The Desktop OS Upgrade and the Desktop Environment

 

To cope with the installation of campus windows environment and the upgrade of network OS from DEC Pathworks version 4 to version 5, the recommended users' desktop hardware platform is Intel PCs of either 486 systems or pentium systems with at least 8 MB of memory. DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.11 are supported under the new network OS. As a result of this upgrade, users are provided with more flexibility in the integration of heterogeneous network environment. The user workstation can select, in addition to the pure DEC services, the services offered by Microsoft Windows NT and even those offered by Unix and Novell Netware as well. (Technically speaking, the user workstation can talk to the various servers through multi-protocols with drivers loaded at users choice). This cannot be done without the sacrifice of more memory in the previous version. The new version is more manageable and will reduce our support effort. Users will also experience two changes from that of the version 4 Pathworks. Firstly, the user workstations will start the network connections by running programs stored in the local hard disk (we called it the local boot, as compared to the remote boot in version 4). Secondly, the user will be identified by a log-on process when he/she first boots up onto the network. With this identity, resources can be granted with better security control. For example, user may then connect his/her personal drive at will without having to supply his/her password since the network already know who the user is and whether he/she is allowed to do so.

In addition to the upgrade of network OS, MS DOS and MS Windows as well as commonly used software such as word processors and spreadsheet packages will come under a new central licensing scheme managed and maintained by CSC. CSC will align all the users with the same up-to-date versions of the list of selected software. In this way, not only will resources be shared and better utilized, it also enables us to maintain uniform version of software used in the University. Better software support can be provided since everyone will then be using the same version of software.

With these major steps forward, users can enjoy more flexible and efficient network services. This environment, however, is nowhere near to perfection. In the mean time, the memory constraints continue to frustrate most of our users and our support people. Users are still required to manually configure the various devices added to their systems and our support people still have to tackle all the compatibility problems. Indeed, we are looking forward to the release of better Network OS.

Computing Services Centre City University of Hong Kong ccnetcom@cityu.edu.hk