phil@brahms.amd.com (Phil Ngai) (03/12/91)
I originally posted this to the NFS group and realized that perhaps it should be seen in these groups too. With Sun's release of PC-NFS 3.5, it appears that their product still does not come close to what PC networking should be. Can you chose printers from Windows 3.0 in a user-friendly way, from a menu of servers and their printers? Or do you have to waste hours reading the manual and struggling with cryptic configuration files? When you want to reconfigure, do you have to exit Windows and change the cryptic configuration files again? Do you have to chose options that make no sense, like the OS2 option when you are in Windows? Can you query the printer queue status from a Windows menu? Remove print jobs from a Windows menu?? Are telnet and ftp windows applications, or do they just run in a DOS shell? What does Windows compatible mean? Not much, apparently. Is Sun too stupid to do it right? I don't believe it. Does Sun not know what customers want? That's possible. It appears that no one involved in Sun PC-NFS has ever sat down in front of a PC running Novell and had the user-friendliness of real Windows networking demonstrated to them. It's better than the third alternative: that they don't care what the customers want. "They're just brain dead PC users and don't know how to do things." "Windows is just a passing fad and we're not going to put resources into supporting it." "PC networks like Novell are beneath us to study." You know Sun PC-NFS is not a real PC network when you configure Windows. For "network", you put "none" when using Sun PC-NFS. If the network is the computer, then Sun PC-NFS is a user-hostile computer. I have never had to open a Novell manual and I can do so much more than I could with PC-NFS even after wasting weeks studying the manuals and experimenting with countless cryptic options. At my company, Sun PC-NFS is (currently) the supported option yet none of the people in my group who use Sun PC-NFS can even print from Windows and all of the people who use Novell have no trouble printing from Windows. I'm sure glad I don't have to use Sun PC-NFS anymore. Sun's focus may be growing (now that's a mixed metaphor! I guess growing commitment was too boring.), but I don't consider it satisfactory yet. (I don't speak for the company, obviously, since they're still trying to push it down my throat, this is only my personal opinion, developed after many months of experience.) -- The government is not your mother. The government doesn't love you.
phil@brahms.amd.com (Phil Ngai) (03/19/91)
In article <1991Mar18.112947.9368@cs.eur.nl> evas@cs.eur.nl (Eelco van Asperen) writes: |phil@brahms.amd.com (Phil Ngai) writes: |>You want to check the printer queue, just telnet to the Sun. | |Sigh, how about: "rsh server lpq -Pprinter" in a batch file LPSTAT.BAT ? |Hmmm, a sysop might even create one for the average user. And how do you go about deleting a print job? With Novell and Microsoft Windows, I can point with my mouse and click. I know that real programmers don't mind typing (and I can type pretty good too) but most users don't see why they should have to do all that typing when mousing around will do the job. Then there's mounting file servers and directories, which Novell lets you do with point and click under MS Windows. -- The government is not your mother. The government doesn't love you.
phil@brahms.amd.com (Phil Ngai) (03/19/91)
In article <11981@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu> pilger@uhunix2.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Eric Pilger) writes: |PC-NFS is not a |PC network. It is a tool for connecting PC's to a Unix network. I |use it because I can't afford a Unix workstation of my own. PC-NFS, I wonder how many Sun PC-NFS defenders are in the same situation. Using a PC because they can't afford a workstation? (is it true that PCs are still cheaper than Suns? What if you consider the cost of the software?) Well, I think such users are a very small market. As far as I'm concerned, when I use a PC, it's because I want a PC. When I want a Sun, I use a Sun. But I don't want to throw away most of the good features of my PC to make it look like the subset of Sun that is possible, or vice-versa. -- The Macintosh makes it easy to do sloppy work.
phil@brahms.amd.com (Phil Ngai) (03/19/91)
In article <20305@ists.ists.ca> aronb@gkcl.UUCP (Aron Burns) writes: |To expand: in a large network, systems professionals will |have to be in attendance anyway. I'd rather have them setup |the user's machine at lunch-hour and allow the user to continue |with whatever tasks he/she is charged with. Most data-entry You can do that with Novell too. With Sun PC-NFS, you really ought to if you don't want your server to crash. With Novell, you don't have to (for the average user.) The guy who crashed our server is no data-entry clerk, he's fairly inteligent and could have handled a Novell install, but not a Sun PC-NFS install without spending a lot of time. -- The Macintosh makes it easy to do sloppy work.