Novell Launches Anti-Win2k Campaign

skajohan writes "Is it time for Microsoft to taste some serious FUD themselves? Novell has launched an anti-Win2k campaign. Surprise, surprise, they'd rather see us run Netware. It starts out with a rebuttal of previous MS claims. This can get interesting." If MS and Novell were running against each other for political office, newspaper editorialists would be muttering about "negative advertising" and "smear campaigns." These companies are not playing nice with each other.

Comments

try 108 megs of ram

[Anonymous Coward]

The server version requires 108 megs of ram just to run and it uses over 2,200 threads. Go to www.firingsquad.com and learn how a dual cpu system underperforms a single cpu system with NT 4.


There is no reason to use w2k server or even professional unless your an it professional who is expected to learn it(myself) :-(


My old p150 with 64 megs of ram just can barely handle it in swap-file hell! Not to mention that there are so many hoops that the data goes thru, it slow down my actuall processing speed down to a crawl as well. I need to buy a 600 mhz althon (that I can't afford because I am entry level)with 256 megs of ram and a 20 gig hard drive just to learn it and not to actually do something usefull with it. :-(


The sadest thing is that I didn't even load w2k advanced server because I know my system couldn't handle it.

Oh ...and those wonderfull guys at microsoft deciced to to make my system easier to use by hiding all the administration tools so I have to load all the aplets up manually in the mmc console (shudder) and everything is embeded in this tiny and ugly console browser and the only way to administer remote machines with this obnoxious tool is thru...YOU GUESSED IT! ACTIVE DIRECTORY!

Active directory can with only a few hundred users can easily saturate a 10 mps ehternet network and 100 mbps network is almot all gobled up by this piece of bloat. :-(



I prefer NT 4 anyday and prefer to use pc-anywhere for support instead of active hell.


THis is just my experience with wk2 beta3 and rc1.

oh ya,, w2k can not use com 4 for some odd reason. IF you have a modem on com 4 then you need to change it to the other com ports and pray that there will not be any conflicts. Thanks Microsoft for taking away more valuable irq's and i/o ports by disabling com 4.

Re:What IS Novell?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is a Network Operating system. The original versions required a dos partition for installation and booting but never used dos for anything else. It has its on file system among other things. Version 5 installs on boot up (using a built in copy of DR Dos). It is the first to have the console one qui. A java interface that most people dont bother to use. To launch the qui you type start x from the prompt. I think one of the reasons it is not commonly now by most people (even though it still has a pretty large market share) is that outside of a network file/print/app server enviroment it is useless. That means it is not that fun to learn or use in comparison to other operating systems. It also did not go over well with developers because prior to 4.X all programs loaded in ring 0 of memory and had to be written in C. Running in ring 0 increases perfomance but it is also where the kernel resides. If your app is not bug free then it could take down the entire server... This usually manifests itself in novells equivelent of a BSOD the dreaded Abend!

it's NDS vs Active Driectory

[Anonymous Coward]

Win2K Pro is great. Stability, performance, multimedia, power management, it's got it all. However basing your enterprise on Active Directory is nuts. NDS is the best, and will be for some time.

Re:it's NDS vs Active Driectory

[smartin]

Isn't it just a big LDAP server?

Re:it's NDS vs Active Driectory

[Cid Highwind]

>The above block of text could go into Data
>Processing dictionaries as a textbook example
>of FUD.

But on slashdot it'll go up to +5 as a textbook example of MS-bashing

Re:it's NDS vs Active Driectory

[muyThaiBxr]

I don't think Win2K is all that great... I can reliably make it crash through a various number of arbitrary network attacks. It may be good enough for the average user on his/her desktop, but I wouldn't call it great.

Re:it's NDS vs Active Driectory

[mrfantasy]

Well, in the Unix world, you could say NDS is a big LDAP server. But it's not.

NDS is a incredibly well-designed, stable, reliable directory service. You can store just about anything in a directory service. With NDS, we have network users, groups, servers, volumes, applications (distributed with ZEN to our desktops.) and configuration info for various programs. You can access the directory with NCP calls with Novell clients, or now with LDAP, both pretty efficiently. There have been some DS bugs, like there are in anything, but we've been running the same DS tree for 5 years without having to restore the entire system, or even any part of the tree, from a backup. Mind you, in that time we've added or replaced every server originally in the tree, and at no time was the tree itself unavailable.

In many ways, there's no analog in the Unix world to what you can do with NDS. It's kinda like NIS or NIS+, but much more refined. I get sick and tired about hearing how people do password and account synchronization between Unix boxes, or between NT domains--NDS just works, at least to all your NetWare boxes, as well as NT (4 and 2K in domain mode,) and Solaris, with Compaq Unix and Linux in a few months. I can set up my Unix boxes to auth to the NDS tree--I don't need /etc/passwd entries for anyone (but root) if I don't want. Unix GECOS info is stored in properties of the NDS User object, and NDS groups can have UNIX group info. Also I've done some authentication and checking passwords against LDAP with great success.

I think Novell's problem is that it's fundamentally difficult to advertise and market a directory. Unless you're a geek trying to manage a large organization (> 1000 computers and users, say,) it's hard to understand how useful and powerful a good directory really is. Active Directory is a hack to reduce the complexities of transitive domain trusts, and not much more. NDS is a solid, real directory that you can use for anything, that works now (it's been in production for nearly a decade--and yes, it wasn't very pretty when NetWare 4 first came out, but they've really gotten it right.)

Re:It's not FUD... it's the truth!

[Anonymous Coward]

Lotus has a similar anti-MS FUD page up at http://www.lotus.com/home.nsf/welcome/itcentral1.

Apparently posting these rebuttals is required if you are in compeitition with Microsoft. RedHat better get ready.

Re:I agree Netware crashes constantly

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry to hear about your woes with Netware, but about all I can say is that from my experience, it's either a bug in the hardware it's running on, a configuration issue (including a non core OS software issue), or an administration (human) issue. I doubt that it's the OS's "fault".

From my perspective, albeit, running a much smaller network of about 175 users concurrently, and three servers, one NW 4.10 based, one NW 4.11 based, and the other NT 4.0 based, Netware is several orders of magnitude more stable than our "new" NT 4.0 system has ever been. And Netware is doing all of the file and print serving for all of the users.

The Netware boxen run fairly basic, "homebuilt" hardware, PII 300 and a PII 266, each with 512MB RAM, one with 14GB (total) mirrored SCSI disks, the other with a much smaller 7GB (total) mirrored SCSI disks. Each with 100 Base T NIC's. Patches and upgrades current as of just before Christmas. Like I said, basic, and stable.

In contrast, the NT box is a "store bought" dual PIII 500, 768MB ECC RAM, HW RAID controller, with 6 9GB UW SCSI drives in various volume sets, dual 100 Base T NIC's, running NT 4.0, Exchange 5.5, and Proxy 2.0. Serious overkill for what it's doing, and it's nothing but problems. And, every single piece of that server is in Microsoft's HCL. It's totally up to date, and it's so lightly loaded, it's pathetic. And it needs weekly reboots, ranging from services mysteriously dying and not being able to be restarted, to the sporadic BSOD STOP error when writing an archive CD for a client (or sometimes, shortly thereafter).

Well before we moved into a two NOS, three server company, we ran a single Netware 4.10 box, P5-166, 192MB RAM. And it ran flawlessly for months at a time. I'm not one of these ultra-anal uptime freaks, but 274 days was its best uptime. Admittedly, I pushed that a lot longer than I should have, but if it worked, I wasn't about to "fix" it. The only reason it came down then was to finally install the current patches and backup software.

I've gone through several gyrations of trying to pinpoint a specific hardware or software problem with the NT box, and finally have just given in to the fact that I'll be rebooting it every weekend for the rest of it's natural life.

In contrast, I never had that problem with Netware - ever. The only times it's ever gone down "uncontrolled" was due to a hardware failure. Most often (exactly three times in my employ here) to a disk failure, and then only to a somewhat "crippled" state. Hardware fails, you can't blame the OS for that, not even NT.

On the support side of things, I've needed to initiate an "incident" with Novell and Microsoft each once. Each time, if memory serves, it was around $200 for the incident. And, again, from experience, I found Novell's support staff much, much, much more knowledgeable, courteous, and helpful than Microsoft's staff. With Novell, the problem I was having actually turned out to be a backup software problem. Novell's support and software engineers worked with the backup software vendor, managed to fix the problem, and within about a week, I had not only a workaround for the problem, but confirmation that this would be fixed in the next software release (which it was). Well worth the money. On my Microsoft call, I quickly learned that I knew more about networks in general than the supposed expert I was speaking with, and when I asked specific questions of him at different points, I usually got either the obvious "BS your way out of it" answer, or no answer at all. I found them to be remarkably impolite and of very little help at all. Ultimately, Microsoft never proved any help in resolving that issue. I found the tidbits of information I needed to get things working on USENET. The money for the Microsoft incident would have been better spent on something more productive, like whitewashing the fence in front of the building - again.

From my standpoint, Netware is still probably the most stable commercial file and print serving platform on the planet, and I don't see my opinion of that changing in the foreseeable future.


Brad

Stupid question but what is a "directory service"?

[Anonymous Coward]

What is the equivalent in the *nix world (if there is one)?

Re:sigh

[Anonymous Coward]

It was news a few days ago, but management made the determination that more Banner click-through revenue could be attained by putting all the Lawsuit articles up on the page earlier in the week. The algorhythms in the perl source that determine what news articles to pull out of the queue is a highly optimized part of the Slashdot code based on clickthrough statistics, etc.

Novell articles just don't bring in the revenue that lawsuit-about-DVD/MP3 articles do. But now it's the weekend and the dorm kids are sleeping off their Friday night drunk, instead of cutting class to reload Slash, etc. So it's Novell time, guys.

Re:they lost it without the fud

[Anonymous Coward]

High prices? Expensive support? Requires training? Which product are you talking about? That describes them both.

My company will delay Win2K deployment, whew.

[Anonymous Coward]

At my company of about 9000 people, we have been hearing about Win2K coming to our desktops in the very near future. There have been scripts that run at login to inventory all of the machines that are on the NT network, and it looks like reason has won out over some VP's insistence to go with the latest and greatest. Our Win2K deployment is off, and hopefully the IT wizards will push it off until Service Pack 2 or 3.

Shouldn't this be a Humor article? Where the foot?

[Anonymous Coward]

AND I hear OS/2's making a come back.
AND Amiga too!

I can't believe anyone these days even follows this.

If I were Novell I would be afraid of making everyone else in the world double over with laughter at this point.

It's over, ok? Give up.

YOU WERE ALL T-R-O-L-L-E-D!

[Anonymous Coward]

Makes me glad we have AC accounts! Keep taking everything so seriously so trolls like me keep working harder!

seriously, tho, this little tidbit was an actual article written by an xtian extremist (and i mean extremist) of the tender age of 16.

so when the many ./ readers of that age group are reading, hacking or whaterver, there peers are writing hate-filled shit like this and calling it religion.

think about that, huh?

Re:Netware/NT

[Brian Feldman]

Your explanation seems very fishy. Somehow I'd very much doubt that a company would get rid of expensive computer equipment by destroying it and having it disposed of, rather than doing it A) more efficiently B) less expensively and C) with an actual _use_ by giving it to charity. Isn't it a _complete_ tax write-off either way? And isn't it cheaper to call a charitable organization which would gladly pick up highly expensive equipment for free than to pay for special pickup services for the trash? Big computers don't go in the normal, paper-and-foodstuffs-type dumpster.

--

This is a tough one...

[The Man]

Hmmm...would I rather be poked in the eye repeatedly with a dull stick, or with a sharp, but flaming, stick? And, while we're at it, which is which???

-- TM, who finds that Unix allows you to dodge the sticks, most of the time.

Re:Why NetWare reminds me of DOS

[Chaostrophy]

Well, the core of the OS runs on the main cpu, the others are only usable by aplications.

Netware is super super fast, it is an example of care and tuning, and not needing locks because only one cpu runs the kernel (yeah, I know, there are locks for other stuff no doubt).

The 3.x series could serve a file request in 53 x86 instructions! Top that.

This is Alan Cox's point that Linux beats Solaris on single CPU machines because it is efficent, but this is reversed on multi processor boxes because Solaris is scalable, taken to it's logical extreme. There is no userland (non ring 0) on a 3.x server, and it cuts performance in half on a 4.x machine if you use it (on Linux, the kernel runs in ring 0, everything else runs ring 3).

Netware is in many ways an anacronism, file and print, historically a horible aplication server.

Name the two OSs with no vm and no protected memory: Netware and Macintosh (this is way back when).

Netware is like Linux using loadlin, except you can quit to dos, or unload it and reclaim the memory (as linux does). Saing it is a dos app is like saying linux is if you use loadlin.

Re:Microsoft's Response

[pb]

:) Quite right, fighting FUD with FUD... Microsoft didn't convince me on the BIND issue, or the LDAP implementation, but we'll see. "Standards-compliance" has always been iffy with them, just like NT is "POSIX-compliant".

Of course, we could apply the same tactics to basic facts, and I'm sure we'd get different responses to them.

"Did you know that Windows 2000 hasn't been released yet? Even though Microsoft has announced that it is finished working on it and has distributed it to certain major players, it is not publically available yet."

"Did you know that Netware 5 has been released? Even though Novell can't publicize a paper bag, it is possible to get a copy of Netware 5 now."

"Did you know that Microsoft traditionally does lousy disk caching anyhow? Defragmenting a drive on a Microsoft Operating System is better done under Linux. (tested with DOSEmu :)"

"Did you know that the Earth is spiraling into the sun? Even though it's getting there very slowly, it will eventually become uninhabitable."

