Tru64 UNIX
Encyclopedia
Tru64 UNIX is a 64-bit
UNIX
operating system
for the Alpha
instruction set architecture (ISA), currently owned by Hewlett-Packard
(HP). Previously, Tru64 UNIX was a product of Compaq
, and before that, Digital Equipment Corporation
(DEC), where it was known as Digital UNIX (formerly DEC OSF/1 AXP).
As its original name suggests, Tru64 UNIX is based on the OSF/1 operating system. DEC's previous UNIX product was known as Ultrix
and was based on BSD.
It is unusual among commercial UNIX implementations, as it is built on top of the Mach kernel developed at Carnegie Mellon University
. (Other UNIX implementations built on top of the Mach kernel are NeXTSTEP
, MkLinux
, and Mac OS X
.)
Tru64 UNIX requires the SRM
boot firmware
found on Alpha-based computer systems.
In 1988, during the so-called "Unix wars
", DEC joined with IBM
, Hewlett-Packard
, and others to form the Open Software Foundation
(OSF) to develop a version of Unix. Dubbed OSF/1, the aim was to compete with System V Release 4
from AT&T
and Sun Microsystems
, and it has been argued that a primary goal was for the operating system to be free of AT&T intellectual property. The fact that OSF/1 was one of the first operating systems to use the Mach kernel is cited as support of this assertion. Digital also strongly promoted OSF/1 for real-time
applications , and with traditional UNIX implementations at the time providing poor real-time support at best, the real-time and multi-threading
support was heavily dependent on the Mach kernel. It also incorporated a large part of the BSD kernel (based on the 4.3-Reno release) to provide Unix compatibility. OSF/1 was envisaged to be the third major branch of the Unix family tree, after System V and BSD
.
DEC's original release of OSF/1 (DEC OSF/1 V1.0) was in January 1992 for their line of MIPS
-based DECstation
workstations, however this was never a fully supported product and was cancelled before the end of the year. DEC ported OSF/1 to their new Alpha AXP
platform (as DEC OSF/1 AXP), and this was the first version (V1.2) of what is most commonly referred to as OSF/1. DEC OSF/1 AXP 1.2 was shipped on March 1993. OSF/1 AXP was a full 64-bit operating system and the native UNIX implementation for the Alpha architecture. From OSF/1 AXP V2.0 onwards, UNIX System V
compatibility was also integrated into the system.
/700 workstations based on the PA-RISC
1.1 architecture. This was withdrawn soon afterwards due to lack of software and hardware support compared to competing operating systems.
Apple Computer
intended to base A/UX
4.0 for their PowerPC
-based Macintoshes on OSF/1, but the project was cancelled.
IBM used OSF/1 as the basis of the AIX/ESA operating system for System/370
and System/390 mainframes.
OSF/1 was also ported by Kendall Square Research
to their proprietary processor architecture used in the KSR1 supercomputer
.
In 1994, after AT&T had sold UNIX System V to Novell
and the rival Unix International
consortium had disbanded, the Open Software Foundation ceased funding of research and development of OSF/1.
version of OSF/1 developed for massively parallel
supercomputers by Locus Computing Corporation
. Variants of OSF/1 AD were used on several such systems, including the Intel Paragon
XP/S and ASCI Red
, Convex
Exemplar SPP-1200 (as SPP-UX) and the Hitachi
SR2201 (as HI-UX MPP).
Single UNIX Specification
.
In April 1999, Compaq announced that Tru64 UNIX 5.0 successfully ran on Intel's IA-64
simulator. However, this port was cancelled a few months later.
A Chinese version of Tru64 UNIX named COSIX
was jointly developed by Compaq and China National Computer Software & Technology Service Corporation (CS&S). It was released in 1999.
file system, TruCluster
, and LSM) to HP-UX
, HP's existing Unix OS. In December 2004, HP announced a change of plan; they would instead use the Veritas file system
and abandon the Tru64 advanced features. In the process, many of the remaining Tru64 developers were laid off
.
The current maintenance release, 5.1B-6 was released in October 2010.
In October 2010, HP stated that they would continue to support Tru64 UNIX until 31st December 2012.
In 2008, HP has contributed the AdvFS
to the open source
community.
64-bit
64-bit is a word size that defines certain classes of computer architecture, buses, memory and CPUs, and by extension the software that runs on them. 64-bit CPUs have existed in supercomputers since the 1970s and in RISC-based workstations and servers since the early 1990s...
