a free X11R6.6 server available for download from Interop (see bottom of this page)…
http://www.interopsystems.com/tools/warehouse-3_0.htm
The fact that this item does not appear on the new 3.5 tools page list you linked to convinces me that MSFT must have included it directly in the Interix 3.5 install (but I don’t know this for sure). This would make sense because they have upgraded Interix 3.5 with a much more recent version of gcc and other standard *nix tools.
MSFT included a free X11R5 server with Interix version 3.0 (Interop’s X11R6.6 was just a newer replacement for it) so that somewhat older version is the bare minimum you can expect to see in Interix 3.5 (but I’m betting it will have the latest X11R6.6, which would make more sense).
You cannot mix binaries compiled with/for Interix 3.0 into Interix 3.5. This will cause you untold grief.
Thanks you Bill…I mean Gil Bates
What is the latest X11 server in the NIX world, would they be compatible with SFU’s version?
Has anyone installed this yet? Maybe they could tell me about my question above too.
Actually I found this.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/itsolutions/interop/unix/sfu/xwini…
I think they use R5. So could I remotely access my Fedora machine easily?
That page you linked to is for Interix 3.0 (it says so underneath the chapter links at the top of the page) so all it tells you is what I already told you about the version of X11 that Interix 3.0 used to come with.
I think the latest version of X (the actual *nix project) is X11R6.6 right now. Even if you somehow end up with X11R5 on Interix 3.5, you should probably be fine because there is supposed to be plenty of backward compatibility in the latest versions of X (but I am no *nix expert by any means so someone please correct me if I’m wrong).
SFU’s X implementation should be fully compatible with the overall X standard as implemented on other *nixes because Interix is fully POSIX and Unix95 certified and is even considered to be an “OFFICIAL UNIX OS” by the X/Open group that manages the UNIX trademark and certifies compatibility with the standard.
Thanks I didn’t realise that, I just followed the links from MS site.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/sfu/techinfo/default.asp
It might interest you to know that Apple OS X and Linux are NOT officially X/Open certified so they cannot use the UNIX trademark in their documentation as a description for themselves (they can only be called “Unix-like”, I guess). Hard to believe that Interix is more “UNIX” then they are, isn’t it? 😉
Well according to stuff I have read about it. It is UNIX environment with a Windows kernel.
It sounds like it is a UNIX to me. Hurry up and port KDE :B
NOTE: I am not an expert in knowing what a UNIX is therefore disregard my comments
…what a wothless piece of junk. You get xterm, but no xserver. No gcc. It’s not much for 230MB!
As SFU contains GNU utilities, which are covered by the GPL, does this mean that SFU should be GPL too?
No gcc you say? Wrong.
“The SDK provides a front end for Microsoft Visual Studio with which C programs can be compiled. This provides a native UNIX environment for development based on a native Windows compiler. The development environment includes standard UNIX development tools such as the GNU gcc, g++, and g77 compilers, and the gdb debugger. Both gcc and g++ are ports of the popular GNU C compiler (version 3.3). The g77 front end is a port of g77 (version 3.3). All of these front ends eventually invoke the same compiler engine, hence the similarities.”
RE: X Server
“The Interix SDK includes X11 libraries, header files, and various tools for building X Windows applications. However, SFU does not include an X Windows server, which means that X Windows applications that need to be displayed on the local workstation will need an X Windows server installed.
Most code written for X Windows assumes a directory structure of /usr/X11, but Interix uses a version specific directory structure, /usr/X11Rn, where n is replaced with the release level of X11. This difference is best handled by creating a symbolic link to point to the new directory and does not require any code changes in applications. SFU 3.0 only included X11R5; however, for those applications that require a later version of X11, X11R6.6 ships natively in the 3.5 version of Services for UNIX.”
That paragraph sounds self-contradictory. Maybe they want you to buy the Hummingbird X Server Interop-systems sells:
http://www.interix.com/products.htm (top of page)
BTW, this reviewers guide (MS Word Document) has some really good details in it…
http://www.interix.com/tools/Docs/Microsoft%20Services%20Fo…
StarNet Communications’ Desktop-X X Server for SFU is also available (the new release for SFU 3.5 just came out, debuting at LinuxWorld yesterday):
http://www.x-solutions.com/Store/DesktopX.php
Ranking of the top PC X-Servers…
http://www.starnet.com/products/best_pcx.htm
I seriously doubt SFU 3.5 won “finalist in LinuxWorld Product Excellence Awards” if it is a “worthless piece of junk” as you say.
Forget it…
http://www.interopsystems.com/tools/forum/m.asp?m=593&p=1&tmode=1&s…
This is sure a lot more polished than cygwin. But it’s missing some things, like ssh. Even the tool warehouse doesn’t have it.
There were builds for the latest versions OpenSSH and OpenSSL for Interix 3.0 (see halfway down the page)…
http://www.interopsystems.com/tools/warehouse-3_0.htm
I’ll bet they just haven’t gotten around to re-compiling some things for Interix 3.5 yet. Also, there is a commercial version of SSH from F-Secure that has just been announced at LinuxWorld.
RJW, it’s actually right there. You must have been looking for “ssh” when the entry in the list is under “OpenSSH”…
http://www.interopsystems.com/tools/warehouse.htm
Oh, duh. Thanks
Mea Culpa. I drilled down (surfed) several pages beyond the URL posted and ended up with what I presume was a document for a pre-3.5 version and didn’t notice. I do see where some pthreads calls are supported (I say “some” because I couldn’t find a list and/or restrictions).
Apache version 2.0.48.1 for SFU 3.5 was ported using the new pthreads library in Interix.
I’ve learned from Microsoft’s “system requirements” page that SFU 3.5 will not work on Windows XP Home Ed. Does anybody know if this is due to technical restrictions of XP Home Edition or merely a marketing thing ? If not, could it possibly be tricked into running on top of XP Home ?