Incidentally, if you're running Windows, load up a copy of RegEdit, and change your Windows Tips. Now *that's* fun. "Do not, under any circumstances, eat the yellow snow"...
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.

Re:At least MS had Y2K fixes for 3.1. Netware 3 DI

[Nail]

Pick up any "DataComm Warehouse" mag or go to there website (www.warehouse.com) or to CDW (www.cdw.com) and you can buy as much NetWare 3 & 4 as you like. Something make me think you didn't try _too_ hard to solve this problem...

Re:I dunno if this is negative advertising..

[sql*kitten]

*shrug* Novell have about one product worth mentioning, and that's NDS, which is actually very good. But other than that, NetWare is nothing more than a file and print server - people often mock Microsoft for running their GUI in kernel mode - NetWare runs entire applications in kernel mode, using NLM. Notice how almost every rebuttal published by Novell involves NDS, and also note that NDS is available for NT. Realistically, unless you're a legacy site, there are few reasons to choose NetWare.

-1 not enough

[bobalu]

I think we need to have more negative moderation to account for crap like this. It would be occasionally amusing if they weren't serious.

Re:now that we're on the subject...

[perfecto]

I, personally, have no problems with it being loaded on top of DOS.

actually... dos gets kicked out before novell gets started. but i agree with the fact that you can change a driver and replace a driver through dos. one of my biggest pet peeves with windows nt is that there is no command line accessible system configuration. if a driver gets caput and you can't get into the system, you have to use the rescue disk and still its 20 minutes until you see the light of day... if you do see it that is.

"The lie, Mr. Mulder, is most convincingly hidden between two truths."

Re:i hate novell

[Loundry]

"All our sysops dont know fuck about novell because they have been using MacOS all along..."

First, if all of their skills are in MacOS, then why are they your sysops? I think that they should rather be your advertisers or graphic designers or one of those other Mac-friendly type jobs.

Second, if the sysops don't know how to use the OS, then it makes more sense to train them how to use the current OS then to license yet another OS which they don't know how to use.

Third, NT is not easy to use. If it were, then there would not be so many people complaining about it. I admit that it looks better than Novell, but that does not make it easier to use. That is one of the biggest problems with point-and-drool people: they equate "more attractive" with "easier to use."

And I'm hardly a Novell advocate. I just think NT is a big pile of dog shit and I can't believe so many people have been suckered into paying money for it. I recently had to install some software on some NT machines. I was amazed at how many reboots I had to do, how it asked me, "You should exit all other Windows applications" (why?), how slow it was, how un-intuitive setting up devices and the network was, and how single-user-minded it was. I really wish that ISS would port its software to a real operating system.

FUD vs FUD

[Chokai]

What's so new about this in reality? Companies have always fought FUD about their products with FUD about their competitors products. Is this really that much of a shock? Look at all those little surveys/studies that the automakers have commissioned. Most of them don't matter much in the overall performance you are going to get out of the car but yet they throw them out there over and over again.

I don't think anyone at Microsoft will be suprised at having FUD thrown at them. Just like other people are not surprised at Microsoft throwing it at them ALL THE TIME. Remember Sun maintains (or did I dunno if they stopped) a whole website soley dedicated to attacking NT for EVERY role. This isn't something new for MS. They've had more FUD thrown at them in the last 3 months regarding how the company was going to be broken up than most companies get in a year. It's just a different kind of FUD. (FUD comes in all shapes and sizes)

It can be REALLY fun to watch though. Particullarly when someone REALLY screws up.

I love marketers sometimes. :-)

Re:Reminds me of an email I sent to Novell...

[ralphclark]

I know what you mean. Netware's so clunky. It's DOS on wheels.

In the words of one Lt.Cdr. Montgomery Scott:

"...and if my grandmother had wheels she'd be a wagon"

Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction

Re:now that we're on the subject...

[ralphclark]

It was (until recently) loaded on top of DOS. It still only has a DOS-like shell with no decent text processing utilities. And until Netware 5, it used an outmoded proprietary network protocol. I don't know much about the latest version, but it still looks like something that came out of the ark. I suppose if you view it purely as an application server platform (rather than as a general purpose OS) it does its job well. But I prefer more flexibility and adherence to open standards than Netware has to offer.

Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction

Re:Microsoft's Response

[CoolVibe]

Please moderate that up?

Re:Why NetWare reminds me of DOS

[geocajun]

simply because NT can't handle the load of 25 users

??? thats amazing.. I do not advocate NT but if you are having problems like that then it sounds to me its operator error more than OS error.

Meanwhile

[finkployd]

While they battle it out, Linux, *BSD and other open source programs will be improving at a faster rate than either of those two could hope to achieve.

Finkployd


Bill Gates: "Innovation"

Re:Who needs support when you've got O'Reilly book

[finkployd]

Well, they are the best references, but they really don't help with step by step procedures or things like that.
But it you need to know everything you can do with a grep command, they are easier to folow then the man page.


Bill Gates: "Innovation"

Re:FreeBSD is harldly ugly.

[Zico]

I'm talking market perception compared to Linux®, which is the belle of the ball in the media's eyes when it comes to the Unix world. I'm not slamming FreeBSD or debating which came first.

Linux® is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.

Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com

Speaking of credibility...

[Zico]

Microsoft's document told us which Novell claims were untrue. Now it's your turn to tell us which Microsoft claims were untrue, and how they were untrue. Please be specific.

Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com

Re:Speaking of credibility...

[Jake_Man]

They claimed that NDS can't contain more than one thousand objects per container, when it will contain more than one billion for starters.

These really aren't that difficult to find if you actually read the documents rather than post URLs...

Why NetWare reminds me of DOS

[Zico]

For me, the biggest reason why it reminds me of DOS is that using more than one processor is useless. The current version of NetWare still, in the year 2000, doesn't scale past one processor. Of course they promise it will in the next version, but good luck.

Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com

Re:Why NetWare reminds me of DOS

[Zico]

If that's the case, why does Novell itself promise to fix it? From
http://www.zdnet.c om/pcweek/stories/jumps/0,4270,2422644,00.html: "The next revision of NetWare will finally scale beyond a single processor, Novell officials said, but the release date has not been announced."

Hopefully someone here can explain the discrepancy.

I've just gotta say that the attitude of "NetWare doesn't scale because it's so good that it doesn't need it" is a seriously lame way of excusing a shortcoming. It's sounds like a scenario in which Danny Ainge says, "Ya know, I could score 40 points on Michael Jordan every night if I wanted, but I'm secure enough in my basketball abilities that I don't feel the need to do it."

Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com

Re:Why NetWare reminds me of DOS

[Stormgren]

There is a simple answer to this one.

Novell does not need a second processor, it does just fine with one.

At work, I have two poweredge 1300 servers. This is a dual-processor box. One has Novell 3.2 loaded on it (100 users), the other is NT4.0 (25 users). Both have the same disk and memory loads, the difference being that the Novell box has only one processor (PII 400). Every few weeks, we find that we have to move an application from the NT4.0 box to the novell box, simply because NT can't handle the load of 25 users, while the 3.2NW box is working serving files and offering print services to more users.

Novell's been doing this a lot longer than MS, if Netware needed two processors to do what it needed to do, they would have added it by now.

Re:Why NetWare reminds me of DOS

[Malcontent]

For a long time Netware was considered purely a file and print services OS. It was never a serious contender as an application server. As a file and print server netware uses very little process power. 3.x series of netware could easily server over 200 users using about 2% CPU utilization of a 486!. When netware 4 came out (and more seriously in netware 5) netware became a more serious application server. Now it needs SMP not for itself but for the applications it's serving. Hope this clears it up for you.

Re:Why NetWare reminds me of DOS

[Anonymous Coward]

actually netware 4.11 does work with up to 4 processors. as the guys at novell will tell you netware 5.x and above works with 4 processors and does it very well. one key is that novell does not typicly *need* more than one processor unlike most any NT box which really could use 2 processors and 512mb or ram to boot. most of the complaints i've heard about netware is that it has a "DOS like interface on the server". hmm well that server is supposed to run and by god it does. why put a user on the server (as i have seen with NT as it looks just like any other box on someones desk.) i have seen uptimes of 2 years on netware boxes. but whocares. uptimes don't mean it's perfect, just that it's not annoying enough to fix. i support novell and unix boxes and my company supports NT as well. the NT SE's are constantly having to fix and work on the reliabilty of the NT boxes. our novell accounts ask why we come by as they don't have problems. (yes some do have problems but so does any network in that is in constant flux.) NT, Novell, *NIX all have there places and no one is better in *ALL* areas than the others but as a file and print server I have not seen anything work better than Novell.

Disagree with your hypothesis

[Zico]

For a product to make a splash in the marketplace, as opposed to just receiving lukewarm acceptance, it needs hype. Take FreeBSD, for example. Despite being much better than Linux, it's Linux that's ridden the hype to become a big name, while FreeBSD has been relegated to "ugly stepdaughter" status, despite its obvious plusses for those who've used it. If you want your product to really take off, you simply cannot ignore the hype factor in the real world.

Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com

Re:Disagree with your hypothesis

[dennisp]

Was that a joke? In the past, Linux was very inferior. Today it is not. Both work particularly well in many niches.

Linux is making much more progress in terms of enterprise viability (such as database and complex application servers). As for one processor desktop, I would say that both are perfectly good and it just depends on your personal preference. Jump to multiprocessor systems and Linux has a pretty good advantage (though, you may want to jump to SCO, Solaris or win2k -- since if you're spending a lot for the machine, a 1500+ dollar license isn't much of a problem).

Both are very good systems. Use whichever is best for your application.

Don't take this post as completely pro linux. I use FreeBSD on web servers, firewalls, and mid range application servers (3-5 server clusters). Java limitations in FreeBSD are my primary cause for jumping to linux for some of my new work.

There is no denying that Linux has much more support. It also has a development accelerator that is moving faster than FreeBSD (especially in respect to high end enterprise application).

Surely you jest

[Zico]

If any MS product crashes BIND, then there's nothing stopping any hacker using any OS to send the same sequence to a BIND server to crash it. That would be like MacOS being vulnerable to the Ping of Death and then Apple not fixing it, but instead blaming the operating system which shipped a ping client which could produce it. Oh wait, I think they did do that for a while. ;-)

Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com

Expensive system?

[Zico]

Have you priced systems lately? Frankly, it's a pain in the ass to find anyone who still sells systems that are too low-powered for Win2K.

For instance, the lowest-powered machine listed on the web site of that darling of Slashdot, VA Linux, is a 400Mhz Celeron with 64MB. Considering that my Thinkpad with a 266 Pentium MMX and 64 MB runs Win2K like a champ, I think your fears are unfounded.

Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com

So, you couldn't even name *one* thing?

[Zico]

It's not a very long document. Since you're so against it, surely you can find some untrue claims by Microsoft in it. Put up or shut up, 'cause your credibility is going down the dumper.

Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com

MS's reply bitchslaps Novell back to the stone age

[Zico]

Microsoft posted a response to Novell's FUD at
http://www.micr osoft.com/Windows2000/news/bulletins/novellpart3.a sp. You can overlook biased claims of "Ours is better. No, ours is!" by both sides, but Microsoft's document really shows how misleading, and in a few cases just plain made-up or wrong, just about all of Novell's claims were.

Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com

Re:What IS Novell?

[Raven667]

Just a note about X on NetWare 5.x, it is a port of XFree86 (3.3.x) to the Novell NLM format.

I didn't know that all NLMs run at ring 0, that explains a few things about why ABENDs can do so much damage. I just brought down our GroupWise server recently, I use Netscape Communicator to access my mailbox over LDAP and a corrupt message was causing the LDAP service to crash, which eventually (after about a dozen+ crashes) trashed the server. A quick reboot and all was well, but the admin refuses to run LDAP services anymore, sigh. I have to use the GroupWise client from Win98 in VMWare.

As a file serving NOS NetWare is excellent, we have heavily trafficed machines serving files to student labs with year+ uptimes. As an OS arch, though, it is pretty cryptic and crufty. Oh, I wish, wish that when Novell purchased UNIX from AT&T they would have ported NDS and NCP to it, and dropped NetWare OS. Then we could have an OS equally good at serving files, applications, and users (shell accounts, X11 workstations, etc).

Re:Reminds me of an email I sent to Novell...

[Raven667]

They _do_ offer small licenses for home and demo use. I have a 3 license NetWare 5 server CD sitting on my desk that I got many moons ago. I'm sure that if you look around on their website you could find it (currently NetWare 5.1).

In my limited experience there is nothing better to serve Win9x/NT clients than NetWare/NDS/ZENWorks. I use it at a local Tech College and have been very impressed.

Re:FUD indeed...

[Sloppy]

No. You should be able to lie and try to confuse a piece of software all you want to. If it crashes, it is the software's fault. Then you grin and explain in the bug report how you did it. This is called testing.

It's BIND's fault if it ever crashes for any reason other than running on faulty hardware. Just like it's never a web page's fault when a browser crashes.

---

Re:Ok, so both sides are launching insults...

[Jurph]

Well, actually, he was trying to use it as our apartment server, and the box is an Athlon K7 (700MHz) with around 128 Megs of RAM. As for "advanced" user, well... with the amount of hardware hacking he does (he's got 5 boxen, all of which he constantly swaps parts in for his purposes) and how amazingly un-friendly Plug & Pray is, he has learned more that a few tricks about handling Windows. It's just like any other sick, unruly, rabid animal... occasionally, the only solution it to drag it out back and shoot it.