UNIX
Unix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
for the Alpha
DEC Alpha
Alpha, originally known as Alpha AXP, is a 64-bit reduced instruction set computer instruction set architecture developed by Digital Equipment Corporation , designed to replace the 32-bit VAX complex instruction set computer ISA and its implementations. Alpha was implemented in microprocessors...
instruction set architecture (ISA), currently owned by Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard Company or HP is an American multinational information technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, USA that provides products, technologies, softwares, solutions and services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises, including...
(HP). Previously, Tru64 UNIX was a product of Compaq
Compaq
Compaq Computer Corporation is a personal computer company founded in 1982. Once the largest supplier of personal computing systems in the world, Compaq existed as an independent corporation until 2002, when it was acquired for US$25 billion by Hewlett-Packard....
, and before that, Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation was a major American company in the computer industry and a leading vendor of computer systems, software and peripherals from the 1960s to the 1990s...
(DEC), where it was known as Digital UNIX (formerly DEC OSF/1 AXP).
As its original name suggests, Tru64 UNIX is based on the OSF/1 operating system. DEC's previous UNIX product was known as Ultrix
Ultrix
Ultrix was the brand name of Digital Equipment Corporation's native Unix systems. While ultrix is the Latin word for avenger, the name was chosen solely for its sound.-History:...
and was based on BSD.
It is unusual among commercial UNIX implementations, as it is built on top of the Mach kernel developed at Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States....
. (Other UNIX implementations built on top of the Mach kernel are NeXTSTEP
NEXTSTEP
NeXTSTEP was the object-oriented, multitasking operating system developed by NeXT Computer to run on its range of proprietary workstation computers, such as the NeXTcube...
, MkLinux
MkLinux
MkLinux is an open source computer operating system started by the OSF Research Institute and Apple Computer in February 1996 to port Linux to the PowerPC platform, and Macintosh computers...
, and Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
.)
Tru64 UNIX requires the SRM
System Reference Manual
The SRM firmware is the boot firmware written by Digital Equipment Corporation for computer systems based on the Alpha AXP microprocessor...
boot firmware
Firmware
In electronic systems and computing, firmware is a term often used to denote the fixed, usually rather small, programs and/or data structures that internally control various electronic devices...
found on Alpha-based computer systems.
OSF/1
Unix wars
The Unix wars were the struggles between vendors of the Unix computer operating system in the late 1980s and early 1990s to set the standard for Unix thenceforth.- Origins :...
", DEC joined with IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
, Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard Company or HP is an American multinational information technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, USA that provides products, technologies, softwares, solutions and services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises, including...
, and others to form the Open Software Foundation
Open Software Foundation
The Open Software Foundation was a not-for-profit organization founded in 1988 under the U.S. National Cooperative Research Act of 1984 to create an open standard for an implementation of the UNIX operating system.-History:...
(OSF) to develop a version of Unix. Dubbed OSF/1, the aim was to compete with System V Release 4
UNIX System V
Unix System V, commonly abbreviated SysV , is one of the first commercial versions of the Unix operating system. It was originally developed by American Telephone & Telegraph and first released in 1983. Four major versions of System V were released, termed Releases 1, 2, 3 and 4...
from AT&T
AT&T
AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications corporation headquartered in Whitacre Tower, Dallas, Texas, United States. It is the largest provider of mobile telephony and fixed telephony in the United States, and is also a provider of broadband and subscription television services...
and Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...
, and it has been argued that a primary goal was for the operating system to be free of AT&T intellectual property. The fact that OSF/1 was one of the first operating systems to use the Mach kernel is cited as support of this assertion. Digital also strongly promoted OSF/1 for real-time
Real-time computing
In computer science, real-time computing , or reactive computing, is the study of hardware and software systems that are subject to a "real-time constraint"— e.g. operational deadlines from event to system response. Real-time programs must guarantee response within strict time constraints...
applications , and with traditional UNIX implementations at the time providing poor real-time support at best, the real-time and multi-threading
Thread (computer science)
In computer science, a thread of execution is the smallest unit of processing that can be scheduled by an operating system. The implementation of threads and processes differs from one operating system to another, but in most cases, a thread is contained inside a process...
support was heavily dependent on the Mach kernel. It also incorporated a large part of the BSD kernel (based on the 4.3-Reno release) to provide Unix compatibility. OSF/1 was envisaged to be the third major branch of the Unix family tree, after System V and BSD
Berkeley Software Distribution
Berkeley Software Distribution is a Unix operating system derivative developed and distributed by the Computer Systems Research Group of the University of California, Berkeley, from 1977 to 1995...
.
