US Army struggles with Windows to Linux overhaul

In multiple media reports over the past two weeks, the US Army has professed its love for the penguin. The Army eventually intends to move from a Windows-based infrastructure over to Linux for its new, roughly $200bn weapons program.

But the Army has largely been prepping new Linux-friendly weapons, vehicles, and devices before the completion of a software network to connect them to its existing Windows-based infrastructure — or blithely, putting the chariot before the warhorse.

When the Army began development of its next-gen hardware (dubbed Future Combat Systems, or FCS), they turned to Boeing and SAIC to develop the operating system rather than basing the software on its established Blue Force Tracking.

Blue Force is a Windows-based satellite tracking system designed by Boeing rival Northrop Grumman. It was used in combat in Afghanistan in 2002 and later in Iraq. Both the development of the FCS project and Blue Force are currently being funded at the same time. In 2008 the Army budgeted $3.1bn to the FCS program and $624m for Blue Force Tracking.
And while it seems both systems are being embraced by the Army, Boeing's OS and Blue Force may not share the sentiments with each other. FCS is going Linux.

"Boeing and the Army said they chose not to use Microsoft's proprietary software because they didn't want to be beholden to the company," reports The Washington Post. "Instead, they chose to develop a Linux-based operating system based on publicly available code."

That potentially presents a major problem for the first brigade of Linux-based FCS vehicles expected to be introduced in 2015. Linux-based systems have a limited ability to communicate with Microsoft-based systems. And interoperability issues aren't something you want to deal with in a war zone.

According to the US Army online pub, Defense News, they'll first try to patch things up using Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

"Red Hat 5 will link Linux with Microsoft and allow FCS forces to link with other brigade combat teams," an Army official told Defense News. "This will be an interim solution because over the long haul, eventually all of the Army's networks will be Linux-based."

For a long-haul migration from Microsoft to Linux — the Army doesn't seem to be so sure what it will do. So they're bringing some 70 programmers, engineers and other IT professionals to Washington to brainstorm in four "Battle Command" summits.

The first two summits were held in September and November, with two upcoming sessions in February and April. According to Defense News, the Army says there has been "progress" in outlining time lines for the integration.

FAT vs NTFS

To NTFS or not to NTFS—that is the question. But unlike the deeper questions of life, this one isn't really all that hard to answer. For most users running Windows XP, NTFS is the obvious choice. It's more powerful and offers security advantages not found in the other file systems. But let's go over the differences among the files systems so we're all clear about the choice. There are essentially three different file systems available in Windows XP: FAT16, short for File Allocation Table, FAT32, and NTFS, short for NT File System.

FAT16
The FAT16 file system was introduced way back with MS–DOS in 1981, and it's showing its age. It was designed originally to handle files on a floppy drive, and has had minor modifications over the years so it can handle hard disks, and even file names longer than the original limitation of 8.3 characters, but it's still the lowest common denominator. The biggest advantage of FAT16 is that it is compatible across a wide variety of operating systems, including Windows 95/98/Me, OS/2, Linux, and some versions of UNIX. The biggest problem of FAT16 is that it has a fixed maximum number of clusters per partition, so as hard disks get bigger and bigger, the size of each cluster has to get larger. In a 2–GB partition, each cluster is 32 kilobytes, meaning that even the smallest file on the partition will take up 32 KB of space. FAT16 also doesn't support compression, encryption, or advanced security using access control lists.

FAT32
The FAT32 file system, originally introduced in Windows 95 Service Pack 2, is really just an extension of the original FAT16 file system that provides for a much larger number of clusters per partition. As such, it greatly improves the overall disk utilization when compared to a FAT16 file system. However, FAT32 shares all of the other limitations of FAT16, and adds an important additional limitation—many operating systems that can recognize FAT16 will not work with FAT32—most notably Windows NT, but also Linux and UNIX as well. Now this isn't a problem if you're running FAT32 on a Windows XP computer and sharing your drive out to other computers on your network—they don't need to know (and generally don't really care) what your underlying file system is.