Jurph

Re:Stupid question but what is a "directory servic

[nairb]

NDS is the reason that Netware 4 was a flop, since it didn't work.

BUT Netware 5 and NDS 8 are *extremely* stable (more than most on this forum would probably believe) --



Anybody hope that Active Directory kills W2K? I mean I can draw some significant correlations between a Domain and a Bindery, and the issues that arise from migrating 100 or so binderys into a single tree.. ack!

Re:Good luck, Novell

[nairb]

Its worth mentioning that this isn't a NT vs. Netware FUD campagain.



Its an Active Directory vs. Network Directory Services (notice the abscense of the word Novell) which is a directory platform which integrate and run natively all sorts of platforms including Solaris, HPUX, MVS, Netware, and even NT... (NOTE: Linux is about to ship, but it only runs on versions which support PAM.)



Currently Active Directory only runs on NT, but apparently *nix ports are planned. I wonder if the Unix port will still require a reboot to make changes to the replication strategy? Seems they wouldn't let us Unix people have any reason not to run it on W2K, so they'll probably make us bounce the server just to save W2K face.



bastards.

Re:Microsoft's Response

[MeanGene]

Well, it was all nice and convincing (for the semi-literate people like me) until this passage:

Does Only Windows 2000 Support Active Directory?

Active Directory is rapidly becoming the preferred directory for third party independent software and hardware vendors to directory enable their next-generation applications and devices.

Translated into plain-speak this answer means: we don't give a fsck! They expect everyone else to bend over backwards to interoperate with AD - and judging from the history they're probably right...

So what?

[auntfloyd]

This happens all the time: two closed-source companies go at it.

