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I've decided that the list has settled down enough that it is
time to shut it down. Everybody interested should read through the
whole thing one last time and do their final screaming. :-)
I've only posted to the advocacy groups this time. The final
revision will be posted to the programmer groups too.
OS/2 vs NT features list, Revision 1.9
KEY TO CHANGE MARKERS
A "#" at the beginning of a line signifies that it has been
changed this revision. An "@", signifies it is new this revision.
An "!" indicates a point that definitely needs more information.
One of the characters in front of a paragraph or a section title
implies it is for the whole unit. (I don't mark grammar or
spelling corrections.)
Deletions in this revision:
Fully 32-bit drivers. // There is some question about
// whether or not OS/2 does this already, and
// I doubt it's worth fighting over
// as OS/2 will soon fix this anyway.
Catch up to NT by allowing 32-bit drivers. // Same as above.
-----------------Begin text of draft of final list---------------------
@
September XX, 1992
@
INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this list is to contrast the features of OS/2 2.0
and Windows NT. This list was incrementally developed in the USENET
groups: comp.os.os2.advocacy and comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy, with
input solicited from the comp.os.os2.programmer and
comp.os.ms-windows.programmer.win32 groups.
The list is by no means complete. It is likely that it still contains
inaccuracies and omissions. But I do believe that in general it reflects
the flavor of the two systems. I develop software for both systems,
but have a bias towards Windows NT. In collecting this list I tried to
be fair, but in the end the decisions of what is or is not in this list
are mine and are no doubt still somewhat biased. To help alleviate that
bias I asked Tim Sipples (maintainer of the OS/2 2.0 FAQ list) if he would
prepare a rebuttal. It appears as the last section of this document.
I hope this list will be useful to people wishing to understand both
OS/2 and NT. Please feel free to pass this list on to any interested party,
but leave its content unaltered.
Brian Sturgill
brian@cs.utah.edu
(Disclaimer: This list reflects only my personal views as modified via
interaction with people that responded to my postings. It does not
necessarily reflect the views of any organization with which I am affiliated.)
@
OVERVIEW
This list is actually a list of lists of lists. The lists are organized
as follows:
BASE PACKAGES
Current
Future
ADD-ONS
Current
Future
OTHER COMPARISONS
Resource Usage
Relevant List Prices
The features in the lists below are unordered. The degree to which a
feature is explained has nothing to do with its importance. I added
explanations mainly when the other OS camp asked for a clarification,
or on features that I felt would be confusing without one.
BRIEF EXPLANATION OF WHY I SHOW THE BASIC SYSTEM PACKAGES FIRST
The base features of an OS make a lot of difference in what sort
of apps will be developed for it. For example a recent freeware
program for the Macintosh used sound clips from a recent Bush speech
to randomly generate new speeches. If it were not the case that
all modern Macintoshes have sound support in hardware and software,
it would have been much less likely the author would have gone to
the trouble.
Another example, suppose there is a telephone package that
answer/logs/places calls using a specialized board. Under NT
everybody has RPC, so it would not be surprising to find such a
package having a feature that could alert another system via RPC
that a call has come in. Likewise it could send the notification
(or even a WAV file of a saved voice-message) via e-mail as there
is a built-in Mail API in NT and the MM features are there to play
back the message under a Windows 3.X or NT system.
As OS/2 currently markets features such as MM and RPC as options, how
likely do you think it is that developers would use them in main-stream
applications, especially low-end ones?
*************
BASE PACKAGES
*************
Features in OS/2 2.0 GA but not in the pre-beta Windows NT
Object Oriented Shell (WorkPlace Shell)
Great DOS support
REXX
NT comes with no equal script/batch language.
Windows 3.0 support (NT has it too, but it is not as good).
Is actually released.
Except when simply comparing features, this "feature" is
of course a quite important difference. I assume people
realize that it means that NT does not yet have support,
polished documentation, NetWare support, etc.
Supports OS/2 1.X PM apps.
Comes with more applets.
SOM (A generic object wrapper package)
It is used by WPS for its objects.
Those objects can also be used by other applications.
Supports Windows 2.0 apps.
Can run without a GUI.
Installable from CD-ROM and diskettes.
Can boot non-DOS systems in a VDM.
Can be configured to work well in 6 megs of memory.
Optional direct access to hardware from VDMs.
# Allows performance tuning by "twiddling" parameters.
(Unfortunately, sometimes you need to.)
This item is meant only to contrast
its philosophy with NT. OS/2 tends
to allow finer but static control over
system resources.