DEC's original release of OSF/1 (DEC OSF/1 V1.0) was in January 1992 for their line of MIPS
MIPS architecture
MIPS is a reduced instruction set computer instruction set architecture developed by MIPS Technologies . The early MIPS architectures were 32-bit, and later versions were 64-bit...
-based DECstation
DECstation
The DECstation was a brand of computers used by DEC, and refers to three distinct lines of computer systems—the first released in 1978 as a word processing system, and the latter two both released in 1989. These comprised a range of computer workstations based on the MIPS architecture and a...
workstations, however this was never a fully supported product and was cancelled before the end of the year. DEC ported OSF/1 to their new Alpha AXP
DEC Alpha
Alpha, originally known as Alpha AXP, is a 64-bit reduced instruction set computer instruction set architecture developed by Digital Equipment Corporation , designed to replace the 32-bit VAX complex instruction set computer ISA and its implementations. Alpha was implemented in microprocessors...
platform (as DEC OSF/1 AXP), and this was the first version (V1.2) of what is most commonly referred to as OSF/1. DEC OSF/1 AXP 1.2 was shipped on March 1993. OSF/1 AXP was a full 64-bit operating system and the native UNIX implementation for the Alpha architecture. From OSF/1 AXP V2.0 onwards, UNIX System V
UNIX System V
Unix System V, commonly abbreviated SysV , is one of the first commercial versions of the Unix operating system. It was originally developed by American Telephone & Telegraph and first released in 1983. Four major versions of System V were released, termed Releases 1, 2, 3 and 4...
compatibility was also integrated into the system.
Other vendors
HP also released a port of OSF/1 to the early HP 9000HP 9000
HP 9000 is the name for a line of workstation and server computer systems produced by the Hewlett-Packard Company . The native operating system for almost all HP 9000 systems is HP-UX, a derivative of Unix. The HP 9000 brand was introduced in 1984 to encompass several existing technical...
/700 workstations based on the PA-RISC
PA-RISC
PA-RISC is an instruction set architecture developed by Hewlett-Packard. As the name implies, it is a reduced instruction set computer architecture, where the PA stands for Precision Architecture...
1.1 architecture. This was withdrawn soon afterwards due to lack of software and hardware support compared to competing operating systems.
Apple Computer
Apple Computer
Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and markets consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. The company's best-known hardware products include the Macintosh line of computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad...
intended to base A/UX
A/UX
A/UX was Apple Computer’s implementation of the Unix operating system for some of their Macintosh computers. The later versions of A/UX ran on the Macintosh II, Quadra and Centris series of machines as well as the SE/30. A/UX was first released in 1988, with the final version released in 1995...
4.0 for their PowerPC
PowerPC
PowerPC is a RISC architecture created by the 1991 Apple–IBM–Motorola alliance, known as AIM...
-based Macintoshes on OSF/1, but the project was cancelled.
IBM used OSF/1 as the basis of the AIX/ESA operating system for System/370
System/370
The IBM System/370 was a model range of IBM mainframes announced on June 30, 1970 as the successors to the System/360 family. The series maintained backward compatibility with the S/360, allowing an easy migration path for customers; this, plus improved performance, were the dominant themes of the...
and System/390 mainframes.
OSF/1 was also ported by Kendall Square Research
Kendall Square Research
Kendall Square Research was a supercomputer company headquartered originally in Kendall Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1986, near MIT. It was co-founded by Steven Frank and Henry Burkhardt III, who had previously helped found Data General and Encore Computer and was one of the original...
to their proprietary processor architecture used in the KSR1 supercomputer
Supercomputer
A supercomputer is a computer at the frontline of current processing capacity, particularly speed of calculation.Supercomputers are used for highly calculation-intensive tasks such as problems including quantum physics, weather forecasting, climate research, molecular modeling A supercomputer is a...
.
In 1994, after AT&T had sold UNIX System V to Novell
Novell
Novell, Inc. is a multinational software and services company. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Attachmate Group. It specializes in network operating systems, such as Novell NetWare; systems management solutions, such as Novell ZENworks; and collaboration solutions, such as Novell Groupwise...
and the rival Unix International
Unix International
Unix International or UI was an association created in 1988 to promote open standards, especially the Unix operating system. Its most notable members were AT&T and Sun Microsystems, and in fact the commonly accepted reason for its existence was as a counterbalance to the Open Software Foundation ,...
consortium had disbanded, the Open Software Foundation ceased funding of research and development of OSF/1.
