Microsoft Word Hardware Reconfiguration Methodology V final2

Background

1. Reports

This Technical Note is the fourth and final report in a series of reports prepared for the Navy. The very first report, Report [2], examined the various long-term support strategies needed for maintaining an open source operating system such as Linux. Specifically, it was determined that long-term support could be achieved by (in order of preference) by: 1) the maintainer of the distribution (i.e. vendor); 2) a sub-contractor; 3) the Navy, and 4) a consortium.

The second report, Report [3], was an in-depth analysis of two licenses that compared Red Hat and Novell Suse’s enterprise Linux operating systems. They were examined because the Navy had expressed interest in these two operating systems due to: 1) both companies are North American and 2) are already involved with the military establishment, particularly in the U.S.

The third report, Report [1], through experimentation and observation examined the Linux operating system’s ability to adapt to changes in its underlying hardware. It was found that Linux can reconfigure itself in order to take advantage of newer hardware, but only if the kernel is recent enough to support that newer hardware. It was concluded that both long-term system maintenance and hardware adaptation could be accomplished in so long as the operating system’s kernel is kept up to date.

Reports [5, 6, and 7] are informal internal reports that were the precursor to both this Technical Note and reports [1, 3]. These internal reports were not rigorous enough to be released as formal reports from DRDC.

This Technical Note is the final report in this series. It examines the methodology necessary for maintaining an operating system so that it can be supported over the long-term with the added benefit of successfully accommodating and periodic hardware upgrades.

2.