Features in the pre-beta Windows NT but not in OS/2 2.0 GA
# Designed to be a self balancing system.
(Unfortunately, sometimes you can't "twiddle" as much as
you want to.) This item is meant only
to contrast its philosophy with OS/2.
NT tends to balance resources via heuristics
with limited user input.
System tables dynamically extensible.
In other words no arbitrary limits of 256 processes or
1024 open files, etc.
Quota and and Statistics hooks for most system objects.
System objects are things like processes, threads,
files, semaphores, etc.
NT has the hooks necessary to set per-user quotas
on objects. It also contains monitoring facilities
in each of these objects so that statistics on their
use can be gathered. In many instances these
"hooks" are already in use, especially in the area
of monitoring facilities.
Full symmetric multiprocessing support.
Memory mapped files
Asynchronous I/O
It turns out that NT's version of async I/O requires you
to give it a data buffer at the time you issue the
I/O request, so this form is only marginally better
than simulating async I/O with threads.
IBM is dropping the feature because their underlying
implementation was using threads anyway.
32-bit Console API
OS/2 2.0 only supports a Console API via 16-bit
thunked-calls. These calls are not documented
in OS/2 2.0-specific programming literature.
DOS, (later POSIX), OS/2 1.X and NT console apps use the same window.
If you bring up an NT command prompt and run a DOS program
the output occurs in the same window. In other words
if you run a mix of DOS, OS/2 1.X, and NT commands from
the command line, their output appears in the same window.
Contrast this with OS/2 2.0... if you run the DOS
"ls" command in an OS/2 window a DOS window appears...
the output appears and the window closes; often before the
output can be read.
Has a cleaner, more modern design than OS/2 2.0.
The Presentation Manager portion of the OS/2 2.0
API is somewhat more clean than its NT counter-part.
But in nearly every other area, NT's design
is cleaner. NTs kernel has a much more
modern design than OS/2 2.0.
It was designed from the beginning to be portable.
Platform independent device driver support.
Platform independence means independent of the
hardware on which NT runs. The device driver people
at the NT developers conference did not seem to
believe this at first either... but after a long
set of questions seemed convinced this was more or
less possible. (A small header file contains the
few differences that are necessary between platforms.)
Dynamically loadable/unloadable file system and device drivers.
Runs on more than one architecture.
In addition to the Intel architecture,
it runs on ACE compliant MIPS R4000;
both uniprocessors and multiprocessors.
Generalized Registry. (database as replacement for '.ini'
files)
Rather than have a "config.sys" and other initialization
files, all system data is put into a tree-structured
database. (In this release not all programs utilize
this.) OS/2 does keep some files (e.g. OS2.INI,
OS2SYS.INI) in a binary format to avoid parsing overhead.
Windows 3.1 support.
GUI
Fully 32-bit Graphics Engine.
Separate queues per process.
PM and Windows 3.X have one message queue for all
applications. NT's implementation of this feature
does not suffer from the problem of misdirected
type/mouse ahead. (At least I couldn't make
it mess-up on my system.)
32-bit OLE
E-Mail API (X.500, can use X.400 as a transport)
Security
C2 level (not certified)
ACL's for all objects.
Logons.
B2 hooks
Advanced form of setuid().
This allows servers with appropriate privileges
to act as a surrogate for a client so that work
can safely be performed on behalf of that client.
RPC
DCE support
OLE integrated with RPC
RPC has corresponding LPC
All system API calls that take strings, take UNICODE strings.
(ANSI wrappers are provided.)
NTFS
(Note: NTFS has all features of HPFS, NT has FAT and HPFS too.)
Fast Recovery (CHKDSK gigabyte volumes in a few seconds.)
High Reliability
Hard Links
Case-Sensitive Filenames
Automatic 8.3 names
NTFS supports both long names and short ones.
The short one is generated automatically
if the long one it does not fit the 8.3 pattern.
This is done so that DOS apps can see long-named
files too. In effect, a file has TWO names, one
long and one short.
ACLS
UPS support.
UNICODE file names.
Volume Striping(RAID 0) (Not just for NTFS)
Multimedia
Audio
Waveform
MIDI
CD-source
Media Control Interface.
High-speed file streaming.
Async event controllable.
Networking
TCP/IP
Peer-peer file and printer sharing.
Ability to support multiple vendors as transports
w/common admin.
Good network admin facilities.
SNMP
Berkeley sockets (WinSock compliant).
Named pipes.
(Both NT and OS/2 GA have non-networked ones.)
Event logging.
(Both NT and OS/2 GA have this in non-networked form.)
Fast Hyper-text Help System. (OS/2's is much slower.)
