SCO Companion: Professional Edition
Authors: James Mohr
Venue:  (1997)

From the Book:PREFACE: Welcome to SCO Companion: Professional Edition! Describing what this book is about is not easy. With the first book, I was able to say that it was about description of the most important aspects of an SCO system. However, since that was done with the first book, I cannot repeat the same information. This second book is also not about a specific aspect of an SCO system such as networking or configuring an Internet server (although this is a part of it). One of the key motivators for doing this second book was to get the word out about FreeSCO, and provide some guidelines and help to get it up and running. However, that would have been just the first chapter and that makes for a rather thin book. Instead, we (Prentice Hall and I) decided to provide you with the FreeSCO and to fill in some of the gaps in the first book. Since the first book was published, SCO has brought a number of new products on the market. To make this second book as complete as possible, we are going to address some of those as well. At first glance, this seems like a random group of subjects, simply thrown together. However, when one considers SCO market strategy, there is some logic to all of this. SCO's goal is connectivity. Looking at their product line, there emphasis is on connecting systems. Whether these systems are on the Internet or Windows, and SCO systems in your local network, SCO provides the SCO provides the means to get these systems talking to each other. That's what the emphasis is on in this book: connecting SCO and other systems together. We will be talking about setting up an Internet server and the basics of providing the two primaryservices,FTP and Web pages. We will also be talking about getting SCO connected to Microsoft Windows. This is possible through several products, including SCO's Advanced File and Print Server (AFPS), which enables you to set up your SCO system as a Windows file and printer server. (hence the name). There is also Windows Application Binary Interface (WABI), which allows you to run Windows 3.x applications directly on the SCO desktop. Then there is the issue of FreeSCO. The concept itself is not what gets you connected, but there are several tools that do. First, it is a complete version of the SCO OpenServer Desktop system with all the functionality you would find on the commercial version. This includes a full-blown Web server and FTP server. When you register the product on the SCO Web site (details in Chapter 1), you will also get a license for the AFPS. Because the offer of a free version of SCO is what may have tempted you to buy this book and you have never used SCO before, I will guide you through an installation and give you an overview of an SCO system. In the first book, I made the assumption that you already had or worked with a version of SCO, so there was intentionally no "Getting Started" chapter. In this book there is no chapter by that name, but I needed to present the same kind of information. An operating system is not like a word processor where you can start by opening up the first document and begin writing. An operating system is many faceted and what can be done you want to do with it will be as varied as the people wanting to do it. Still, it is important to give you the basics. I will then provide a quick-n-dirty intro to "get you started." However, the first book goes into more detail about all of this, so I will often refer you to specific sections or chapters for more details. One of the problems that I encountered is that this second book is not an "update" of the first, but rather an "extension" or "enhancement. "I do not want to repeat myself, but, then again, I don't want you to have to bounce back and fourth between books too much. I decided on a compromise. I will keep the repetition down to the minimum, but I will also keep from making you bounce around too much. The first chapter deals with the installation of the FreeSCO on the CD. Most things about the installation are the same as any other SCO UNIX system. However, I had to go from the assumption that whoever person buying this book might never have seen an SCO system. Therefore, I had to be a lot more detailed in my description of the installation process. Additionally, a lot of the information needed is something I presented in the first book. This is one case where bouncing back-n-forth was not a good idea. Therefore, I repeated some of the information from the first book. Since the information was modified to address the issues specific to installing FreeSCO and to help the novice, I think it was appropriate to do so. Chapter 2 talks runs through the basics of SCO, giving the first time user an introduction to the most significant aspects of the system. I will also cover some details about the products you get at no cost on the CD: SCO's Advanced File and Print Server, SCO Doctor and ARCServer/Open. Chapter 3 goes into the SCO implementation of the X Windowing System. Here we cover configuring X and running applications. We will also go into the details of configuring the Motif Window Manager to enable you to set up your system to fit your needs. At the end of the chapter, we will talk about the SCO Desktop, which provides a wide range of tools and applications. Chapter 4 and 5 go into the details of setting up and running an Internet server. Unlike other operating systems, SCO comes with all the tools you need to set up and configure your server. This includes the FreeSCO on the CD. Because we talked a great deal about connecting to the Internet, Chapter 6 deals with one issue that a lot of people forget: Security. If you are connected, then there will always be the danger that someone could break into your system. Therefore, we will talk about some of the primary considerations. However, the things we will discuss about are not just relevant for when connecting to the Internet, but rather anytime you have a computer network. As with the first book, you will find several icons in the margins. The picture of the mountain is supposed to represent Everest, which was the code name for OpenServer 5.0. This indicates places where the OpenServer 5.0 differs from previous versions. The picture of the magnifying glass indicates places where you should take a closer look. Finally, the lightning bolt is used to point out places where you might get zapped if you are not careful. As always, I tried to be as accurate as I possibly could. If there are any mistakes left over, they are mine alone. If you find any, please do not hesitate to drop me a line at: jimmo@jimmo.com or 100542.2677@compuserve.com The ACM Portal is published by the Association for Computing Machinery. Copyright © 2010 ACM, Inc. Terms of Usage Privacy Policy Code of Ethics Contact Us Useful downloads: Adobe Acrobat QuickTime Windows Media Player Real Player