We won't even get the benefits of amusing flamewars ala Linux vs. BSD :)


~~~~~~~~~
auntfloyd

Re:Ok, so both sides are launching insults...

[rascharles]

One of my servers is an old Dell Poweredge 2100/200 running a heavily patched Netware 4.11. I got the go ahead to buy a new Poweredge 4300 for which we were going to buy a 100 user Netware 5 license. However, Novell nearly doubled the price. Therefore, the 4300 will now be a Linux/Samba server for 80 or so Windoze clients. I think both of the "heavy weights" are far too expensive for small businesses and universities.

Re:Computer Industry Changes

[rmrfken]

Bah humbug... DEC had better hardware, but their operating systems blew hard chunks... As a VMS/Ultrix admin I had nothing but grievances... SunOS was godsend... Software actually compiled without serious voodoo!

And those evil round DEC mice! Like hockey pucks they were! I felt dirty just holding one... The rollers were directly on the bottom w/o a ball. Sucked hardcore... it skipped and halted all the time... and compare that to Sun's optical mice... you just had to make sure you knew how to orient the steel micepads and you were good to go...

Digital was also one of the first to start with this PCI crap... I've never had machines as slow backplane throughput as these crappy PC164 and Ultra 5/10/etc systems... God I hate technological regression. By giving IT managers an excuse to buy 3rd rate cheap hardware, thats all we're getting nowadays... I have an *OLD* (built 1991) SGI 220/VGXT system that beats the crap out of my *BRAND NEW* Sun Ultra 10/elite3d system!!! Especially in 3D!!! What gives?!?!?!

Your nostalgia is biasing common sense...

"Nothing sucks like a VAX."

Re:Not a sea change at all.

[-eddy]

My question would be, why would you want to have a server product pre-installed? How many people out there trust a vendor far enough to run a pre-installed version of a server product?

Hell, my boxes don't even come built, let alone have a NOS pre-installed. (It's a fun day to have 10 to 15 boxes come in via UPS and get to sit down and put together a new server. I think of it as one of the perks to my job.)

I put em together, test em for a couple of weeks, install and configure the NOS, then roll them out.

Am I just to paranoid and untrusting or ???

-eddy

Re:At least MS had Y2K fixes for 3.1. Netware 3 DI

[desertfool]

Get a life, you M$ troll. My 3.12 worked just fine with the free patches. I'll take Netware over NT anyday.

Re:Reminds me of an email I sent to Novell...

[desertfool]

I admin that I am a linux newbie (only use it at home) and that I got my first experience running a 5 user LAN with Netware 2.2. I know my way around Netware. All we use the LAN servers for where I work is file and print. Novell did this with great simplicity, and on very little hardware.

fast forward a few years: working at Megacorp Inc., the Powers That Be decide NT should be our corporate standard. "We'll Save Money!" they said. We've saved boatloads of money. On the server I had to upgrade to support NT. On the server to be the BDC. On all sorts of things. I hate my job now thanks to M$. Using "User Manager" is a pain in the ass. I hate the idea that if my server room was not secured, and I didn't have it locked down, any moron could use the server as terminal. Just because NT is pretty, doesn't make it better.

Can you tell I am partisan? Sorry, but this is too true. I want the fsckers in my company to realize they made a HUGE mistake by moving to NT.

Re:I agree Netware crashes constantly

[desertfool]

BS. I ran Netware 2.2, 3.11, 3.12, 4.10 and 4.11. Lots of users, and no problems. I could count the amount of 'Abends' of the nine servers over five years on one hand. Less then five in five years!

While the NT boxes have yet to go down (3 months with weekly reboots) I think they are a pain in the ass. We have spent more money on NT in 3 months than ever on Novell.

I am beginning to believe that all AC posts come from M$.com.

Re:Have you ever used Netware?

[desertfool]

Amen. I began using linux because of Novell. I could get through the text based admin tools a lot faster than I ever could with user manager. I never did like nwadmin.

I must state, however, that the java x-console on Netware 5 (and I have very little experience with it) I did not like.

Give me 3.12 anyday. It ran like a champ (until I *had* to get rid of it!) and never went down. I ran 100 users on a 66Mhz/64MegRAM server until last October. And they never had a problem until NT.

Re:Lies are shouted,...

[desertfool]

"they just need to take out a lot more full page ads and plant some employees to post to groups and handle reporters."

Just like so many AC's here now :)

I have always hated the GUI on the server console. Damn that takes up so much resources (look at Task Manager) and realize what is wasted.

I, like you, come from a Netware background. NT is meant for the lowest common denominator, a dentists office. Any moron can turn it on. And it looks purdy. I can't say that Novell\Netware is meant to task so many things (We only used, and still use file and print) but it did it so well.

Novell let their guard down when NT 3.51 was out, and didn't think that 4.0 and the M$ marketing machine was much to worry about. Shame on them. But double shame on the corporate shills who listened to the sweetalk from M$.

Re:I agree Netware crashes constantly-Moderate UP!

[desertfool]

Moderate the above comment up.


All I can say is that my experience is similar.

Big Red Answers FUD with TRUTH

[Doug Black]

Novell says "If Microsoft will stop telling lies
about NetWare, we'll stop telling the truth about W2K."

Re:Uh....

[Muffhead]

Actually I have had good experiences with Groupwise for email & Border Manager for internet access. Netware can be a lot more than just file & print. Shame most people haven't seen what it is capable of.

Re:Microsoft's Response

[Muffhead]

Thank you!! That just gave me a really good laugh. Supporting both NT & Netware it was really funny reading some of their claims about Netware. I suppose by now we should all know not to believe anything the vendors say.

Re:Not a sea change at all.

[Nothinman]

The company that I work at has ordered several server boxes with NetWare pre-installed, that's not to say we keep the installation. As soon as the thing is first powered on the first thing we do is wipe the drives and redo the drive/array and NOS setup.

I believe there is some what of a discount if we get the NOS bundled, and with the prices of NetWare's licenses every dollar counts =)
--

Re:I dunno if this is negative advertising..

[The Incredible Mr. L]

I support Novell over NT (I use, support and administrate both here at work) but what I think Novell fails to realize is that Microsoft is in their own little world.

so when MS says Novell doesn't support disk striping, it's MICROSOFT's definition of disk striping, not the industry standards definition of it.

Kinda like that kid in the schoolyard who hates losing so they keep changing the rules as you play to prevent them from losing.

Re:Uh....

[Basje]

well, be my guest. Try it then. Make a win95 bootdisk, and install netware with it. Have fun.

----------------------------------------------

Re:I know - I was surprised too!

[mistabobdobalina]

sarducci? father guido sarducci???

Re:Microsoft made problems to Novell for ages

[Tony-A]

Wouldn't help. The differences are more basic than the command-line shell. Like changing bash to csh (I think. Greener than a newbie.)
The DOS structures are MS-DOS 5 (reports 5.5 IIRC), but NT will not allow the things that Novell does to DOS (at the ibmbio.com/ibmdos.com (io.sys/msdos.sys for MS) level).
Microsoft and Novell networking differ in at least one important aspect. Microsoft networking allows only one set of drive mappings. Novell (also Lantastic) supports a different set of drive mappings per task. This means it is possible to run together several tasks which have conflicting network drives under Novell DOS (Task Switcher!)* or MS Windows for Workgroups. Window 95/98/NT -- doesn't work anymore. If one task has access to a network drive, every task has the same access. Another Microsoft security innovation.

*Actually Novell DOS TaskMgr supports multitasking, but I've never used it.

Another failure in MS GUI design...

[Tony-A]

This is for IIS 4 on NT4, but may help some poor sap trying to find it.

Microsoft Management Console. (Web server administration)

Start
Programs
Windows NT 4.0 Option Pack
Microsoft Internet Information Server
Internet Server Manager

hardly.

[Tony-A]

I read the MS rebuttal. Seems to lack something. Like credibility.

FreeBSD is harldly ugly.

[Tony-A]

"ugly stepdaughter" refers to Cinderella, and is probably more applicable to Linux. Berkeley Unix dates from the 70's if I'm not mistaken.

Check Protocols

[Tony-A]

If there is more than one, ie TCP/IP, you are probably looking for trouble. To set up some print servers (LAN to Parallel ports) I had use use NETBEUI for one brand and later IPX/SPX for the other. In both cases the system was useable enough to set up the print servers, to TCP/IP, but was wonky enough that I got rid of the excess protocols fast.
Microsoft gets confused if it tries to do more than one thing at a time.
MS Proxy Server may be a problem. We had it. And junked it.
Remember to reapply your latest service pack if you change anmost anything.

Difference?

[Tony-A]

Novell has integrity. Microsoft does not.

Re:Using FAT with NT

[Tony-A]

You can also install a new NT to a different drive/directory.
Warning, the install likes to "upgrade". Don't. The upgrade is a mess of changes from 3.4 to 4.0 and when those changes are done to 4.0 it really make a mess of things.
DOS boot disks can help a lot when things go wrong.

Re:Fiasco?

[Tony-A]

It was a fiasco. For Mindcraft's credibility. It started rigged. It stayed rigged.

Microsoft support

[Tony-A]

>>On my Microsoft call, I quickly learned that I knew more about networks in general than the supposed expert I was speaking with, and when I asked specific questions of him at different points, I usually got either the obvious "BS your way out of it" answer, or no answer at all. I found them to be remarkably impolite and of very little help at all.

Why am I not surprised?
Wait 'till W2K get tried out under real world loads. Giggle giggle.

The problems I have with Netware

[RabidMonkey]

I work in a large Netware envrionment (>100 servers), and our only gripe with Netware 4.x is the HUGE Vrepair times (18-20 HOURS). We have servers that stay up for months on end, but 90% of the time when we have to reboot, or when one abends, the vrepairs are what kill us.

We've actually moved some stuff off Netware servers to Sun boxes and NT because of lack of the 'vrepair'.

Thankfully, this issue has been addressed with Netware 5's NSS, which has 3-5 second VRepair times, but doesn't support some other things (at this time)

A problem that we've encounted with NW5 running PureIP is that we can't use Rconsole - we have to use JConsole (I think it's called) which is a Java based (read: SLOW!) remote console. It's normally faster to actually GOTO the server room now than loading the Java Console. Well, unless I'm trying to access my servers on the other side of the country. Until this is addressed, there is definatly some hostility towards using PureIP in our workplace as we do a lot of RConsole work. And since PureIP is one of Netware 5's big selling points ...

Thats all for my opinion - none of this represents my employers position, of course

Re:Not a sea change at all.

[jmauro]

It good to a least get it preinstalled, so you know all the hardware will work with the installation. It should always be redone though.

Re:FUD indeed...

[Bothari]

It does not mattter if M$'s implementation is crappy or not, if bind dumps core, it's buggy. With any software, if you input the wrong info, it should, at most, output an error code/message. Bind is buggy!

...
Yes, I know I ramble and my spelling isn't quite up to scratch. If you wish to complain,

Re:Ok, so both sides are launching insults...

[Gorth]

My old school uses Netware(I still work there as a tech assistant.) It's NetWare 4 (would be 5 if not for all the macs we have to support) We have a BoderManager firewall, and 4 NetWare servers. It works great to manage all the WIN9x boxes on the network.

With another Novell addon (Zenworks) we're allowed complete, total and easy admin over all of the 600-700 workstations.

Re:Not a sea change at all.

[Zurk]

nope. i do the same. never use preinstalled stuff - always customise it. Its good security and you also know how the machine is set up. theres always *something* those preinstalled OSes dont get right...and how do you really know how many patches are installed etc etc.

now that we're on the subject...

[RoLlEr_CoAsTeR]

what's so clunky about Netware?
Being a person who's had absolutely no experience with Netware (and who hates NT), I'd like to know what about Netware you're referring to when you say it's clunky, "DOS on wheels." I'm just. . . curious.

Re:now that we're on the subject...

[Trepalium]

I, personally, have no problems with it being loaded on top of DOS. Unlike NT, I can EASILY bring up a Netware server that I installed an incorrect driver on. If it's a disk controller driver, I simply replace it in the C:\NWSERVER directory, and run SERVER.EXE. If it's not, I can start SERVER.EXE -na -ns and skip it's auto startup scripts. It's a very managable system.

When the same sort of thing happens on NT, you might as well format, since it's probably impossible to figure out what went wrong on it. Rescue disks are all but worthless. Windows2000 is a LITTLE better, but not much. There is a "troubleshooting" mode, but unless the system is mostly working, it probably won't help.

And for user administration, I think Netware beats just about everything out there, especially for a GUI. All information about any given user/print queue/volume/server is available through ONE tool -- nwadmin. Moving a user from one organizational unit to another instantly gives them access to all resources assigned to that OU by the administrator. You can set up logically constructed trees to organise all users and departments within the company. NT (even with Active Directory) and most unixes simply can't compare to this.

Don't forget that, from an archetural stand-point, Linux's design is pretty dated too -- monolithic kernel and all. But if it works, it works. At work, the netware 4.11 server we use often lasts a hundred days or so between hardware failures [I really DO need to fix that soon, especially since the Adaptec RAID controller just decided to eat the entire array for no good reason].

Novell Sucks Ass!!

[nin981]

It is unbelivable how many systems that novell has trashed.. I work at a school part time and novell is the bane of my exsistance. I have no idea (please give me one) of what linux uses for a central user accounts. But im sure its better then this. I use a Win2k server and all the clients have to do is check "logon to domain" under the properties for Microsoft Client. And i was told that BeOS computers can logon to these domains (tho i highly doubt it). Can "unix" clients logon to AD servers? Doesn't matter. But i hate the novell client because it has a very retro feel. All the admin utilities do not have an easy gui and do not perform very well. You cannot get things done fast. Theres more but i'll just piss myself off. My school uses macs, old novell pcs (and some new), and nothing else. All i am asking for is for a little sanity. For instance, if they don't feel that NT is secure enough (compared to their macs) then they should use linux. MacOS with at ease is so fustrating! No one likes the macs at my school, why must they torcher us? I've also seen computers (including my precious laptop) fucked up when i tried to remove the Novell Client. I will never do it again.

Re:Novell Sucks Ass!!

[Mercury2k]

Hmmmm, perhaps your should check out the actual Novel white pages that your repling to here on NDS compared to active directory (AD). AD is a serious joke. Please, read up on NDS alone for the next few months, then, please, feel free to call me or any of the other netware admins on for a debate. I would love to make you look bad.
------

Re:Atheists MUST worship satan

[vectro]

(-1 offtopic. Oh well, I can afford the karma)

Your logic is flawed. The bible says that you cannot serve two masters. This is largely true, especially if they give conflicting orders.

However, it does not say that you must serve exactly one. There is a big difference between saying that (number of masters 2) and saying that (number of masters == 1). In this case, it is in fact possible to serve neither satan nor god.

Now, of course, at least to me, this is highly abstract and theoretical, since I don't believe in either one.

Re:Using FAT with NT

[Shadok8]

Personally, I am a true believer that if you are doing it right, it doesn't matter what is on the workstations. They turn into big (OK HUGE) pseudo terminals.

Your users store data on the workstations? How do you ever back them up? It is on FAT partitions? You can't have any security - and locked doors don't count.

Put the data on the server where it belongs. Use profiles. Use a system management package. Use unattended installs or a disk cloning package in conjunction with a application snap shot package. With a little creativity it can be done affordably.

If you do it that way, you get security, data integrity and piece of mind. Data on the server is secure and gets backed up. If a workstation is having problems and nobody cares. You just re-install it. In the above scenario it takes 10-30 minutes to redeploy a PC.

One of the most advanced packages I've seen let's you store workstation configuration information in a Bootp table. A user's computer crashes, you make one minor change in the Bootp tab. The user turns their computer back on and with no interaction it proceeds to re-install the OS and all apps in whatever fashion you choose.

I think that is much better method than trying to figure why windows has once again crashed.

It's not FUD... it's the truth!

[operagost]

Novell's "Did you know" points are documented (usually by Microsoft themselves!) and appear to actually be based on fact. Here's FUD:

http://www.novell.com/advantage/ms_fud. html

Enjoy a good laugh!

Re:Win2k Pro performance is slow according to MS

[ostiguy]

I think they went with FAT 16 because all of the operating systems support it. Even in a NTFS NT /2k comparision, 2k's support for encryption may change the picture.

That said, Win2k as of the Beta 3 (not the release candidates) *feels* much faster than NT 4 on the same hardware.

Matt

Re:Slashdotted?

[mrfantasy]

Actually, Novell just made a press release about open-source LDAP support--check here for some details.

I also know Novell has contributed a port of Apache to NetWare 5.1 to the Apache Group, and is releasing (closed source) NDS for Linux.

I guess Microsoft's done the ActivePerl stuff, and maybe some help with Samba (I don't know.) However, they've backed away from AD support on any non-MS system, and certainly have made no open source announcements about AD.

My point is is that both of these companies will respond to open source. Of course, I'd think Novell has more to gain/lose, so they're likely to be more agressive, while Microsoft is still in the "crush our competitors" analogy.

I smell FUDslide...

[Captain Spam]

Wow. I've never seen anyone but M$ sink this low to do marketing.

But hey, they had it coming. Everyone else has tried everything else, and it seems logic and reasoning (Not to mention superiority) won't get in M$'s way. The only thing left to do is attack 'em with their own guns, I say.

Too bad this means rebuttal and counterrebuttles galore until both products are released (And for a few months afterward, even). How many /. articles are gonna be taken up with this back-and-forth battle?

------------

Re:What IS Novell?

[quade]CnM[]

yes, Novell is a true OS... it loads in much the same way that windows 9x loads. it loads DOS first, then when DOS has things set up correctly, it takes over, and gives you a true 32 bit OS. in a way, DOS acts like a boot loader, much like LILO, but a hell of a lot bigger...but back to the main point, it controls low level access to all of its devices... and once loaded, it dosent use DOS for any access to the hardware. Novell in my expierence is a very stable OS... I've never seen it lock solid (i've never used 5.x, only 4.11, 3.x), but it is kinda cryptic... if I used it regularly, I guess it wouldent be so bad, but I've never done that...

Re:NDS for Linux Beta

[Twid]

Drop me an e-mail at tdailey@novell.com and I'll get you on the beta list. It is closed beta right now, but there will be an open beta soon.

-Twid

They tried giving their stuff away, but....

[billr]

They tried giving their stuff away, but I wasn't interested. I talked to a couple of other people who were on their list, and they did the same thing.

I did get a T-shirt, but it was pretty cheap. the POS had a hole in it after two weeks.

Novell can't even give their stuff away.

Too bad, so sad.

Re:i hate novell

[mduell]

My high school recently recieved a $600k (USD) grant and used it in the most moronic ways. We have 2 Novell 5 servers with dual hot-swap 18 GB SCSI HDD's, more ram than i cant count, and its a pain in the ass to use. All our sysops dont know fuck about novell because they have been using MacOS all along... Its like hell ever day... teachers screaming (and crying sometimes) becase the network ate their stuff, when actually they didnt login properly.. NT would be soooooooooo much easier and im trying to convert them...
/rant

Mark Duell

Re:Atheists MUST worship satan

[anonymous cowerd]

> ...The truth of this is evident with Judas Iscariot who pretended
> to love Christ, but in the end Christ's statement, "Did I Myself not
> choose you, the twelve, and yet one of you is a devil?", (John 6:70),
> proved correct when Judas betrayed Christ.

Evidently the original author of this lovely nonsense has never read Jorge Luis Borges's Three Versions of Judas (in the collection Ficciones).

> ...One does not hypocritically say they love satan, like many
> hypocritically say they love God.

Oh yeah? What about that opportunist Marilyn Manson?

By the way, this post of yours (which you admit down the thread is copied from some loony teenage zealot who - ho ho hee hee ha ha - actually meant it seriously) is screamingly funny. I laughed and laughed. I like to laugh, so thank you for posting, even though the only way this could get any further off-topic would be to post it in Etruscan.

Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net

an "on-topic" /. post (?)

[anonymous cowerd]

7-1/4?! Wow, imagine measuring it to fractional accuracy!

Mine used to be pretty big - well adequate anyway - but over a period of years the demoralizing effect of running exclusively Microsoft operating systems all day long shrunk and withered it to the point...let's not go into the dismal, humiliating details.

