SCO UnixWare 2.1 Technical Summary - Bandwidthco Computer ...

SCO UnixWare 2.1
• X/Open Curses, Issue 4 : Extend the current curses interfaces to support
internationalization, enhanced character sets, and different writing directions.
The system allows the enabling of support for Single UNIX specification interfaces and
commands at install time or later via a kernel tunable.
Year 2000 Date Processing
The Year 2000 problem exists because for decades it has been common practice to use two
digits instead of four when writing dates. However common this practice, it causes computer
software performing arithmetic operations, comparisons or sorting of data fields to yield incorrect
results when working with years beyond 1999. Gartner Group, Inc., an information technology
research firm, has estimated that it will cost between $300 billion to $600 billion to correct the
Year 2000 problem worldwide.
SCO has expended significant effort to ensure that the operating system enables the correct
display and calculation of these dates and related computations. By limiting the failures due to
date interpretation in the operating system, the Year 2000 ready operating system significantly
reduces the cost of addressing this problem. It also means that you can continue to use your
current systems without being forced to invest in expensive new systems and training.
SCO is committed to offering continued support for year 2000 related issues. This means that if
more problems are uncovered, SCO will work towards resolving any operating system issues.
This significantly reduces the exposure to year 2000 problems.
Performance Enhancements
The SCO UnixWare 2.1.1 Update includes several enhancements to the operating system,
libraries and compilers that significantly improve the overall performance of the both single CPU
and SMP servers under heavy multi-user loads. Some of the salient o nes are:
• Improved handling of timer requests by multiplexed threads.
• Improved system performance under multiuser loads
• Default values for kernel tunables tuned for better “out-of-box” performance
• New kernel tunables are also provided to improve paging performance
• Streams driver routines enhanced to handle service routines better under heavy loads
• Enhancements to the pre-processor, runtime dynamic linker and other development
tools such as make for larger development projects and better performance
• Improvements in compiler optimizations
New Hardware Support
The 2.1.1 Update also includes several new and enhanced drivers to support new SCSI host
adapters, updates to network adapter drivers and new video drivers. The new HBA driver
package contains a new flashpt driver and updated drivers for host adapters from Adaptec,
Siemens, Compaq, Symbios Logic and Tricord. An updated Video Drives package includes also
support for new ATI Mach64 based video cards, Cirrus 5436/5446/M30 based video cards, as
well as enhanced drivers for the ETW32p card. The Network Interface Card support package
provides updated drivers for network cards from Compaq and SMC.
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