real time performance provided by the QNX Neutrino OS. It also features a full

implementation of the TCP/IP protocol suite and utilities including PPP, DHCP,

NFS, RPC and SNMP, making it possible to serve as a powerful Internet host.

QNX Networking is message-based native networking that gives access to

resources. It is complemented by features like fault-tolerant networking, load

balancing on the fly, efficient performance and transparent distributed

processing. The real star is QNX's GUI called Photon microGUI. It is a high

performance graphical environment with an extremely small memory footprint.

The GUI is Internet ready and multimedia compliant. QNX also serves as an

excellent platform for developers creating embedded applications. Some of the

best development tools and Linux compatibility give it a strong edge.

The Get QNX Program gives you the full distribution of the QNX real time

platform. It comes nicely packaged in a single CD ROM. The QNX RTP is a

self-booting CD. My test machine was a Celeron 300 running overclocked at

450MHz with i810 chipset (integrated audio/video). It has a single partition

containing Windows98. Since most new OSes are not happy with sharing partition

space, I was afraid that I would have to repartition to install the QNX OS,

but I decided to pop in the CD and give it a try. After bootup, I was greeted

with a message asking me to repartition the hard disk (ack!). Fortunately, it

had an option create a boot and file system within an existing Windows or

Linux partition, which I chose to use.

Going back into Windows, I ran the SETUP program, which was quite

straightforward and walked me through the OS installation (basically copying

files and setting up a working space). The entire process hardly took 20

minutes and I was ready to boot into QNX.

After booting into QNX, it ran through some device detection process and

presented a (very) nice and clean looking GUI. Now, not even Red Hat 6.1 was

able to load a driver for my video card without some manual help by

downloading drivers from Intel's site!

QNX is very impressive as far as installation is concerned. It is easy to

setup and ideally suited for a new computer users. Installation impressions

count, but do not make an operating system. The Photon microGUI is the core of