But then, at the last moment when I was wallowing in impotent despair and I had given up hope, I stumbled upon this book with a Slackware CD bound inside the back cover. Though I was listless and apathetic, I installed it anyway, and instantly I beheld the mighty majestic bash command-prompt, my luck changed. After just a few rounds of Doom I could feel my BFG9000 getting a full load of shells, so to speak.

By gee, I'm still quite the Linux new-B, but at least as far as my unit goes, I've made a full recovery, and the future looks even brighter than ever! Thank you, thank you, and thank you again, RMS and Linus and the whole penguin-lovin' GNU crew, thanks to you-all ah'm a reel man again!

Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net

Oh yes! Of course

[Zagato-sama]

And remember folks, Linux advocates never engage in FUD, this is strictly a province of large "evil" companies.

Anything anti-microsoft that is spewed from advokiddies is always regarded as well informed truth, never can a Linux advocate be accused of mud slinging ;)

"Yes, my friend's NT workstation crashes 30 times per day, devours babies, and sends your mother's credit card numbers to microsoft in it's spare time"

Open source. Closed minds. We are Slashdot.

W2K crashes non-MS DNS is a LIE

[Drestin]

Novell's Claim: "Did you know that Windows 2000 DNS server will CRASH just about every non-Microsoft DNS server in existence? Only the very, very latest versions of BIND (which aren't widely deployed) won't crash when interacting with a Windows 2000 server."

Microsoft's Perspective: Microsoft recognizes the need to work well in non-Microsoft DNS environments and would not release a product that crashes in such a way. Moreover, Novell has not provided any factual evidence of these claims, and does not explicitly mention which versions of BIND may crash when interoperating with the Windows 2000 DNS Server.

Microsoft has tested Windows 2000 for DNS interoperability with the following:

Active Directory with BIND 8.1.2
Microsoft DNS (client & server) with BIND 4.9.7, 8.1.2 and 8.2

It is also important to note that the Internet Software Consortium (the developers of BIND) makes the following recommendation because of known problems with versions of BIND other than 4.9.7 and 8.2. (Refer to the ISC Web site):

"If you are running a version of BIND prior to 8.2.2 patchlevel 5, we recommend you upgrade to the current version for security reasons. If you cannot upgrade, we recommend you use BIND Version 4.9.7 rather than any lower 4.x releases. It is possible to obtain older versions of BIND; they are, however, provided for reference only and should not be used."

http://www.microsoft.com/Windows2000/news/bullet ins/novellpart3.asp

of course, since this isn't a anti-MS lie it will be moderated down :(

W2K sux ass - Netware is better

[Drestin]

We run Netware 4 and 5 at our shop and a few months back tried upgrading to Windows 2000. It was a nitemare and I'm sure glad we did it on a test subnet instead of the whole thing. Not only did W2k break the DNS servers we use externally but it's Active directory shit killed the NDS we had working. It was like a pervasive virus that just sucked up resources (saturated our 100 mb/s switches with replication data) and we started having login problems where none existed before! Amazing that this crap actually made it out of beta (or, hmmm, maybe it didn't!)

The Novell claims against this MS crap are legit and should be required reading for anyone considering ruining their existing network with this Windows 2000 crap!

now, if I can only get more of those netware boxes running linux... netware makes for a decent file/printer server but just sux when it comes to internetworking. Netware 5's IP support is weak, incomparable to any Linux implementation!

Oh well.

[Maul]

I have no plans to migrate to either Netware 5 or Win2K anyway, so it doesn't matter to me who wins this scuff. I know for a fact that we're not planning on installing Win2K on our current NT4 machines at work immediately. I think Novell is correct when they say industry will watch and wait. Plenty of companies screw over their systems each time a new version of Windows comes out, and I think they're frankly tired of it, and will infact wait to see how others fare with Win2K upgrades.

Anyway, I'm happy to stick with my Open Source stuff, thank you very much.

"You ever have that feeling where you're not sure if you're dreaming or awake?"

Re:Microsoft made problems to Novell for ages

[TummyX]

can't you run them under "command.com" in nt?

Re:Microsoft made problems to Novell for ages

[TummyX]

that last comment i made was uncalled for.

sorry. guilt caught up with me ;\

Re: what idiot moderated you up

[TummyX]

NT has CMD.EXE a command interpretor, but it also comes with command.com (c:\winnt\system32) for running old DOS programs.
Even windows 2000 comes with command.com.

Maybe you should try to know what you're talking about before saying anything.

Re:The best offense is a good defense

[Paolo]

Win2k Professional really does need Active Directory, and hence all new Domain Controllers that run Windows 2000 if you don't want to have networking be a pain in the butt.
Right now, if you are using Win2k to connect to a NT4 network, you must go through 5 sublevels in the Network Neighborhood to get to the NT4 shares. You cannot add NT4 printers either, because they are not served by a Win2k domain space. Yes, you can make shortcuts once you eventually find the NT Domain you were looking for, but it makes things more difficult when using network installs, etc.

Novell's problem will be that Active Directory can handle domain-wide auto logins, and manage disk quotas, email, and webspace all across a domain on a per-account basis. This is a boon to SysAdmins. The latest Novell can do this too I believe, but the rationale is why buy an 3rd part system to do something which is possible with the newly upgraded resources at hand? It will be an uphill battle against media hype/buzz and quick-thinking IT admins.

Is it FUD if it's true?

[Jake_Man]

Anyone remember the Linux benchmark fiasco?
M$ has a tried and true history of stating blatant falsehoods in their many FUD campaigns. Why are we labelling Novell's responding to such false allegations (as in the NDS cannot support more than 1000 objects, when it will hold a billion) as FUD instead of as defending themselves just as *nix/Linux users have been doing for so long?
So far, I have yet to find anything untrue on any of Novell's alleged "FUD" pages.
Shouldn't Novell be viewed as a sort of "brother in arms" when their trials and tribulations with the M$ media machine are compared to Linux's own?
-Jake

Re:Novell's problem

[Jake_Man]

Actually, Oracle 8 ships with Netare 5. It handles databases quite well. It's application serving that has traditionally been its weak point, and where they have welcomed NT. They've also recently partnered with IBM for new Java-based app serving to attempt to correct that oversight of theirs.

BorderManager is an excellent webserver, and kicks IIS's ass (as if that's difficult to do, really). I'm curious why you believe it to be so bad.

As far as the GUI interface, well, that's because end-user mgt make decisions, and it looks just like their every day desktops...so why not go with that thingy!?

But, you're right about marketing. Novell is destined for extinction if all they continue to do is rest upon their laurels as they have done. When was the last time you saw a Novell magazine ad, ad banner or television commercial? Who was the last Novell executive to be interviewed on the Today show?

Outside of LAN admins, nobody knows Novell. Hell, even Linux and FreeBSD are more recognizable than the Novell! They are so lacking in self-promotion it's pathetic.

Re:Oracle and BorderManager

[Jake_Man]

Yeah, the ad thing is horrible. I mean, I'm obviously a Novell gan, but it's hard to support an underdog that doesn't even tout itself in the same media as its competitors... Oh, I'm not shocked about BM not being listed. Again, who, other than admins, knows about it? About their site, well, recently they switched providers. I think their backbone is now...hang onto your CNE...GoodNet! You can't get good performance from a a shitty backbone. -Jake

Not if you know what you're doing...

[Jake_Man]

Even the old bindery days of Novell are better than this AD shit. I'll give you an example.

Take a statewide network, make a change to a user account's ACL in NDS and the repicas make the information known to the network. In ADS, it's a fucking file copy. So, take that statewide network, make a 4bit file grow to 11 megs by the end of it's travels as it updates all the servers because M$ doesn't like partioning replicas based on geographic location.

That is a mighty fine piece of coding there, huh?

Retro feel? Are you, or are you not using NWAdmin32? If you're still on 3.12 or 3.2, then you're still not stuck with the old syscon interface, you moron. Go and download WinSyscon and quit your M$ GUI-dependant bitching!

As far as removing the client, try using the appropriate UNC32.exe to uninstall the client. If you knew what you were doing, or bothered to look things up, then you'd not have fucked up your laptop.

You're A+ certified, aren't you?

Re:Have you ever used Netware?

[Col. Panic]

Umm - I'm a Netware admin. If the GUI to which you refer is NWADMN, yes it began with Netware 4. I was refering to the tools a Netware admin uses everyday: rconsole, monitor, filer, servman, etc.

Netware has *so* much in common with *nix that beginning with Netware 5, the "ConsoleOne" utility is actually the fvswm window manager and is started by typing 'startx'. :)

Novell's problem

[Col. Panic]

is that it doesn't market its product well enough. NDS is a well-tuned and extremely scalable file and print sharing product with much better stability and security than NT -- for LANs. Netware is awful as a database server and its web server is crap. As a company, Novell's real problem is twofold:

(1) Novell can't seem to market its product well enough - consequently people have used NT and are used to it. The completely GUI interface for NT appear friendlier than the text menus in Netware, even though Netware is really easy to use, especially for those with *nix experience.

(2) Microsoft is much better positioned for eCommerce with IIS. The biggest market today and tomorrow is the web, which M$ has recognized and has therefore developed a widely accepted web server.

M$ can throw around all the FUD they want - it won't make Active Directory perform any better. When AD performs as well as NDS, Novell is finished.

Fortunately for us, Linux will replace them both. :-p

Oracle and BorderManager

[Col. Panic]

I'm glad 5 works better with Oracle. We have our Netware 5 tree only for test purposes, but have not moved production traffic to that tree. With Oracle 8 on 4.11, we have spontaneous reboots and fairly frequent page fault abends. :(

Border Manager may be better than I have heard, but I don't know anyone who has run it and been impressed. Novell's site frequently returns weird errors and fails to load pages. Maybe that is just due to a really high number of hits but I kinda doubt it. Remember that recent /. article that listed the popular web servers? Border Manager wasn't even listed. Again probably due mostly to bad marketing. I would expect Apache to continue as the predominant web server, and Novell to fall even further behind unless I see an add *somewhere* and *soon*.

NT == resource hog

[eap]

I've always thought it was a shame that Netware lost market share to NT. Speaking from experience, in deploying many NT 4 (including SP's) and Netware 3.12 servers to some very high volume businesses, the NT boxowners were always the ones calling in with no system resources left. The Netware boxen just kept on working.

This, of course, is only anecdotal evidence, and should be taken as such.

Re:i hate novell

[Indy1]

i run a small 40 system lab at my school (devry - Pomona). The workstations all run nt4 - SP4 , using novell 5 for the network. The novell server in my lab is the one computer that never goes down. And its fairly boring clone hardware too.....its a dual PII-400 with 256 megs of ram on a tyan MB...ide hard drives, nothing too exotic. The only time that machine has gone down is during power failures. Novell may have its faults, but its stable enough as a server and as a network protocol in my opinion.

Re:Remember "Linux Myths"? (or, Why the Hell Not?)

[MrHat]

Hate to reply to myself...

Whoops... clarification: Perhaps the Open Source community was *a bit* more analytical in their rebuttal of Microsoft's allegations... ;-)

Re:Stupid question but what is a "directory servic

[z80]

Basiclly, it's a cool and easy way to keep track of everything connected to your network - servers, harddrives, workstations, routers, you name it. LDAP is an lighter version of a directory service, but for *nix-based operatingsystems , NDS is the answer. It's available for Solaris, Linux and HP-Ux, to name but a few. Check it out. Microsoft's gonna get their asses kicked if they think that they can compete against NDS. There is a good reason that Cisco, Bay and a few others dropped their support for Active Directory and choose to work with Novell and NDS instead - Novell came out with NDS like seven years ago, and surely, it didn't work so well at first but you gotta remember that a directory service like NDS is rilly rilly complicated and now that NDS 8 is out, most of the bugs are gone and it works great. Microsoft will never be able to make a working, scalable, stable and secure directory service in it's first release. I wonder why they still haven't showed it...

Re:It doesn't make them better

[z80]

The real fight isn't about the operating system itself - that is an obsolete way to think. The real fight is about the directory - Novell really couldn't care less if they sold less Netware licenses, but NDS is where the money is in the future. Novell supports all major platforms and vendors with NDS so they can be pretty sure to make money anyhow. And yes - Netware 5.1 rules.

Re:Good luck, Novell

[Relforn]

I just checked on the Novell site, and NDS and several variants of it are Novell trademarks.

Re:Who needs support when you've got O'Reilly book

[Relforn]

The O'Reilly books get a little bit spotty where it comes to BSD internals. You have to branch out to McKusick and Jolitz's books. I'd say adding Prentice Hall, Addison Wesley, and a few smaller publishing houses to the list fleshes it out, though.

Re:At least MS had Y2K fixes for 3.1. Netware 3 DI

[Compunerd]

It should be noted that Novell will discontinue incident based support for NetWare 3.12 by March 31. 2000, so don't count on help related to new hardware and stuff.

Novell will continue supporting NetWare 3.2 for some time, thought.

Roy

Re:FUD indeed...

[timmyd]

that page says it is an earlier version of bind so i guess that the recent version must work fine now

Re:"choosing" Win2k.

[timmyd]

I believe that you have the freedom to choose a better job(?)

Re:Netware just isn't relevant anymore

[timmyd]

I did a summer job for a company that used AS/400s. From the little that I used them, I must say that I really didn't like the way that they worked. The whole OS i think looked like ncurses (not that thats bad..) and it just seemed like it had a weird way of writing and loading files or maybe it was the way the guy that worked there told me. Well, i guess I don't have much good to say about them but I can't say I have a whole lot of experience with them. They seem primitive to me..

Directories and authentication services

[Kris Magnusson]

Kerberos is an authentication mechanism. It is simply a way of proving you are a valid network user. Try this link for more info about Kerberos and what it does.

NDS is a directory service. It contains and replicates all information about network users, groups, computers, and other resources on the Net.

NDS uses its own authentication mechanism as well as standard LDAPv3 authentication. ADS uses Kerberos and might even use standard LDAPv3 as well. I should try it sometime using the JNDI LDAP providers we use just to see for myself.

NDS uses multimaster replication, which enables you to have multiple directory masters on your network sharing and updating information. This means all directory information looks the same, no matter from which server you are connected to.

Multimaster replication is very nice for running a large company, as it guarantees referential integrity of all your directory information, no matter how big the company or how physically disparate are your branch offices.

Note that referential integrity is part of NDS: it has no "404 Not Found" equivalent.

NDS V8 scales up to a billion objects in the database, so you could theoretically create user objects for everyone on Earth in six or seven directories, although I would probably just use the two or three NDS servers in my house. =)

We announced NDS for Linux, so you will be able to run it on your favorite Linux distro and redirect all authentication requests into NDS.

Sorry if I sound like an informercial--I live this stuff.

Hope that helps.... =)

............ kris

Kris Magnusson
Open Source Architect
Novell, Inc.
Coauthor, Java Enterprise in a Nutshell
O'Reilly & Associates

Re:FUD indeed...

[rob_from_ca]

Yeah - I like this one. Perhaps Dynamic DNS doesn't work right with other DNS implementations - that's probably microsoft's fault. But come on...usually when a program crashes on bad input, we call that a bug. At least when it's microsoft's product that's crashing...:-)

Microsoft started this a while ago

[The Second Horseman]

I'm glad to see Novell fighting back for a change.

Microsoft recently had a few documents on their web site that were so close to false advertizing it wasn't funny. They were comparing Windows 2000/Active Directory with the original version of NDS that shipped with Netware 4.0 years ago. They didn't even compare it to the standard 7.x NDS versions most places are using, never mind the new (available for nearly a year) NDS 8/eDirectory product. They were stating limitations of the original NDS like they applied to current offerings. They pulled the articles pretty quickly, but that's been a standard tactic as well. Lie and then say "Whoops! Didn't mean it."

Microsoft decided to compare NT 4 (and the not-even-in-beta Windows 2000) against old versions of Netware (not Netware 5, which was available) a bit over a year ago as well.

They've been pulling this garbage for a couple of years now, and Novell's been trying to take the high road. Well, there's no way to take it when you have Microsoft basically making false statements and having their sales weasels calling the more uninformed upper tiers of companies and making rather dubious statements. Like when they tell gov't sites that NT is certified C2, even though the version they're selling isn't. (Not that it hugely matters, but it does call into question their honesty).

re: This isn't FUD (MODERATE THAT POST UP!)

[autechre]

This is HILARIOUS! Really disturbed, but HILARIOUS!!

I know - I was surprised too!

[father_guido]

That's why I depend on Slashdot - to point out all the unbiased reviews of Microsoft products.

Re:I know - I was surprised too!

[fluxrad]

wellllllllllll,
i think slashdot may be slightly biased against MS. but definitely less so than any other news source out there. I've only been reading slashdot religiously for about 3 months now, but i definitely think it's the best news source on the net

btw, for something funny click me

Oh, come on...

[father_guido]

This IS /. , "FUD for Nerds. Stuff that makes Microsoft look bad."

Ok, so both sides are launching insults...

[Lord Omlette]

But is there any serious way to get some sort of independent analysis which rates the two products? I know no one here is a fan of Microsoft, but if Novell has to resort to the same sort of FUD MS is using, does that necessarily make them better? Linux (or BeOS, hehe) don't need FUD to make them stand out, they stand out on their own...

No one I know is begging for the update to Win2k. Anyone know if anyone is begging to update to Novell Netware 5?
--
Peace,
Lord Omlette
AOL IM: jeanlucpikachu

Re:Ok, so both sides are launching insults...

[Jurph]

My roommate installed Win2K after showing up to an M$ "employment information session" that they sponsored at our CS dept. He got a free Win2K disk, installed, and a week later, was running Win98 again. The Win2K disk is now a beer coaster, and we try not to use it. In the words of a friend, "I don't think even Microsoft could cause a beer to crash... but I'm not chancing it."

I have no experience with Novell, except that our school uses it (with Groupwise) to run many parts of the network, and a fault in Groupwise caused a geometrically increasing number of "bounced" e-mails which brought our network to its knees faster than a freshman with Napster.

My roommate runs a Mandrake box; it's got an uptime of two years and a Matrix screen saver.

I don't know much, but I think a third party evaluation would do us a lot of good.

Re:Ok, so both sides are launching insults...

[Jake_Man]

Gartner Group has recommended to several state governments to unite all their agencies under NDS and to avoid Win2K until 2001 or 2002. I'd like to be able to point you to the reports, but you must subscribe and pay thousands to be able to read them...

Re:i hate novell

[dogmai]

Then you obviously don't a thing about Novell, or you have just never used anything else. My last had me taking car of 2 novell, 2 NT, 1 Citrix and an as/400. The novell servers never crashed or had to be booted or upated or patched once the entir 6 months, Nt went down on a weekly basis, Nt TSE/ctrix spool crashed many many many times, and the AS 400 went threw 2 software upgrades. Think about that

Where can I get this?

[TeamFXML]

Where can one download the beta NDS for Linux? I have checked Novell's site and it just had a press release. Is the beta closed?

Any word on what the costs will be for NDS? Will it be open source?

Re:Why I'm choosing Win2k.

[lintux]

Probably yes, because I do have tried it, Server edition. Maybe I had to disable more services, but it crashed on my Riva 128 and it couldn't use my PCI NE2000 NIC, so I didn't want to make too much work of it anyway.

Slashdotted?

[lintux]

It's a good idea, let's hope they'll get some market back. But now they're slashdotted...

Re:Slashdotted?

[lintux]

Good point. But at least Novell is able to produce stable software. Well, NetWare 3.x can reach uptimes of 1 year, and I suppose the newer versions can do that too.

Re:Slashdotted?

[slashdotter168]

I don't think that Novell is going to go after the Open Source Community because it has very strong ties and dealing with Caldera and I believe a couple of other Linux oriented projects. They are more intelligent than that..

Re:Slashdotted?

[auntfloyd]

What difference does it make if Novell gets some market share? Novell and MS are both coporations devoted to closed-source software. Either of them would crush you and your puny free operating system if they could.

If NetWare 5 beats Win2k, whose to say that Novell won't go after Linux/BSD next?