I've used both, NT's is faster, though it
has less features than OS/2's.
NT's is of course a variant of Windows 3.1's
help program (which is different from
the Windows 3.0 one).
Developers provided with a common installation program.
More SuperVGA drivers.
An NT user can change their initial environment without
having to reboot for it to take effect.
Under NT if a user want to do the equivalent of
changing their PATH environment in config.sys,
they go to the Control Panel, make the edit,
then logout and back in again. This is
much faster than waiting through a reboot.
(Yes, both can change individual command
line environments from the command line,
this is not nearly the same thing. For example
it does not affect programs launched from the GUI.)
Has seamless support for 16-bit Windows apps on XGA and 8514 displays.
OS/2 2.0 will add the following in the Fall.
Slim-down such that it will properly fit in 4 megs.
Ship its DDK (actually DAK, Device Adaptation Kits).
Probably will pass NT in SuperVGA support.
Catch up to NT by having Windows 3.1 support.
Catch up to NT by adding a 32-bit graphics engine.
Catch up to NT by having seamless support of 16-bit Windows
apps with XGA and 8514 displays.
Windows NT will add the following in the Fall.
Catch-up to OS/2 in 16-bit Windows 3.0 compatibility.
Smarter, easier to use OLE (first step toward Cairo).
POSIX (1003.1 -- the system calls)
Tape API
Win32s (Run NT programs under Windows 3.1)
NTFS
Symlinks
Sparse Files
Ship its DDK.
OS/2 will add the following in 4Q92 or 1Q93:
Pen API (possibly as an add-on).
NT will add the following in 4Q92 or 1Q93:
Catch up to OS/2 by actually being released.
NT will add sometime in 1993:
# Catch up to OS/2 by adding compatibility with OS/2 1.X Presentation
Manager applications.
OS/2 will add the following near October 1993:
C2 and B1 security (RACF).
Apparently there is a procedure called a PRPQ that
allows you to get it now. It is not yet certified.
Windows NT will add the following sometime in 1994:
Cairo
Cairo combines an OO shell (has a similar flavor to WPS)
with an OO file system and OO networking. Publicly
available details are sketchy. Prototypes have been
demoed to a lucky few.
Cairo will also have a BASIC-based, object oriented,
visual, scripting/batch language.
@
OS/2 will add the following by September 1994:
Symmetric Multiprocessing and Portability.
This will be done by putting OS/2 on top of the Mach 3
micro-kernel. This will be done in conjunction with
putting AIX on the same platform. Applications
will run from both environments simultaneously.
*******
ADD-ONS
*******
LAN Manager for Windows NT (Available at the time of NT's release)
RAID 5
Mirroring
System admin tools for support of a site up to 50,000 nodes.
Remote booting (Diskless/dataless workstations)
Remote maintenance support.
This was demoed at the NT conference. The administrator
on one machine sent a single command that told another
machine it was to get a new version of the OS.
The other machine told its user that it was about to
shutdown... shutdown, accepted the new OS, rebooted.
All without manual intervention on the client side.
Cost: Unknown
OS/2 Multimedia (Available now)
[(As far as I can tell from the feature list descriptions
the only feature below without an analog in NT is the
"Multimedia Data Converter Applet".
Further discussions with someone inside IBM shows that OS/2 has
MM synchronization features not found in NT. (No earth-shakers
but they make things easier.) Also NT has a slight lead
in that they handle limited video, but OS/2 has better video
facilities in currently in beta. In general the two are definitely
quite similar feature-wise. ]
Amp/Mixer Support
CD Digital Audio Support
MIDI Sequencing and Synthesizer support
Media Control Interface Support
Multimedia I/O Manager
Multimedia drivers cross over into DOS and Windows support.
Synchronization/Streaming API
Videodisc control
Waveform Audio Support
Applets
MM Setup
Multimedia Data Converter Applet
Player Applets
Volume Control
Cost: $149
OS/2 LAN Server 2.0 Entry Package (Available now)
(As far as I can tell from the feature list, NT's base package
has most of this + Local security + better RPC - (possibly)
remote booting for clients, so let's call it even.)
UPS support
User Profile Management
Error logging facility
Remote booting
Domains
Limited RPC
According to PC-Week does not have peer-to-peer abilities.
Cost: $795
OS/2 LAN Server 2.0 Advanced Package (Not available for OS/2 2.0 yet)
(Includes features of Entry Package above.)
Local security
Remote maintenance support
higher throughput.
Fault tolerance (disk duplexing and disk mirroring)
Cost: $2,295
OS/2 LAN Sever 3.0 (Due by year end)
(Of course all the features from above)
Clients can do peer-to-peer file and printer sharing.