The Advantages of NTFS
The NTFS file system, introduced with first version of Windows NT, is a completely different file system from FAT. It provides for greatly increased security, file–by–file compression, quotas, and even encryption. It is the default file system for new installations of Windows XP, and if you're doing an upgrade from a previous version of Windows, you'll be asked if you want to convert your existing file systems to NTFS. Don't worry. If you've already upgraded to Windows XP and didn't do the conversion then, it's not a problem. You can convert FAT16 or FAT32 volumes to NTFS at any point. Just remember that you can't easily go back to FAT or FAT32 (without reformatting the drive or partition), not that I think you'll want to.

The NTFS file system is generally not compatible with other operating systems installed on the same computer, nor is it available when you've booted a computer from a floppy disk. For this reason, many system administrators, myself included, used to recommend that users format at least a small partition at the beginning of their main hard disk as FAT. This partition provided a place to store emergency recovery tools or special drivers needed for reinstallation, and was a mechanism for digging yourself out of the hole you'd just dug into. But with the enhanced recovery abilities built into Windows XP (more on that in a future column), I don't think it's necessary or desirable to create that initial FAT partition.

When to Use FAT or FAT32
If you're running more than one operating system on a single computer (see Dual booting in Guides), you will definitely need to format some of your volumes as FAT. Any programs or data that need to be accessed by more than one operating system on that computer should be stored on a FAT16 or possibly FAT32 volume. But keep in mind that you have no security for data on a FAT16 or FAT32 volume—any one with access to the computer can read, change, or even delete any file that is stored on a FAT16 or FAT32 partition. In many cases, this is even possible over a network. So do not store sensitive files on drives or partitions formatted with FAT file systems.

Dude their getting Linux

As of 5 pm (Eastern Time), you'll be able to order two new Dell desktop systems and one Dell laptop configuration with Ubuntu Linux 7.04 installed instead of Windows. Dell product manager Lionel Menchaca has the details in his post on Dell's corporate blog this morning. (A posting earlier in the week has more technical details about these new configurations.)

This is a fairly amazing event. I can't remember any big-name vendor of Windows machines ever offering individual consumers the option of buying its hardware with the free, open-source Linux operating system preinstalled.

Two quick thoughts about the news:

* Microsoft has lost its power to intimidate everybody else in the PC industry. Remember when this company would threaten to yank a computer manufacturer's Windows license if it had the temerity to remove desktop shortcuts to Internet Explorer? Now think about how that version of Microsoft would have reacted to Dell's latest move.

* Good things happen when companies make it easy for their customers to suggest ideas and are prepared to act on them. Dell's IdeaStorm Web site allowed Linux users to document their long-standing wishes; it's to Dell's credit that it's making this major revision to its consumer product line in response. Now let's see how the company responds to other popular IdeaStorm suggestions, like making Firefox the default Web browser or letting customers opt out of having their new Dell machine loaded up with the usual trialware junk.

I plan on trying out one of Dell's Linux models in the next month or so. Do you plan on buying one yourself? (I'm especially interested in hearing from people who haven't put Linux on one of their own personal computers before.)

Dynamic Partitioning: Windows Server 2008

Computerworld has an interesting article about a new feature of Windows Server 2008: Dynamic Partitioning. A hardware partitionable server can have isolated hardware partitions comprising CPU, memory and I/O. Each of these segments runs its own Windows instance. It allows you to add, replace and remove hardware without rebooting Windows. This not only improves fault tolerance, but also scalability. In a way, it is RAID for CPU, memory and I/O. This certainly important feature is not a new revolutionary technology, though. Mainframe systems always had similar capabilities. Therefore, it will be one further step for Microsoft in pushing Windows into the datacenter. Unfortunately, this feature will only be supported by the Datacenter and the Itanium editions of Windows Server 2008. By the way, Windows Server 2003 already supports hot-add memory. It is interesting to note, that the white paper about the new features of Windows Server 2008, I linked to earlier, doesn’t mention this new capability. If you want to know more technical details about Dynamic Partitioning, or about the “hot swap feature” as some call it.

DELL offers XP again! YAY

Like most computer makers, Dell switched nearly entirely to Vista-based systems following Microsoft's mainstream launch of the operating system in January. However, the company said its customers have been asking for XP as part of its IdeaStorm project, which asks customers to help the company come up with product ideas.