~~~~~~~~~
auntfloyd

Re:Why I'm choosing Win2k.

[lintux]

You must be having quite a expensive system if you want to upgrade... It's almost as slow as Windows 95 on a 40MHz 386, on my system. (233MHz 64MB)
No, I'm not exaggerating...

Re:At least MS had Y2K fixes for 3.1. Netware 3 DI

[lintux]

Y2K fixes for NetWare??? Why??? I have a Netware 3.11 server running, and it still works, just like last year. No problem. So Novell at least knows that fixing a problem that doesn't even exist is not necessary.

It doesn't make them better

[spaceorb]

But that's not the point. Microsoft really deserves some negative attention. They deserve a taste of their own medicine. I don't think this will help Novell much, but with the US DoJ vs Microsoft in the news, plus a FUD campaign against the Windows line, managers will definitely think twice before using W2K. Novell's reasoning behind this is: "If there's less people using Windows, there's more people using NetWare." Though I don't think that will happen, it will have people seriously looking at alternatives.

Re:i hate novell

[slashdotter168]

NetWare is great, it does have its faults which if someone wants more info they can mail me for examples but it isn't necessary to post them here. NT more specifically, Windows 2000 will not make it into many production environments because there is virtually no software "certified" for it, which makes the whole Active Directory thing useless because the security risks with non-active directory software are pretty substantial. Microsoft shot themselves in the foot by releasing the latest service packs for NT because now NT is as stable as it will ever be under 4.0 so who is going to want to go from stable to bleeding edge/possibly unstable? It wouldn't make a lot of sense. NetWare and NDS have been around for a while and most of the kinks have been worked out, it is a scalable, enterprise network operating system, it can hold more objects in the Tree than most companies can dream of having and the redundancy that comes with partitioning the Directory is phenominal. With a NetWare/Unix environment who the F*ck neeeds NT?

Re:FUD indeed...

[slashdotter168]

This problem does exist, it is Microsofts fault, the culprit is Dynamic DNS, Microsofts pitiful combination of WINS/DNS. It pretty self explanatory but it doesn't work with legacy DNS (read BIND) so you are basically up the creek if you want to keep existing DNS servers and use Active Directory/DDNS. Active Directory doesn't work without DDNS. Win2000 promoting a heterogenous network environment, no, I think not.

Let the mudslinging begin

[jimbobborg]

It should be fun watching these two heavy weights battle it out. Maybe we could sell tickets.

Re:At least MS had Y2K fixes for 3.1. Netware 3 DI

[Alex_B7]

There were fixes for Netware 3 and up. If you don't want the new features of Netware 5+, then don't buy them - you can still buy Netware 3 and 4.

NDS vs Active Directory

[Alex_B7]

I'm both an MCSE and an CNE4, and I really really really really hate Microsoft's pathetic networking model of Domains and crap. DNS is far superior to NT's domain model. Now comes Active directory. I honestly haven't worked much with it yet, but I do know that it's basically an upgraded domain model. There's still domains etc etc, and it's crap. There are many reasons I hate NT's networking, but I'm not going to go over that here as much as I'd like to. When Novell officially releases NDS for Linux, I really hope the Linux community embraces it. It's far superior to Active Directory, and we certainly are not going to AD for Linux from Microsoft anytime soon or ever as it's basically a hacked up Domain model - which is crap. Check out http://developer.novell.com/ and check out the programming API. Hopefully it will be available for Linux soon!

Re:NDS vs Active Directory

[Otis_INF]

I'm an MSCE too (9 certificates) and I think the domain model is great. DNS is a static system, which should be removed a long time ago. These 2 things are not related really. The domain system used in NT is not usable on the internet and vice versa.

Because you hate it and I love it, makes it even I think. Your opinion is biased by your personal favor. That's totally ok, but not usable in a discussion. :). NDS is ok, you say it's FAR superior to AD. Ok, let's have it then. throw it out in the open and explain WHY it's so incredibly far more superior.

What IS Novell?

[xtremex]

Is Netware a true Operating system? I have a copy of Beta 5 and I never installed it...doesn't it need DOS to run? I was never too sure of what Netware really was...a hybrid glue to make extranneous OS's happy in banks? (That's the only place I've seen Novell honestly)
Is it a true standalone os?

Re:What IS Novell?

[The_miffo]

Novell uses dos to point on the start of the kernel and to load drivers to for example a disk array. You put dos, server.exe and the drivers on an ide disk and the rest on anything that can store data. It doesnt hamper performance at all since dos isnt used at all after it has started. It sorta works like loadlin. They could remake it but it has worked just splendid over past years so they havent had a reason to do so. If it works, dont fix it like. Remember that novell mainly consists of techies who dont care a bit about how it looks, rather how it works.

Re:What IS Novell?

[DHartung]

What planet are you from? Novell Netware is everywhere. It doesn't need DOS to run; it's a Network Operating System. It can do file and print services, which is what it's best at. It's also capable of doing database and application services through additional software called modules (which are basically like services), but these were marginalized in the market due to their proprietary nature. NT is really better for running application services (e.g. SQL Server), and much more easily and flexibly administered. Novell always held the lead for mission-critical data centers, though, with SMP, fault tolerance, RAID, et cetera, all before MS released the first NT.

There are many, many corporate sites who run Novell Netware for file servers, possibly also for print servers, and run NT for domain and profile administration and application servers. But NT tends to make inroads like this and then stop, partly because the MIS departments are heavy with Novell-certified professionals who've used Netware for 15-odd years.

Part of the Win2000 bid by MS is to finally replace the remaining Novell servers in these organizations.
----

Re:What IS Novell?

[Toth]

REMOVE DOS is one of the Novell Server commands. When memory was scarce it was used to free up memory for cache buffers. Nowadays it is sometimes used by a technician who wants to reboot the server. If you DOWN the server and EXIT, you will be returned to DOS. If you REMOVE DOS first, the machine reboots when you exit Novell.

The company that sold Warp

[jamoke]

The company that took OS/2 away from MS and continued to develop the platform dumped it internally a couple of years ago. They have been a Win shop ever since. By the 4th quarter of this year they plan to be running WinY2K corporate wide.

bah

[ArchieBunker]

Netware 5 will support tcp/ip natively, so stop bitching about IPX not being an "open standard".

well

[ArchieBunker]

I used win2k professional RC3 for a few months and it never crashed or blue screened. It was probably just as stable as linux. Then again I've never had any bad crashes on my system, two celeron 333's overclocked to 500. The only thing that happens is it locks up while playing unreal tournament, which is kind of expected considering my cpu's.

damn

[ArchieBunker]

I would have smacked the teeth out of my bosses mouth had he said that. Just the 512meg of ram, christ. That onyx they are using sounds pretty sweet too.

Re:You know what's *really* funny

[Mercury2k]

There is no Netware v3.5, are you real? Or are you just making this up. Fool.
------

You mean you want something so dumb that...

[locutus074]

...and a product that required training to use properly.

Any "server product" that is worth using requires knowledge of it.

Would you really want untrained persons administering your Net-connected LAN?

Take an NT guy and put him in front of a Linux box...
Or take your UNIX admin and put her in front of an NT box...

I think you can see where I'm headed with this. If you make it so simple that training is not needed, you wind up with something that provides no real value. If you build something that can do useful work, you'll need to be trained how to use it properly!

Sure, you can just sit down in front of the terminal and start typing away, but you'll not be getting the full benefit from the product.

Every software product requires training (in some fashion, whether that be classes, books, or whatever) to use properly. Especially servers.

Re:Netware/NT

[586]

This is why we need the anonymous logins...

somewhat ironic

[lotia]

it seems quite amusing to have a company like novell which provides file/print, etc. services mainly to win 95/98/nt/2k environments locking horns with ms. were it not for ms, novell would not really have a reason to exist. they are now trying to diversify, by pushing products like groupwise (which is significantly below par in comparision to the two opensource imap servers on *nix boxes), but their bread and butter was dependent and ms client machines. their macintosh support has waned as their os has matured. i will re-affirm that nds is a wonderful thing, and the products that they have make use of it in and extremely elegant fashion, but novell would do well to support other clients as well as it does ms ones. they do have nfs support, but it is not done terribly well and there are very strict conditions for nfs services on a netware volume. zen works is a wonderful tool, but again it is a windows only tool. they should at least support the mac. a little diversification would allow them to tap into other markets and leave them less vulnerable to FUD.

Re:Marketing vs Marketing and we all know what's t

[The_miffo]

Wrong about no one knows what AD is. Novell has worked side by side with Microsoft for a long time now and knows AD as good as Microsoft does. They have tested it and made clients for NDS and integrated AD into NDS so they probably knows a great deal about it. A fact is that it STILL is domains, buried under a tree ontop, hence the strange DNS "adjustments".

Re:Before AD and NDS...

[y0d4]

StreetTalk wasn't bad. Keep in mind the project manager on AD came from Banyan.

Also, St. Talk wasn't very much before NDS. NDS has nearly ten years on AD. The first NDS based Netware, 4.0, was release AT THE SAME TIME as Netware 3.12

Go figure....

Waiting for 2001

[Anonymous Coward]

One very solid point in the Novell page: Lotsa businesses that plan to change over to Windoze 2000 will be waiting at least a year before taking the plunge. That's a *very* good idea: Let others pay technical staff to read bug tracking literature and apply functional and security patches on a week to week basis, until a more stable build comes out. That's what I would be pushing for, with a strictly cost-based argument, if my management insisted on getting Win2K.

Netware/NT

[Anonymous Coward]

I know this is a bit offtopic but anyways...

My employer made the uninformed decision to "upgrade" all of our servers (both Netware 4.11 and Solaris 2.5.1 as well as an older Onyx system) to Win2K when it becomes available. I'm on the system admin team, and I'm seriously thinking of leaving. Another note about the management there is that they're total assholes... When we decommissioned a SPARCserver 690MP (4x180MHz, 512MB RAM) and two SPARCstation 10s they fucking *SMASHED* it up and basically trashed pretty much everything internally. The SIMMs were broken, CPUs crushed, HDs smashed (4x18GB diff SCSI in the 690... grrr)! They claim they do this because of high school kids digging in the trash, what a load of BS. This company sucks. I'm sure the same fate will happen to the other stuff when it goes...
RANT OFF

Re:Netware/NT

[phil reed]

The SIMMs were broken, CPUs crushed, HDs smashed (4x18GB diff SCSI in the 690... grrr)!

I could actually understand smashing the drives. They could have been worried that data on them might have gotten out of the control of the company. The best way to avoid that would be to destroy the drives.

As far as destroying the machine is concerned, there are often tax ramifications to desposing hardware. If you're getting rid of it, and you've depreciated it completely, you cannot have somebody else pick it up and thereby demonstrate that it still has 'value'. That would mean that the company wrote off more $$$ than they were legally allowed to, thereby exposing themselves to a tax lawsuit. The response in cases like that is often to physically destroy the equipment before it hits the dumpster.


...phil

Re:Netware/NT

[DHartung]

My employer made the uninformed decision to "upgrade" all of our servers (both Netware 4.11 and Solaris 2.5.1 as well as an older Onyx system) to Win2K when it becomes available. I'm on the system admin team, and I'm seriously thinking of leaving.

Well, if you want to continue in the Netware or Solaris worlds, you'd better leave. Win2000 isn't that bad, though. (It doesn't sound like you have enough experience to say that they're "uninformed".)

Another note about the management there is that they're total assholes... When we decommissioned a SPARCserver 690MP (4x180MHz, 512MB RAM) and two SPARCstation 10s they fucking *SMASHED* it up

The other poster is correct: this is done for compliance with tax write-off rules. If it's documented as completely destroyed, they can write off the full remaining value. Granted, few companies do this, but I was at a place that upgraded everyone to 14" color monitors (from 12" amber monitors; this was a while ago), and even though the old monitors worked perfectly fine, we were instructed to use a hammer to smash all the screens.
----

Re:Netware/NT

[mindstrm]

Umm... if you want to progress your carreer in the sysadmin field, and you are in a company where management just 'decides' that everything should be W2k for no reason.. get out.

Re:Netware/NT

[Inoshiro]

"SPARCserver 690MP (4x180MHz, 512MB RAM) and two SPARCstation 10s...4x18GB diff SCSI in the 690...They claim they do this because of high school kids digging in the trash, what a load of BS."