Has user or share level security (similar
to LAN Server Entry's security).
Support for running LAN Server over TCP/IP.
Advanced version works under 2.0.
Cost: Unknown
Asymmetric multiprocessing support for OS/2 2.0 (Due by year end)
Will start being bundled in October with PS/2 model 295's.
Available in more a generic form in December.
OTHER ADD-ONS
IBM seems to have more specialized add-ons available for OS/2 2.0 than
I am willing to type in. Please just assume that in terms of such add-on
features NT will be behind for a while.
Examples: X, Extended Services, Database Server, etc.
*****************
OTHER COMPARISONS
*****************
RESOURCE USAGE
Memory
If you add OS/2 2.0's memory requirements for the
base package + TCP/IP base + MM + LAN Server Entry you get:
6 + 1 + 1 + 3 = 11 megs. NT currently requires 12 and is
targeted to use 8 megs. Thus I contend neither has
a real edge in memory usage when counting relevant add-ons.
Disk Space
Currently OS/2 2.0 base package + TCP/IP + MM + LAN Server
Entry Package requires more disk space than NT does, this
is unfair to OS/2 though as NT has some of it's help
files missing (or not fleshed out). Basically it is too
early to say anything useful here.
RELEVANT LIST PRICES
NT list price < $500. (Source: NT dev conf, InfoWorld)
OS/2 2.0 list price $195 (Src: Programmer's connection)
OS/2 2.0 Multimedia add-on*** $149 (Source: product announcement
posted to USENET.)
OS2/ TCP/IP Base Kit** $200 (Source: product announcement
found on ftp-os2.)
OS/2 LAN Server 2.0 Entry Package* $795 (Source: press release
found on CompuServe.)
Total OS/2 2.0 (near-NT cnfg)****$1,339
**** This configuration is of course not 100% equivalent.
This OS/2 configuration has REXX, truly excellent VDMs, and the WPS, etc
over NT's base package. NT has numerous extra OS-type features, Logons,
an e-mail API, Symmetric multiprocessing, NTFS, etc over the OS/2
configuration. All in all though I believe if there is error in calling
this a "near-NT cnfg", then I'm giving the break to OS/2, so
hopefully the OS/2 people can accept this cost comparison, however
painful it may be for them to do so.
*** OS/2's and Windows NT Multimedia support seem to be equivalent.
I have only seen OS/2's MM feature list though, so feel free to
correct this if you've seen both.
** OS/2 2.0's TCP/IP Base Kit contains more programs
than comes with NT. (NT comes with only "client" programs.)
However programming OS/2's TCP/IP requires a $500 programmers
toolkit, and this ability comes with NT's SDK for free. Thus
I pretend it's an even swap. Obviously for some, even many users
this isn't the case. As NT has Berkeley sockets I suspect
that freeware based on Berkeley's daemons will soon appear and make
even this a moot point.
* Windows NT's networking features (beyond TCP/IP) are roughly equivalent
to the OS/2 LAN Server 2.0 "Entry Package". Here I only have access to
a features list, so if you have experience with both please
jump in.
@
----------------------------------------------
THIS LIST WAS FORMED USING THE FOLLOWING RULES
----------------------------------------------
If you have correction/additions/deletions please jump right in. If
you're not sure and/or don't want to suggest it publicly, e-mail me...
I have access to nearly all the available docs for OS/2 and NT.
If you know of a feature that one or the other will add in the future AND
you have a time frame. Send it and the time frame along. Time frames
should be no further out than the end of '94, and preferably before
the end of '93. Please specify the source of the information.
Time frames do not have to be exact, make-it-or-we'll-die shipping dates.
They need to be a date official and firm enough that if the company
involved misses by more than 50% more time, then they will be embarrassed.
For example the "June" in "June" CSD clearly qualifies.
This date, while not "official", was well publicized and openly encouraged
by IBM officials as a time frame for the CSD.
To avoid things getting entirely out of hand please restrict things
to the systems level sorts of stuff. For example servers such
as the OS/2 Database Server 2.0 are not strictly speaking OS features.
Unfortunately, these things are hard to define as PC OS's regularly muddy
traditional lines in this area. Also, things from third-parties don't count.
Corrections of grammar, spelling, etc are welcomed.
--------------------------
REBUTTAL FROM AN OS/2 USER
--------------------------
By Timothy F. Sipples
Brian has asked me to prepare a "rebuttal" to offer my objections to
his NT v. OS/2 feature list. I have few criticisms as to the
particulars in his list, and I won't discuss most of these remaining
criticisms here. However, a simple list does not reflect any sort of
weighting. This weighting depends on your perspective, but, in
general, several points listed in the OS/2 "column" are big ones,
while several in the NT "column" deal with what many readers would
consider minor technical points.