OSF/1 AD
OSF/1 AD (Advanced Development) was a distributedDistributed operating system
A distributed operating system is the logical aggregation of operating system software over a collection of independent, networked, communicating, and spatially disseminated computational nodes. Individual system nodes each hold a discrete software subset of the global aggregate operating system...
version of OSF/1 developed for massively parallel
Massively parallel
Massively parallel is a description which appears in computer science, life sciences, medical diagnostics, and other fields.A massively parallel computer is a distributed memory computer system which consists of many individual nodes, each of which is essentially an independent computer in itself,...
supercomputers by Locus Computing Corporation
Locus Computing Corporation
Locus Computing Corporation was formed in 1982 by Gerald J. Popekto commercialize the technologies developed for the LOCUS distributed operating system at UCLA...
. Variants of OSF/1 AD were used on several such systems, including the Intel Paragon
Intel Paragon
The Intel Paragon was a series of massively parallel supercomputers produced by Intel. The Paragon XP/S was a productized version of the experimental Touchstone Delta system built at Caltech, launched in 1992. The Paragon superseded Intel's earlier iPSC/860 system, to which it was closely...
XP/S and ASCI Red
ASCI Red
ASCI Red was the first computer built under the Advanced Strategic Computing Initiative . ASCI Red was built by Intel and installed at Sandia in late 1996. The design was based on the Intel Paragon computer...
, Convex
Convex Computer
Convex Computer Corporation was a company that developed, manufactured and marketed vector minisupercomputers and supercomputers for small-to-medium-sized businesses. Their later Exemplar series of parallel computing machines were based on the Hewlett-Packard PA-RISC microprocessors, and in 1995,...
Exemplar SPP-1200 (as SPP-UX) and the Hitachi
Hitachi, Ltd.
is a Japanese multinational conglomerate headquartered in Marunouchi 1-chome, Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. The company is the parent of the Hitachi Group as part of the larger DKB Group companies...
SR2201 (as HI-UX MPP).
Digital UNIX
In 1995, starting with release 3.2, DEC renamed DEC OSF/1 AXP to Digital UNIX to reflect its conformance with the X/OpenX/Open
X/Open Company, Ltd. was a consortium founded by several European UNIX systems manufacturers in 1984 to identify and promote open standards in the field of information technology. More specifically, the original aim was to define a single specification for operating systems derived from UNIX, to...
Single UNIX Specification
Single UNIX Specification
The Single UNIX Specification is the collective name of a family of standards for computer operating systems to qualify for the name "Unix"...
.
Tru64 UNIX
After Compaq's purchase of DEC in early 1998, with the release of version 4.0F, Digital UNIX was renamed to Tru64 UNIX to emphasise its 64-bit-clean nature and de-emphasise the Digital brand.In April 1999, Compaq announced that Tru64 UNIX 5.0 successfully ran on Intel's IA-64
Itanium
Itanium is a family of 64-bit Intel microprocessors that implement the Intel Itanium architecture . Intel markets the processors for enterprise servers and high-performance computing systems...
simulator. However, this port was cancelled a few months later.
A Chinese version of Tru64 UNIX named COSIX
COSIX
COSIX is a Chinese UNIX operating system developed since 1989 by China National Computer Software & Technology Service Corporation . A jointly developed 64-bit version with Compaq was released in 1999....
was jointly developed by Compaq and China National Computer Software & Technology Service Corporation (CS&S). It was released in 1999.
Cluster server
Tru64 used a quorum disk that held the cluster identity, as far as the common cluster and individual node configuration files. This was achieved following a mixed patter of file paths, in which every node could read both its particular and general cluster info from the very starting process.Current status
With their purchase of Compaq in 2002, HP announced their intention to migrate many of Tru64 UNIX's more innovative features (including its AdvFSAdvFS
AdvFS, also known as Tru64 UNIX Advanced File System, is a file system developed in the late 1980s to mid 1990s by Digital Equipment Corporation for their OSF/1 version of the Unix operating system...
file system, TruCluster
TruCluster
TruCluster is a closed-source high-availability clustering solution for the Tru64 UNIX operating system. It was originally developed by Digital Equipment Corporation , but was transferred to Compaq in 1998 when Digital was acquired by the company, which then later merged with Hewlett-Packard ....
, and LSM) to HP-UX
HP-UX
HP-UX is Hewlett-Packard's proprietary implementation of the Unix operating system, based on UNIX System V and first released in 1984...
, HP's existing Unix OS. In December 2004, HP announced a change of plan; they would instead use the Veritas file system
VERITAS File System
The VERITAS File System, , is an extent-based file system. It was originally developed by VERITAS Software. Through an OEM agreement, VxFS is used as the primary filesystem of the HP-UX operating system...
and abandon the Tru64 advanced features. In the process, many of the remaining Tru64 developers were laid off
Layoff
Layoff , also called redundancy in the UK, is the temporary suspension or permanent termination of employment of an employee or a group of employees for business reasons, such as when certain positions are no longer necessary or when a business slow-down occurs...
