lan workplace, dos/xenix network, etc

[Jeff Lydiatt]

In <124 at wyn386.UUCP>, Daniel Wynalda says:

> 
I recently installed SCO Xenix-Net and Excelan LAN workplace software
> on two 80386 machines and I must say I like it.  There are alot of
> 
[ Text omitted ]

> Now that I am impressed with this system, is there anyone out there who's
> tied DOS machines into this type of network and used the SCO Xenix
> machines as file servers.  The reason I ask is this:
> 

As a pilot project, I diverted some funds to buy an el-cheapo '386 system
running SCO Xenix.  I also bought SCO Xenix-Net on spec, but only had
enough cash to run it under Async-Net - an SCO package that lets you run
Xenix-Net as an asynchonous LAN.

Friday, I hooked the '286 pc at my desk running MS Dos 3.3 into the '386
Xenix machine through Async-Net running at 38400 BPS through a computone
intelligent serial board.   I still have some tuning to do, but here
are my first impressions:

	o I agree, I like Xenix-Net too.  Having a large drive available
	  on a server is real nice.  I can finally share files.  
	  However like you, I have to admit to being a newcomer and not
	  really familiar with PC-NFS.

	o The convention for mapping dos file names to xenix names seems to
	  work well.  Lower or upper case names in MS Dos map to lower case
	  on the xenix system.  Upper case names in xenix, or file names
	  not legal to MS Dos are invisible to xenix-net.  This gets around a
	  potential problem where programs like Javelin and lotus 123 fold
	  the file names to upper case automatically.

	o The dos commands and applications I did try worked successfully on
	  the server.  I tried xcopy, dir, cd, lotus 123, javelin, and
	  harvard graphics).  The application packages were located on the
	  dos machine with the data for them located on the server.  I did
	  sucessfully run the Javelin spreadsheet package from the server,
	  but with the low speed of the asynchronous LAN, I would not do it
	  again unless I was desperate.

	o I was able to successfully use the xenix printer spooler from
	  MS Dos, lotus, harvard graphics and javelin by
	  reassigning the DOS printer device "LPT1:".

	o On the downside, the documentation was not quite as polished as
	  the established Xenix products.  The installation provided by SCO
	  collided with computone's initialization setup, and it took a
	  little playing around to get async-net to work properly with
	  the intelligent serial card.  There were no hints given
	  in the docs.

	o Xenix-net seemed to have a problem copying large directories.  I
	  tried "xcopy c:bigdir /s" where "bigdir" was a directory
	  containing 10 megabytes in files up to 3 subdirectories deep.
	  For both times I tried it, the server froze at exactly the same
	  spot.  There were no error messages or any other indication.
	  
 	o The asynchronous mode seem too slow to be really useful.
	  I can't wait to get an ethernet card to replace async-net.

--
---
"I ordered chocolate, not vanilla", I screamed.
  //   Jeff Lydiatt: jlydiatt at jlami.wimsey.bc.ca          | From the desk
\X/    UUCP {uunet,cs.ubc.ca}!jlami.wimsey.bc.ca!jlydiatt | of Tom Swiftie.