Exactly. If I knew that was in the trash, I wouldn't hire any shifty highschool kids -- I'd jump in myself! New firewall, two new workstations, and more pr0n storeage.. yeeeehhhaaaaw!!!!
---

It's all that and MORE.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you don't use a directory service, you'll never know what it is. With NDS, I can move people from Sales in NY to Sales in CA with a drag and drop. So when they arrive in CA on Monday morning, their ID is the same and their password is the same and all of their files are waiting for them. They grab a local PC and login (as I said, same name, same password) and they're busy making money again. Try that with any other login scheme. And with Zen, I can push the apps they need to their PC. It will take longer to login the first time, but they will have EXACTLY what they had in NY. Now, security, in the *nix world we have USER, GROUP and WORLD. Under NDS, you can have as many groups with permissions to your directory as you want. And they can all have different rights. And the rights are more granular. Now, extend those rights to people and departments and geographical locations. I can give someone in NY the rights to change NY employee's passwords so I won't be woken up 3 hours early when they get to work. But this guy might have no other rights to add or delete users or their files. But I can give someone in Sales the rights to add/delete salespeople. But no rights to change passwords. That means that the ENTIRE tree can be managed by ME but each location will be managed locally and those people can ONLY manage their location. That way, if Joe in NY is killed by a cab, I can handle his job from my office in CA until we get a replacement. And if I'm killed in an earthquake, each location can handle itself until I'm replaced. I can give your boss full rights to your files and I can give his boss full rights to his files. But HIS boss will not have any rights to YOUR files. That way your boss can monitor your work and his boss can monitor his work but his boss has to go through him to get to your work. Or however I want to set it up.

Microsoft marketing

[phil reed]

The problem will be that the executives will read how "...ActiveDirectory is just like NDS..." on their airline magazines and then come down and tell the computer people to dump Novell since Microsoft can give them the same thing. It took a year for NDS to get stable enough to use (I know - we tried), and I'd expect no less for ActiveDirectory. But, try explaining that to management.


...phil

Re:Netware just isn't relevant anymore

[phil reed]

I don't know what world you're living in, but Netware is VERY relevant. Novell just hasn't been doing much marketing against the Microsoft juggernaut.

Just out of curiosity, what do you think of AS/400s?


...phil

Re:Shouldn't this be a Humor article? Where the fo

[BluBrick]

Sales of Novell's NOS have doubled over the past 12 months.

Both users are very happy.

Not a sea change at all.

[Zapman]

The page quotes zdnet as follows:
"We've known for the last year that corporate America is taking a wait-and-see attitude towards Windows 2000, but the fact that well over half have no plans for adopting Windows 2000 until 2001 or later and that a large percent of users plan never to migrate starts to look like a sea change."

This industry, for all it's speed, has no memory of history. I remember the exact same type logic for NT4's release. And look what happened.

The reason that win2k will beat out Novell for the marketing is that new computers will come shipped with it. You won't be seeing dell having a check box for 'pre-install Novell 5'. You will see one for Win2k. IIRC, you can see it now, for a BETA! Microsoft will win this war with novell due to it's control of the OEM's. And novell doesn't have the popularity to force OEM's to change, like they did for linux.

In 1 year, or more likly 4 months, you won't be able to buy a computer with NT4 on it. Then companies will either have to upgrade everyone to maintain compatability, or downgrade the new boxes. For workstations, people won't like getting a 'downgraded' box, and will complain, and eventually get win2k.

Unfortunatly, it's not about supperior products.

Re:Not a sea change at all.

[flight666]

Um... Excuse me... have you looked at Dell lately? You can order any one of their servers with Novell 5 pre-installed.

Re:At least MS had Y2K fixes for 3.1. Netware 3 DI

[poink]

They DID have a patchkit. It was about 31 NLM replacements and a patch for SERVER.EXE. I know because I installed it on a server.

BTW - Novell 3.2 was basicly 3.12 with Y2K patches.

referring to this page

[Barbarian]

http://www.novell.com/advantage/ms_fud. html

A bit late for Novell?

[RayChuang]

I personally think that Novell seriously blew it by only NOW announcing their campaign against Windows 2000 Server editions.

Mostly because Novell should have been doing this like early 1999 when NetWare 5.0 first came out. Instead, Novell gave time for Microsoft to rev up their Windows 2000 PR bandwagon, and NetWare 5.0 got ignored by way too many IT managers as a result.

Also, don't forget that Novell is also getting punted all over the place by the rapid rise in Linux for use in departmental servers. Mostly because Linux costs a tiny fraction of what NetWare 5.x costs to purchase, especially for medium to large workgroups. In my personal opinion, the success of Linux servers has hurt Novell far more than Microsoft, especially since Linux has Samba, which allows easy integration to workstations running Windows 95/98 and NT 4.0 Workstation from any Linux server machine.

Re:Uh....

[ralphclark]

No problem. Your post was highly informative, mine wasn't...for obvious reasons. But I'd still contend that Novell missed the boat. It still looks clunky because it's not Unix and it's not Windows. Is there even room for another mass-market server platform these days?

The world has moved on; computing is now a much bigger arena than it was in Netware's day, and a large proportion of our computing infrastructure now depends upon services originating from Unix. With Netware 5 they've tried to drag the product into the internet age (like so many other proprietary platform vendors) by adding TCP/IP and making it into a web server platform. You have indicated some scepticism about the latter. I agree, Netware is unlikely to make it as a web server platform because it has no pedigree as such and there is strong competition in the market already.

But then, if Netware is destined to be remain purely as a file-and-print server then who needs it? This is the basis of my complaint that it's not a general purpose OS. Almost all network installations these days require more than just file and print services. All existing requirements can be met with either Unix or NT or a combination of both. Introducing a third platform means requiring sysadmin skills etc. for it in adddition to the other two. It's hard to imagine that any incremental benefit would outweigh the additional cost of network complexity.

Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction

Re:Uh....

[ralphclark]

Actually I have had good experiences with Groupwise for email & Border Manager for internet access.

That's funny, because I've had experience with those too and I think they suck. Groupwise is about as reliable as MS Exchange, i.e. not very reliable at all. I even had my whole account mysteriously disappear forever one time. Border Manager (because it is designed for dummies to use) is very easy to misconfigure. Ever find yourself behind a firewall which blocks out far more than is necessary - because the sysadmin doesn't know *anything* about the internet? These things should not be made *too* simple to use because then you have simple people using them.

Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction

Re:Win2k Pro performance is slow according to MS

[ralphclark]

I think they went with FAT 16 because all of the operating systems support it.

That would be a completely bogus reason to cripple the more capable systems. After all, the file system speed does contribute to the overall system speed in a "real world" deployment.
IMHO, using FAT16 on the NT and 2K boxes means this isn't anything like a real world test. Yet another demonstration of MS incompetence.


Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction

Re:Sounds just like *nix!

[finkployd]

And you can't even get support unless you're running a certain distro

I've gone from complete newbie, to paid Linux admin without ever paying money for support. All along the way I had this nifty thing called the Internet to help me. That's right, newsgroups, how-tos, IRC, user groups, they all helped me learn, or fix any problems I ran into. The best part, they didn;t charge me. Wierd huh?

Homer Simpson: "They have the Internet on computers now!"

Finkployd


Bill Gates: "Innovation"

Re:Microsoft made problems to Novell for ages

[DHartung]

it always seemed that everything they did was designed to make it harder for NetWare servers to operate with Windows workstations properly and I admire Novell for overcomming all the burdens that M$ laid in their path. As far as I remember Novell was silent about these things, but all the admin could experience them heavily

I absolutely agree. One of the most frustrating things is that WinNT's command line cannot run Novell command-line utilities. Of coruse, MS would innocently shake their heads and say the utils were written for DOS and CMD.EXE is not DOS -- but at the same time they would tout NT as a respectable partner in Novell-based networks. Very frustrating; you were limited to using the GUI tools (point click ad infinitum) or keeping an extra workstation around to run the command-line stuff.

(Why the hell couldn't MS write a REAL dos emulator for NT? It wasn't just Novell that would benefit. Morons.)

Essentially, Microsoft seemed to have a strategy of getting NT into an organization (e.g. as a SQL server), in effect touting the benefits of a mixed organization, then to turn around tout an all-MS environment as superior to a mixed one. They certainly didn't bend over backwards to make them play nicely together.
----

Re:Reminds me of an email I sent to Novell...

[Silver A]

Another point I'd like to make about Netware is while it is a superior product compared to NT the problem is that there aren't enough people who really know their way around Netware compared to those that do NT. That's going to really hamper Netware. They should do something like Sun and SCO do and sell cheap media kits/licenses. The more people that know Netware, the more likely it is going to be deployed in a commercial setting. I think this would be more sucessful in combatting M$ than just bitching and whining.

They do. There are books on Netware admin which come with licence-restricted copies of Netware 5.

Re:Stupid question but what is a "directory servic

[nairb]

A directory service is very similar to NIS+ in the Unix world. It creates a central place for managing all user accounts.

Though NDS is so far ahead of where NIS could ever be, specifically with regards to replacting the data, and sharing/exporting it into other formats such as LDAP.

Its also important to mention that unlike Active Directory, NDS is *NOT* platform centric, it can operate perfectly fine on a network without any netware boxes.

For example I operate a small e-commerce firm we have 3 Sun E250's and about 100 Linux boxes which run on Compaq proliants, we have *no* netware servers. But when I delete a user he disappears from all the systems, when I add a user I get to pick which groups (systems) he has access to. When he changes his password, the password changes on all the systems. Its a nice pretty java interface to manage the whole thing, its a bit slow under Linux but it runs well under CDE.

NDS links into the PAM (Password Authentication Module) and really takes the headaches out of syncronizing passwords, etc.

Right now we're just bringing up our Intranet webserver so all .htaccess logins are also authenicated against NDS. I hate having 26 different passwords on different systems. Did I mention NDS can also manage how many systems a person can be logged into?

I know your wondering what happens if NDS goes down? (to be totally honest I have no clue, since it hasn't happened yet) but its supposed to read the local password file, we removed the root user and gave another "secret" user a root login, just enough access so I could reclaim the box if necessary, but NDS has been extremely reliable for us!

I think we might have had more issues if we ran NDS on Netware since I think Netware is a poor excuse for an operating system. We're playing with the idea of running Netware for the marketing people so we can use ZenWorks to manage their workstations, Novell ZenWorks rocks, but it requires Netware.
FYI: The linux verion of NDS isn't out yet, but i'm running the beta and it seems fine.

Re: what idiot moderated you up

[QuMa]

I stand corrected.

Re:Microsoft made problems to Novell for ages

[QuMa]

NT doesn't have a command.com, it has a cmd.exe

"choosing" Win2k.

[dieMSdie]

I wish I had a fscking choice!
The company I work for (a major Cable/Communications company employing nearly 20,000 people) is preparing to "upgrade" every single computer to Win 2000 and Office 2000. It makes me physically ill to even think about it. Microsoft's reps are pushing it to the hilt, too. Offering any discount necessary to "lock in" all of us to Win2000.
Unfortunately, I am in no position to push for an Open Source alternative to this mess. :(

Re:Uh....

[Basje]

It not only uses DOS as a bootloader, it uses it all the way. And not only that, it _needs_ dos 6.

Any newer version of dos, (eg from win95), will load netware, but causes major problems in any Novell server 3/4/5.



----------------------------------------------

Re:Computer Industry Changes

[coyote-san]

Microsoft has to do the big advertising blitz precisely because Windows is an established product.

Businesses will not undertake an upgrade lightly - the cost per system can easily hit several kilobucks after you include the Win2k upgrade license, the third party product upgrades (for products that break under W2K), the IT staff to install the software, the staff to retrain employees, the lost productivity of employees in training classes and for the next N days, etc. Few shops will pay less than $1000/system to upgrade, some might pay upwards of $5000/system.

These upgrades tend to be "all-or-nothing" affairs. While you could run one group under NT4 and another group under W2K, that involves a duplication of effort that might be more costly than simply pushing everything over to the new OS. Again, that is a strong disincentive to upgrading quickly, esp. with Microsoft's hard-earned reputation for poor quality initial releases. Few IT managers will rush to upgrade today... and twice again in the next six months as service packs are released.

So the target audience of W2K knows that the cost of switching is significant - and the cost of the software license is only a small part of the total. They have to be convinced that the cost is worth it - and that's where the advertising blitz comes in.

As a secondary effect, don't forget that some managers will be comparing the cost of upgrading from NT4 to W2K (esp. if it requires a major hardware upgrade) to the cost of switching from NT4 to Linux. I'm sure a lot of the marketing will focus on how much is the same (low cost of transfer), not how much is different (so the cost of conversion to Netware or Linux is comparable to the cost of conversion to Win2K).

Re:You know what's *really* funny

[Malcontent]

True Story.
I had a job as a network engineer once in a hospital. There was a netware server (V3.5) that had 200+ users on it and it also managed a bunch of printers. One day I had to add another hard drive to it because the old one was running out of space. The entire operation took about a half hour but the actual donwtime was more like 15 minutes. That was the only downtime for that server in two years. Here is the kicker.
It was a 486 with 16 megs of ram (an IBM using Micro channel!).

Re:Why I'm choosing Win2k.

[dennisp]

"MORE stable than our Linux boxes ont he same hardware"

Care to provide some examples? It may in fact be true, but no one is going to believe baseless claims unless you at least back them up.

