rpinder@phad.hsc.usc.edu (Rich Pinder) (08/14/90)
I am considering purchasing the SCO Open Desktop with Server upgrade. Can
anyone help me understand the differences between the NFS Server, and the
PC-Interface. Both seem to have similar features, and I don't know which
will be best for my goal: I have 10 dos pc's, sitting on the campus wide
ethernet backbone. I want them to be able to access data sitting on the
server running SCO ODT. Which of these scenarios would yield faster
performance over the net, and which would require less ram usage on the pc?
thanks for your help.
Rich Pinder
USC School of Medicine
(213) 224-7099
rpinder@phad.hsc.usc.edu
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||dag@fciva.FRANKLIN.COM (Daniel A. Graifer) (08/14/90)
In article <26576@usc.edu> rpinder@phad.hsc.usc.edu (Rich Pinder) writes: >I am considering purchasing the SCO Open Desktop with Server upgrade. Can >anyone help me understand the differences between the NFS Server, and the >PC-Interface. [...] and which would require less ram usage on the pc? We run PC-Interface here and like it. The only disadvantage we've seen so far is that some DOS software assumes that all PC-networks are Novell networks; They see PC-I, assume there is a Novell Network present, and try to start up their network mode, and fail. No way to disable this. The programs that do this are all built around the DBFabs network database product. Loading PCI and logging in to any number of servers appears to use 52,448 bytes. I can't give you any numbers on PC-NFS. Dan --- -- Daniel A. Graifer Franklin Mortgage Capital Corporation uunet!dag@fmccva.franklin.com 7900 Westpark Drive, Suite A130 (703)448-3300 McLean, VA 22102
paul@actrix.co.nz (Paul Gillingwater) (08/16/90)
In article <26576@usc.edu> rpinder@phad.hsc.usc.edu (Rich Pinder) writes: >I am considering purchasing the SCO Open Desktop with Server upgrade. Can >anyone help me understand the differences between the NFS Server, and the >PC-Interface. Both seem to have similar features, and I don't know which >will be best for my goal: I have 10 dos pc's, sitting on the campus wide >ethernet backbone. I want them to be able to access data sitting on the >server running SCO ODT. Which of these scenarios would yield faster >performance over the net, and which would require less ram usage on the pc? There is another option.... Microsoft LAN Manager. Just install LM/X on SCO UNIX, and LAN Manager on your PC's. They talk over TCP/IP. Note that LM/X uses a TCP/IP version that is slightly different from the ODT standard, so this requires some config. changes. As for performance and RAM -- not sure. -- Paul Gillingwater, paul@actrix.co.nz
als@bohra.cpg.oz (Anthony Shipman) (08/16/90)
In article <26576@usc.edu> rpinder@phad.hsc.usc.edu (Rich Pinder) writes: >I am considering purchasing the SCO Open Desktop with Server upgrade. Can >anyone help me understand the differences between the NFS Server, and the >PC-Interface. [...] and which would require less ram usage on the pc? An, if not the, advantage of PC-I is the remote printing. It will redirect from LPT: to a spooler on the UNIX server. This is very useful for programs that don't have the option to print into a file. It requires some fiddling with timeouts to get right though. Apparently DOS has no way of marking the end of a print job. PC-I has to accumulate LPT: output until the application stops sending it for some period and then submit the print job. If the timeout goes off in the middle of the print job it fails. With NFS you would/should probably have a PC/TCP-like product to do remote printing with an "lpr" command. The output from a word processor would have to be written to a file first. -- Anthony Shipman ACSnet: als@bohra.cpg.oz.au Computer Power Group 9th Flr, 616 St. Kilda Rd., St. Kilda, Melbourne, Australia D
johnl@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us (John R. Levine) (08/17/90)
In article <568@bohra.cpg.oz> als@bohra.cpg.oz (Anthony Shipman) writes: >In article <26576@usc.edu> rpinder@phad.hsc.usc.edu (Rich Pinder) writes: >>I am considering purchasing the SCO Open Desktop with Server upgrade. Can >>anyone help me understand the differences between the NFS Server, and the >>PC-Interface. [...] and which would require less ram usage on the pc? > >An, if not the, advantage of PC-I is the remote printing. It will redirect >from LPT: to a spooler on the UNIX server. PC-NFS does the same thing. It will hijack output from any of the PC's logical printer ports and send it to whichever server is running the pcnfs daemon. When printing is done, as determined by the program exiting, timeout, and/or hot key, the daemon runs "lpr" to pass the print job to the print spooler. There are reasons to dislike PC-NFS (size, funky file naming, copy protection) but printing is definitely not one of them. -- John R. Levine, Segue Software, POB 349, Cambridge MA 02238, +1 617 864 9650 johnl@esegue.segue.boston.ma.us, {ima|spdcc|world}!esegue!johnl Marlon Brando and Doris Day were born on the same day.