.
The current maintenance release, 5.1B-6 was released in October 2010.
In October 2010, HP stated that they would continue to support Tru64 UNIX until 31st December 2012.
In 2008, HP has contributed the AdvFS
AdvFS
AdvFS, also known as Tru64 UNIX Advanced File System, is a file system developed in the late 1980s to mid 1990s by Digital Equipment Corporation for their OSF/1 version of the Unix operating system...
to the open source
Open source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
community.
Versions
These versions were released for Alpha AXP platforms.| Version | Approx Date | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| DEC OSF/1 1.2 | March 1993 | |
| DEC OSF/1 1.3 | August 1993 | |
| DEC OSF/1 2.0 | March 1994 | Logical Storage Manager (LSM) introduced |
| DEC OSF/1 3.0 | August 1994 | SMP support |
| Digital UNIX 3.2 | February 1995 | |
| Digital UNIX 3.2C | July 1995 | |
| Digital UNIX 3.2F | June 1996 | |
| Digital UNIX 4.0 | March 1996 | CDE made default desktop |
| Digital UNIX 4.0A | ||
| Digital UNIX 4.0B | December 1996 | X/Open-compliant Curses |
| Digital UNIX 4.0C | ||
| Digital UNIX 4.0D | December 1997 | Y2K readiness; extended UIDs/GIDs; class scheduler; JDK 1.1.4; Netscape 3.04 |
| Digital UNIX 4.0E | November 1998 | USB support; AdvFS atomic write data logging; Sendmail 8.8.8; ODBC/JDBC; Netscape 4.05 |
| Tru64 UNIX 4.0F | April 1999 | USB keyboard/mouse support; limited DVD support; Netscape 4.5; COM for Tru64 UNIX |
| Tru64 UNIX 5.0 | July 1999 | Improved performance/scalability; Hot-swap; Sendmail 8.8.8; OpenMP; Netscape 4.51; X11R6.3 |
| Tru64 UNIX 5.0A | April 2000 | UFS Delayed metadata option; Sendmail 8.9.3; Netscape 4.7; ISO 9660 install disc |
| Tru64 UNIX 4.0G | May 2000 | Maximum 256 X clients (formerly 128); Netscape 4.7 |
| Tru64 UNIX 5.1 | September 2000 | Extended System V functionality; Tcl/Tk 8.2; IPv6 |
| Tru64 UNIX 5.1A | September 2001 | Online CPU addition/removal; UNIX 98 Conformance; X11R6.5; Netscape 4.76 |
| Tru64 UNIX 5.1B | September 2002 | Big Pages; IPv6 Enhancements; Netscape 6; Unicode 3.1 |
| Tru64 UNIX 5.1B-1 | November 2003 | Name Service Switch (NSS); Mozilla 1.4 |
| Tru64 UNIX 5.1B-2 | August 2004 | Unified Buffer Cache Scaling; Perl 5.8.4; Mozilla 1.6 |
| Tru64 UNIX 5.1B-3 | June 2005 | AdvFS robustness; Accounting refinements; LSM enhancements; Mozilla 1.7.5 |
| Tru64 UNIX 5.1B-4 | December 2006 | POSIX conformance; Rebranding (COMPAQ to HP); 2007 U.S. DST changes; BIND 9.2.5 |
| Tru64 UNIX 5.1B-5 | March 2009 | Standards conformance; Support for latest DST changes; BIND 9.2.8 |
| Tru64 UNIX 5.1B-6 | October 2010 | Defect fixes only |
External links
- Tru64 UNIX - HP's official Tru64 UNIX site
- Tru64 FAQ from UNIXguide.net
- [news://comp.unix.tru64 comp.unix.tru64] - NewsgroupNewsgroupA usenet newsgroup is a repository usually within the Usenet system, for messages posted from many users in different locations. The term may be confusing to some, because it is usually a discussion group. Newsgroups are technically distinct from, but functionally similar to, discussion forums on...
on running, owning and administering Tru64 UNIX (web-accessible via Google Groups) - [news://comp.unix.osf.osf1 comp.unix.osf.osf1] - Newsgroup on running, owning and administering OSF/1 (web-accessible via Google Groups)
- Virtual image of HP Tru64 Unix 5.1 for a Personal Alpha emulator. from OSvirtual