"We heard you loud and clear on bringing the Windows XP option back to our Dell consumer PC offerings," Dell said on its Ideas in Action page. Users get to vote on various suggestions, and the notion of bringing back XP got 10,000 "points," making it among the most popular requests but well below top picks such as adding Linux or OpenOffice.org to its PCs.

Windows XP systems became scarce, but not impossible to find, after Vista arrived. For example, Hewlett-Packard said it would continue selling XP on some machines aimed at small and midsize businesses, while CompUSA still stocks a couple of business-oriented XP systems in its retail stores. Lenovo has also continued shipping XP on many of its business systems.

Starting immediately, Dell said, it is adding XP Home and Professional as options on four Inspiron laptop models and two Dimension desktops.

Earlier this month, Dell added XP back as an option for small-business customers, but at the time, it said it would not add it back for home users.

"Dell does not have plans to launch Windows XP for home users as the preference, and demand is for the 'latest and greatest' technology, which includes Windows Vista," Tom West, director of small-business marketing at Dell, said in a blog posting at the time.

Analysts say Dell's move is not a good sign for Windows Vista.

"That there is remaining demand from some segment of (the) consumer market points to the inability of Vista to resonate with consumers," IDC analyst Richard Shim said.

There was an initial bump for Vista sales right after its launch, Shim said, but some of that may have been from consumers who delayed purchasing a PC late last year. Sales in the later part of the first quarter were less strong, he said. The overall response to Vista will become clearer throughout the year, he said.

Novell's regret in Microsoft deal

If Novell's chief executive has any regrets about slipping between the sheets with Microsoft, it's around Microsoft's push for IP protection.

Ron Hovsepian's alliance with Microsoft, announced last November, saw Microsoft agree to sell SuSE Enterprise Linux (SLES) coupons, while the companies worked on interoperability between SLES and Windows on virtualization, directories and file formats between Office and Open Office. Coupons apply specifically to SLES running as a virtual guest in a host Windows operating system or vice versa.

However, it was Novell's tacit recognition of the existence of intellectual property in Linux - by accepting Microsoft's promise not to prosecute developers whose open source code is used by Novell - that really rankled the community.

According to Hovsepian in eWeek, the IP covenant was a Microsoft - not a Novell - idea, and the companies' original proposal did not include a covenant not to sue. "That was one of the business things [Microsoft] wanted out of it," Hovsepian said.

And you can see why. It put Microsoft's chief executive Steve Ballmer back on form in the weeks following the deal, claiming Linux infringes Microsoft IP and that Microsoft wanted to "get the appropriate economic return for our shareholders from our innovation." Novell agreed to pay Microsoft $40m in protection.

Which brings us onto Hovsepian's only genuine - public at least - regret: his delay in responding to a storm of community criticism through an open letter. Hovsepian believes a timelier letter would have cleared up concerns.

That letter said Novell's agreement with Microsoft was "in no way an acknowledgment that Linux infringes upon any Microsoft intellectual property." Rather than clarify, though, Hovsepian's letter left people baffled over why Novell signed the covenant, given both companies held diametrically opposed views

Windows XP GONE as of 2008

Microsoft will stop selling Windows XP to PC makers such as Dell, Lenovo and Hewlett-Packard by January 31, a company representative confirmed Thursday. The software maker will stop selling XP to system builders, the smaller custom PC makers, a year later, the representative said.

"This has been the practice at Microsoft for some time, and this process provides a gradual transition away from a previous version of an OS, from full availability, to availability only through a distributor, and finally availability via downgrade rights," the Microsoft representative said in an e-mail.

Windows Vista, the successor to XP, became broadly available at the end of January. Microsoft has worked hard to promote Vista as a safer, easier to use, better connected and more entertaining version of Windows than any of its predecessors. However, there s still a lack of Vista-compatible applications and hardware drivers, hurdles for broad adoption.

Despite those words of caution, many PC shoppers already have no choice beyond Vista. PC makers have already moved almost everything they sell to consumers--and some businesses--over to Vista, both in stores and online.

Zune 2.0 Details Leaked

So we knew the red (and pink and orange) Zunes were coming, but surprise surprise, the red Zune will include some interesting sports content to cater to the sports nuts out there, or so the rumor hounds at Crunchgear say. Supposedly you will be able to select your favorite team and the Zune will be able to download games as podcasts, which could be handy if you miss a game or don't live in the area of your favorite team and miss all of the regional broadcasts on TV.

