Novell vs. UNIX

[Leslie Mikesell]

>In article <1718 at cveg.uucp>, shadow at uafhp.uucp (Shadow) writes:
> I am a UNIX fan, but my job is UNIX-less.  What kind of an argument can I make
> for replacing the Novell operating system on or LAN file server with UNIX?  I
> am the LAN manager, but don't know enough to argue

Aside from the obvious advantages of having the unix utilities to manage files,
the ability to log in remotely, and uucp for communication and file transfers
with other systems, you gain some flexibility in file storage.  Many DOS
applications are still unaware of LAN's and require a whole bunch of files
(overlays, drivers, font data etc..) to be stored in the same subdirectory
as the user's data.  You don't want users sharing the same network directory
because their data files must be kept separate, but to put the data in
separate directories you must copy all the supporting files for each user.
With a unix machine as the file server you can just make links to all the
common files and save a lot of disk space (and know that every user is
running the same version of the program).  Of course you should buy a legal
copy for each user but no one in their right mind wants to actually install
more than one version of anything per site unless it is for testing or 
backwards compatibility.

Les Mikesell