wnp@iiasa.AT (wolf paul) (08/17/90)
In article <568@bohra.cpg.oz> als@bohra.cpg.oz (Anthony Shipman) writes:
)An, if not the, advantage of PC-I is the remote printing. It will redirect from
)LPT: to a spooler on the UNIX server. This is very useful for programs that
)don't have the option to print into a file. It requires some fiddling
)with timeouts to get right though.
)
)Apparently DOS has no way of marking the end of a print job. PC-I has to
)accumulate LPT: output until the application stops sending it for some period
)and then submit the print job. If the timeout goes off in the middle of the
)print job it fails.
)
)With NFS you would/should probably have a PC/TCP-like product to do remote
)printing with an "lpr" command. The output from a word processor would have to
)be written to a file first.
No doubt there COULD be PC-NFS products out there which do not provide
printer redirection, but SUN's PC-NFS product works just like the
PC-I features you describe above. Up to three remote printers (i.e.
printers known to the UNIX lp spooler) can be mounted on the PC,
as LPT1 thru LPT3. PC-NFS will let you work with a 5 minute timeout,
or else you can configure and use a hotkey to tell the UNIX spooler
when printing is finished. Also, any DOS "exit" call will send the
job off, thus with a program like WP5.1, which intercepts any hotkey,
one can shell out to DOS and exit again, thus sending the job off.
Using a WP macro, one can even check first that printing is indeed
finished (WP print queue empty) before executing the "exit".
Wolf
--
Wolf N. Paul, Int. Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)
Schloss Laxenburg, Schlossplatz 1, A - 2361 Laxenburg, Austria, Europe
PHONE: +43-2236-71521-465 FAX: +43-2236-71313 UUCP: uunet!iiasa.at!wnp
INTERNET: wnp%iiasa.at@uunet.uu.net BITNET: tuvie!iiasa!wnp@awiuni01.BITNETdag@fciva.FRANKLIN.COM (Daniel A. Graifer) (08/20/90)
In article <835@iiasa.UUCP> wnp@iiasa.UUCP (wolf paul) writes: >In article <568@bohra.cpg.oz> als@bohra.cpg.oz (Anthony Shipman) writes: >)An, if not the, advantage of PC-I is the remote printing. It will redirect >)from LPT: to a spooler on the UNIX server.... Two points about PC-I's printer capture. The timeout is a user selectable number of seconds (separately setable for each LPT device), and either or both printer-time-out and print-on-exit can be disabled. This is useful with dumb DOS programs that don't send setup strings: just disable print-on-exit and timeout, echo your printer setup string from the DOS prompt, and run your application. We've had to make the batch file that start Lotus 1-2-3 set the timeout way up...it goes to sleep for 10-15 seconds at a time during a large, multipage print. Most applications work fine at 10 seconds. The second point is that PCI will pipe the captured print stream (including print-screen output) to any shell command. I've used this pipe the output from brain-damaged DOS programs thru 'od' to figure out why the output wasn't formatting correctly. We use this regularly to change SYSV lp options when running different DOS applications. For example, we have one application 'PD' that only knows about epson printers. We run it out of a batch file that sets the print capture to 'lp -oPD'. The lp/interface scripts for our HP LaserJets take this option as a signal to run the text through a sed script that translates epson printer codes to their HP equivelent. Similar games are played to distinquish between postscript cognizant and ignorant DOS applications writing to our postscript printers. Dan -- Daniel A. Graifer Franklin Mortgage Capital Corporation uunet!dag@fmccva.franklin.com 7900 Westpark Drive, Suite A130 (703)448-3300 McLean, VA 22102