There are definite perks to something like this, especially for sports fans, but there are all kinds of problems that could be associated. Is it full games or just highlights? I don't see myself wanting to actually download a three hour baseball game and then proceed to watch it on a Zune screen. The jury is still out, but I'll try to give it a shot as soon as I can, given these rumors are correct.

Inspector Lists Computers With Atomic Secrets as Missing

WASHINGTON, March 30 — The office in charge of protecting American technical secrets about nuclear weapons from foreign spies is missing 20 desktop computers, at least 14 of which have been used for classified information, the Energy Department inspector general reported on Friday.

This is the 13th time in a little over four years that an audit has found that the department, whose national laboratories and factories do most of the work in designing and building nuclear warheads, has lost control over computers used in working on the bombs.

Aside from the computers it cannot find, the department is also using computers not listed in its inventory, and one computer listed as destroyed was in fact being used, the audit said.

“Problems with the control and accountability of desktop and laptop computers have plagued the department for a number of years,” the report said.

In January, Linton F. Brooks was fired as the administrator of the National Nuclear Security Agency, the Energy Department agency in charge of bombs, because of security problems. The agency was created in the 1990s because of security scandals.

When the most recent audit began, the Counterintelligence Directorate was unable to find 141 desktop computers. In some cases, documents were found indicating that the computers had been taken out of service.

Previous incidents of wayward computers have also involved nuclear weapons information. But the office involved in this breach has a special responsibility, tracking and countering efforts to steal bomb information. Its computers would have material on what the department knew about foreign operatives and efforts to steal sensitive information.

The report includes a response from the security agency that generally agrees with the findings. But the inspector general, Gregory H. Friedman, noted in his report that “the comments did not include planned corrective actions with target completion dates.”

A spokesman for the department, Craig Stevens, said Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman “recognizes that we need to manage this place better.”

The counterintelligence office was recently merged with the intelligence office to improve operations, Mr. Stevens said.

The Torvalds Transcript: Why I 'Absolutely Love' GPL Version 2

On March 6, Linus Torvalds responded to e-mail questions on GPL version 3 sent by InformationWeek editor at large Charles Babcock.

InformationWeek: Can you comment on why you oppose moving the Linux kernel from GPL 2.0 to GPL 3.0?

Torvalds: First off, I don't even know what the GPLv3 will look like. I would be totally crazy to accept a license for my code sight unseen. I think people who just say "version 2 or any later version" on their code probably don't care about the license of their code enough. Before I say that "yes, you can use my code under license X," I'd better know *what* that license is.

So that's an issue totally independent of any particular GPLv3 details. The reason Linux has that "GPLv2 only" language is exactly that I simply don't want to be at the mercy of somebody else when it comes to something as important as the license I choose for my code.

So I can't even imagine why anybody would ever expect me to do anything but "v2 only." It's just stupid to do anything else.

Now, totally independently of that, I'm doubly happy that I long, long since made that decision because at least the drafts of the GPLv3 have been much worse than the GPLv2 is. They've had glaring technical problems (license proliferation with not just one single GPLv3, but "GPLv3 with various additional rights and various additional restrictions"), and while I certainly hope that the final GPLv3 won't have those obvious problems, I've been singularly unimpressed with the drafts.

Adobe says NO WAY!!!

Adobe says you'll have to upgrade to new versions of popular (and really expensive) software like Photoshop, InDesign and DreamWeaver if you want them to run well under Windows Vista.

Current versions of many Adobe products won't run flawlessly under Windows Vista, this announcement only confirms that they never will. So, if you're a creative professional (who hasn't already jumped ship to OS X) start getting out the check book. Adobe's CS3 creative suite will be out next week, and it ain't gonna be cheap.

We probably should have realized something was up when Adobe's own document on Vista compatibility (which we wrote about almost a month ago) dodged the question by stating that Adobe would release free patches for "some of Adobe's currently available products." To our credit, it would have been much easier to spot if they'd said, "some of Adobe's currently available products, but not the ones anyone actually uses or cares about."