gd@aprm (Gary Dunn) (05/08/91)
Text:
Several postings in this thread have explained how to use SOSS or
Netware to mount an MS-DOS disk under NFS. We use Intel's OpenNET, and
it can do the same thing.
There are some additional factors to be concerned with, beyond network
connectivity. MS-DOS and UNIX do not store text files the same way. An
MS-DOS text file terminates lines with CRLF, whereas UNIX just uses LF.
More significant is the case where the data on the PC requires
specialized application software to be useful. In particular, someone
said they wanted to be able to access CD-ROMs, and those use special
reader programs.
I suppose you could mount the PC's CD-ROM, then launch an MS-DOS
emulator, and from there run the reader software, but then you loose
most of the benefits of using UNIX.
Gary Dunn, USARPAC DCSRM IMO |
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in ordinary people.
Harry Emerson Fosdick
--- End of Message -----------jim@crom2.uucp (James P. H. Fuller) (05/11/91)
gd@aprm (Gary Dunn) writes: > Several postings in this thread have explained how to use SOSS or > Netware to mount an MS-DOS disk under NFS. We use Intel's OpenNET, and > it can do the same thing. > > There are some additional factors to be concerned with, beyond network > connectivity. MS-DOS and UNIX do not store text files the same way. An > MS-DOS text file terminates lines with CRLF, whereas UNIX just uses LF. > More significant is the case where the data on the PC requires > specialized application software to be useful. In particular, someone > said they wanted to be able to access CD-ROMs, and those use special > reader programs. CRLF<->LF is quite an easy problem to fix; I wish that were the worst of my problems. Many Unix flavors come with filter programs to do the conversions (utod, dtou, lef) or you can use a text editor's global search- and replace for shortish files or something like sed 's/<ctrl-M>//' for huge ones. As for special reader programs required to access the CD, some have 'em and some don't. I'm trying to read the National Institute of Health's GenBank gene-sequence database, and they just use CD-ROMs for distribution; you extract the files from the CD-ROM, put 'em on your hard disk, and do your reading, searching or other processing there, using software you write your- self or else one of the zillions of programs that geneticists or biochemists have written to analyze this particular dbase. Some of this software runs under DOS, some under Mac OS, some under Unix. A lot of it comes with make- file entries that will build the program *either* for Unix/C or DOS/TurboC. But you still have to make your machine acknowledge the presence of the CD-ROM and turn it on and read in the files. ISC SysV doesn't seem to sup- port CD-ROMs at all, you can't register scsi-driven CD-ROMs with vpix as DDA devices because they use direct memory access, and you can't register them as IEM devices unless your vendor included a specific IEM device driver to integrate your particular card/drive combo into vpix, and mine didn't. So Unix is out and vpix is out, and that leaves some form of Unix-DOS net- working. (Or else the cheapnoid solution, which I'm probably going to use -- sending the files over the serial ports with zmodem.) ------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------- crom2 Athens GA Public Access Unix | i486 AT, 16mb RAM, 600mb online | AT&T Unix System V release 3.2 Molecular Biology | Tbit PEP 19200bps V.32 V.42/V.42bis Population Biology | Ecological Modeling | Admin: James P. H. Fuller Bionet/Usenet/cnews/nn | {jim,root}%crom2@nstar.rn.com ------------------------------------- -----------------------------------------