First, OS/2 2.0 is a released operating system, in use by more than a
million people (and growing). NT, as of this writing, is only
available on CD-ROM in what is euphemistically called "pre-beta" form.
Roughly 10,000 developers have obtained this pre-beta according to
Microsoft reports. This fact makes comparisons between the two
systems extremely difficult, to say the least, for several reasons
(support mechanisms, variation in released NT specs, quality of
implementation, performance, documentation, availability of bug fixes,
tolerance of hardware, etc).
Also, OS/2 2.0 incorporates the Workplace Shell, which, in just two
words, changes the way people use PCs. NT will rely on the Windows
3.1 Program Manager / File Manager dichotomy, which, according to most
reviewers (and, as the sales of Norton Desktop can attest) is growing
a bit long in the tooth. And when REXX is listed in the OS/2 column,
that one word means an awful lot, namely that the system has a common
scripting (and general purpose programming) language. Superior DOS
and Windows compatibility is also an extremely important feature --
OS/2 happens to be, according to most reviewers, the best DOS
multitasker on the market. Backward compatibility is vital in the PC
market, and NT will be hard pressed to improve on OS/2 in this area.
These three features are immediately apparent to any user, and obvious
differences tend to mean more to sales than extremely narrow, more
esoteric differences.
The two companies have different philosophies on PR. IBM tends to
announce ship dates and future directions at a fairly late stage of
development, and they, more often than not, meet those dates.
Microsoft tends to preannounce almost every aspect of their product
line, and, more often than not, fails to meet announced ship dates
and/or changes direction readily. There are merits to both approaches
(oddly enough), but one should appreciate the differences, namely that
several future OS/2 features (Distributed PM, X Server, Novell Netware
Server) did not make Brian's list simply because no "official" date
has been released (although they have been demonstrated by IBM at
trade shows, for example). And these planned features are extremely
important. The world's most popular LAN server software will be
available for OS/2 2.0, not for NT, it seems. OS/2 will apparently
have distributed GUI features (both with X and PM) well before NT even
introduces their object-oriented graphical shell.
NT and OS/2 are likely to be sold very differently. While Brian's
cost analysis and memory requirements comparisons are literally
correct, most people do not buy operating systems as the tables would
suggest. IBM's philosophy with OS/2 is to have a low cost of entry
(namely as low as $79) to the base package and to offer almost any
system software add-on, implemented in top-of-the-line fashion, one
could possibly want for an extra charge (e.g. Extended Services,
TCP/IP, SPM/2, DCF/2, etc). This approach might be called the
"a-la-carte" method of operating system sales. Microsoft, on the
other hand, appears to be readying NT for a substantially higher entry
cost (in the vicinity of $300 to $500) for a base package with more
features (and, not incidently, heftier system requirements). With few
exceptions, every NT feature can be replicated in OS/2 (but not the
reverse), albeit through an add-on (usually one available from IBM) or
in bundling suitable to the situation (e.g. the multiprocessor version
of OS/2).
Brian, in his preface, argues that NT's approach is better, since
developers can write applications which utilize high end features
without worrying about whether a given customer's installation has
that feature. I personally prefer OS/2's approach, and I think most
mainstream developers might, too, simply because having a lower cost
to entry helps assure a larger user base. PCs are increasingly sold
in "a-la-carte" fashion (allowing the purchaser to choose that video
adapter, this hard drive), and I think there are distinct advantages
to doing the same with system software.
IBM has learned a great deal from OS/2 1.x, lessons which I fear
Microsoft has not, particularly in the areas of backward
compatibility, low cost of entry, and manageable system requirements.
NT, on paper, looks terrific for the LAN server, but, there, too, is
cause for concern, since Novell Netware Server is not slated for NT.
The remaining criticisms leveled at OS/2 apply doubly to NT, I'm
afraid.
I hope I am wrong. Competition is always healthy, and I suspect that
these two systems (and others: Solaris, other Unix offerings, etc.)
will achieve reasonable market penetration. My advice to developers,
for whatever it is worth, is to keep your options open. That means
developing for OS/2 (or you'll be left behind, I can assure you --
just look at the sales figures and start coding) and keeping tabs on
NT. Cross platform development tools are definitely worth
investigating. (Users have an easier decision, namely to use what
works best for them, using hands on evaluation. Try to avoid the hype
on all sides.)
T.F.S.
--------------end of text of final draft----------------------------