NDS for Linux Beta

[wowbagger]

Please tell us where the beta for NDS for Linux is. I work in a Novell shop and have several Linux servers that I'd love to do NDS sync on.

Fart in the wind

[dimator]

I think it's time for a reality check. Sure, everyone and their mother is talking smack about W2K. Sure, I see online publications everyday saying how companies "are not planning to upgrade to W2K until 2001" or "are taking a wait-and-see approach." But let me give you a real world example of how this is all hot air.

A few months ago, I tried W2K, RC2 I beleive it was, at work. So I called my bosses and IT managers and they looked at it, and said it was all right, but, to paraphrase, "we cannot justify upgrading to it, because there is no reason to." Ie, if it ain't broke (our NT4 network) don't fix it. Fast forward 2 months, and those same bosses come up to me and say "good news, we're gonna be ordering a new W2K server soon." WTF happened?! I'll tell you what happened, Hype. Microsoft sells one thing and one thing only, and that is the _word_ "Microsoft." They make point-and-click admin's like my bosses (and every other MCSE, NT admin, etc) beleive with all their heart (and purchasing buck) that MS is the only game in town, and one should get all their newest stuff ASAP.

I firmly beleive that's what will happend. Online publications be damned, opinions be damned, caution be damned, W2K is gonna sell like hotcakes. Novell FUD? Please... There's only one FUD source anyone listens to.

Re:Using FAT with NT

[anonymous cowerd]

I do the same thing on my company's NT boxes; I make several 2GB FAT16 drives. Users whine because there are so many drive letters but tough. Not only can you copy files off in an emergency, but if your FAT gets booglarized you can sometimes fix it in place with a little judicious use of a disk editor. (I've had to do this a few times, earning immense respect for my amazing voodoo system-fixing abilities at the office.) I suppose if NTFS were documented then you could do something similar with a damaged NTFS partition, but as we all know the NTFS format is a deep dark secret that you, the lowly mudcrawling customer, are not allowed to know. Also if you're crazy enough to have Win9x as an boot-up alternative, you can access those same FAT16 partitions.

But if you need to get files off an NTFS partition, go look on a search engine and check out a product called NTFSDOS. It was made by a company called (if I remember correctly) Winternals and it used to be free a couple years ago. NTFSDOS is an MS-DOS driver that mounts all the NTFS partitions it can find as read-only. It's small enough that you can fit it on a bootable floppy. It doesn't support NT user permissions, all files are visible and copyable, so it's the mother of all security holes, but if an unauthorized user can get physical access to your server you've got worse security problems than NTFSDOS anyway (think "a disgruntled unauthorized user carrying a wood axe"). At any rate, when your NT system goes belly-up and you want to copy off the files trapped in an NTFS partition, NTFSDOS can save the day for you.

Winternals also had some utilities with which you could fix an NT system that would blue-screen on startup. Those weren't free but they weren't unreasonably priced either. Another cheap repair I've done on NT systems which blue-screened before they'd boot is to look at the list of drivers on the blue screen, then boot up in DOS and rename all the drivers that don't seem absolutely necessary. You get a load of error messages because NT can no longer find drivers it is trying to load, but sometimes you can get the system to boot and then maybe you can undo whatever awful thing you did (typically installing a new program) that screwed up your NT box so bad.

Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net

Re:Novell is getting wiser

[Pfhreakaz0id]

60 people for a marketing team for a company the size of Novell is a joke. What is their yearly gross revenue? I worked at an AIR CONDITIONING company which had a yearly gross of $50 mil or so that had 5 marketing people (and I considered that small). I know people here think marketing is a joke, but COME ON. The best product in the world is useless if nobody ever figures out it's the best product.

Central Utah, USA I believe.

[slashdot-terminal]

They were never entirely killed off. They released Novel 5 a while back.

Re:Computer Industry Changes

[VAXman]

I think this just shows you how much the computer industry has changed. In the '80s t was all about who had the better technology. The company who spent more money on R&D would win customers. Now today it seems that companies are worrying more about politics than developing actual companies.

Oh, yeah right. DEC had demonstrably better products than Sun did in the 1980's, for example, but Sun won out. Handily. And you know why? Because nothing has changed. Sun was better at producing FUD than making computers, and DEC had very poor marketing but top notch engineering. Sun published all sorts of FUD which was just plain wrong like "The Sun 3/60 is ten times as fast as the MicroVAX II". Yeah. FUD has been going on since the beginning of the industry - this is nothing new. It's actually rather tame now compared to what has happened in the past.

Remember "Linux Myths"? (or, Why the Hell Not?)

[MrHat]

This isn't unprecedented or uncalled-for by any means. Microsoft struck first - with their "informative" article entitled "Windows 2000 Server: A Prime Choice over Novell's Netware 5.0", similar to their "Linux Myths" article and (my favorite) "How to remove Linux from your computer and install NT".

Novell is responding just like the Open source community did to the "Linux Myths" article. What are they supposed to do? Stay quiet and take it like a man? Of course, this just increases the FUD-to signal ratio.

What kind of reply would anyone here like to have seen?

Re:=]

[MrHat]

Or, in South Park-speak:


[A commercial is playing]
Guy: What is the future of America? Is it the money we make?

[A dollar flies by the screen]
Guy: The quests we conquer

[Shot of Neil Armstrong on the moon flies by]
Guy: No. It's the children.

[Shows a pic of the five boys]
Guy: So what do the children have to say about Microsoft?

[Kyle's head flies by]
Kyle: I don't like big corporations.

[Then Stan]
Stan: I like small businesses.

[Then Cartman]
Cartman: I believe in the family owned enterprise.

[Kenny]
Kenny: To get back to the home owned enterprise.

[And finally Tweek]
Tweek: Ah!

Guy: It's time to stop large corporations. Prop Ten is about children. Vote yes on Prop Ten or else you hate children. You don't hate children, do you? Remember, keep American business small or else.

[Show a pic of all five boys' heads as burnt skulls with hats]

Guy: Paid for by Novell and citizens for a fair and equal way to get Microsoft kicked out of town forever.

The best offense is a good defense

[soulsteal]

Novell isn't attacking Microsoft, they're just pointing out that Microsoft gives the impression that W2K Pro and Server NEED each other AND Active Directory. They then offer, in shameless self-promotion, their own little implementation that has been used with NT 4 Workstation and Server. They're just reminding people that they have alternatives other than Micro$oft. The claims of being better just come with the self-promotion. What good is offering alternatives if there aren't any that can rival what is being pushed as a necessity?

Re:they lost it without the fud

[malkodan]

high prices, expensive support, hard to use, all those things become small near the real reason of purchasing Netware to be your server - Security. MS is known to have security flaws in their programs, notablly their OS's windows 95 and 98. IMO, i would prefer Netware, and to gurantee that i have a working perfectly network, and not to be in doubt with microsoft products, which i said before are weak when it comes to security. besides, also if it's hard to use, i dont go pissed off that i can't ride a Rols Roys, wake up the next day and drive a bug.

Novell is simply in a nasty position

[jeroenb]

They were basically creating products to complement the stuff from Microsoft. But Microsoft expanding their productline and functionality in the direction of whatever Novell made to enhance the platform was inevitable. Novell has actually been a great help to Microsoft, pointing out were their products lacked. And, in a way, steering towards their own demise.

Marketing vs Marketing and we all know what's true

[Otis_INF]

Don't we?

The 'MS' camp can't be, so it SHOULD be Novell. As a microsoftie (yeah flame me, I don't care) I laugh about the 'case studies' MS puts up to proof another product is bad/wrong/whatever. Whoever goes for that crap is truely in the wrong profession. Same goes for the other company's marketing departments and their mudthrowing 'Case Studies' about the products of the competition. You fall for those too?

I hope not :)

For the people who already know what's right and what's wrong: beware what you believe. Think who spread the texts you think is right. Is it the company or is it the techteam working on the product?

About the NDS vs AD debate. NDS is already out there for some time now. It wasn't up to par when it saw it's first light, it seems to be usable very well in lots of environments. So people get used to it, know it's strengths etc. AD on the otherhand isn't even out there. It's not even released. No-ONE has seen it. Only selected testers who got RC3 (and I don't think a lot of them are reading /. all day ;)). The rest of you is making his judgement on the quality of AD on what's written in the press, and especially on sites with doubtable reputations like ZDnet.

Novell fights for every percent marketshare they can get. It's their right. For people who have to use products from both companies, MS or Novell, it's better to test out what's there, and judge for ourselves.

And that is only possible AFTER Feb. 17.
Or did you all do excessive tests with AD on a serverfarm full with win2K server machines and numerous clients and also the same test with NDS?

I guess so...

Computer Industry Changes

[mr llama]

I think this just shows you how much the computer industry has changed. In the '80s t was all about who had the better technology. The company who spent more money on R&D would win customers. Now today it seems that companies are worrying more about politics than developing actual companies. MS launching a huge marketing blitz is just an exmaple of how the market changed. If Win2k was so good would MS really need that big of a campaign? They are all ready a well established brand! Linux is trying to put real sofftware developement back into the industry but will it ever revert back? Only time will tell.

I don't care for either company

[buckrogers]

But it seems to me that Microsoft is practicing FUD against NDS and Novell is giving detail examples of the problems with Active Directory. These are two different things entirely and I auplaud Novell for their restraint.

One of the bigest issues I have with AD is that it only runs on W2K. It isn't even backwards compatible to Windows 98/95 or even Windows 3.1 which a lot of businesses are still using. And the fact that they took a thing like kerberos and perverted it to be proprietary and incompatible with the standard kerberos is beyond belief. "Embrace and Extend" anyone?

Novell works and plays well with others. Novell supplies clients to work with nearly every OS so that you can use their servers or not and NDS is seperate from their servers. You can run NDS on a network without _any_ Novell servers.

All in all I think that Novell is playing very fair against an unscrupulous opponent.

Why I'm choosing Win2k.

[Electric Angst]

Well, it's good to see that EVERYONE on the planet is now berating Win2k. Still, I'm going to upgrade, if only to get the stinking pile of feces called NT 4.0 off of my system. My job on the other hand... We're waiting and seeing (which is really bad, since our university had a contract where we can get it ultra-cheap.) Maybe this FUD will go a little way to getting a *nix server running... Ah well, I can dream.

NT4 supports DMA "bus mastering IDE" very nicely

[Shadok8]

Yes, it does. Usually it has to be manually enabled - but then there are many, many settings in NT that require registry changes.

Microsoft makes a program called DMACHECK to enable DMA under NT4 - the program has been around since 1996. The MS DMACHECK utility sets NT to use DMA if it detects it. The caveat is that sometimes the NT IDE drivers not detect that DMA mode can be used. The best thing to do is go into the registry and hard code your system for DMA drive access. It is a single registry change that alters how the IDE driver works.

If I remember correctly, DMA support began in SP4. Prior to MS adding support to the OS, Intel offered a bus mastering IDE driver for PIIX chipset motherboards.

It makes a huge difference in benchmarks, but as Microsoft continues to prove to the world: benchmarks rarely tell a true story. More importantly it makes a very significant, very noticeable improvement for real world usage.

You can get the details here:
http://www.arstechnica.com/tweak/nt/udma.html

Why is THIS on slashdot and not about open source?

[haggar]

I have submitted an article about Novell opening the source of some LDAP developement tool. Slashdot never published it. But they publish this article aobut Novell countering MS FUD.

Fine with me, but what Novell stated is truth, not FUD. (there IS a defference)

Microsoft made problems to Novell for ages

[aralin]

I'm doing LAN admin for over 6 years now on a large net with Netware servers and M$ Workstations and I have to say that since I started I always had problems with Microsoft solutions, because it always seemed that everything they did was designed to make it harder for NetWare servers to operate with Windows workstations properly and I admire Novell for overcomming all the burdens that M$ laid in their path. As far as I remember Novell was silent about these things, but all the admin could experience them heavily.

But it was worth it because its clear to all that NetWare is and always was a best solution for a file server. If I would be forced to change to M$ servers, I would go and find myself another job.

And this blatant lie about Novell NetWare not mirroring disks contrary to W2k and these other lies about their file-server solutions is so terrible that I really don't wonder to Novell to go in counterattack.

And you can see that Novell doesn't need to lie like Microsoft does, only when they will state and comment on their pages what Microsoft admits himself, they will make a set of horror stories about W2k

Jeepers Mr. Witherspoon!

[fluxrad]

You mean to tell me this is the first time anyone has ever trash-talked M$. The news is that it's Novell, a "heavy" hitter, but this is politics as usual for these guys.

Someone show me a company that doesn't spread FUD about others in its industry - now that's what I call news.

-flux=rad

Its not a real FUD

[The_miffo]

It can be called outright FUD cause they point out even the adresses where Microsofts own papers state the same things. What they do is to point out where the problems are and how AD differs from NDS so that people wont see them as real competitors. All stated about AD is true, they havent been forced to make things up cause the problems are there to point at. Remember that NDS to had some problems in the beginning(but NDS was in fact much more advanced than AD in the beginning to). Also have in mind that Novell probably has more information than most people about AD since they have both clients and NDS for W2000 servers ready. Novell has tried really hard to play fair with microsoft but after the MS FUD about Novells products they probably got real fed up and starts to get back.

Campaign??

[Anonymous Coward]

Um..... it's a web page.

Ooooo. A web page. BE AFRAID, MICROSOFT.

This is a "campaign"?

Re:FUD indeed...

[sjames]

If MS's product crashes it, it is truly ms's fault!

I disagree. If MS's product fails to interoperate with BIND, it's MS's fault. BIND dumping core is a problem with bind. Software should NEVER dump core no matter what kind of garbage input you give them. In daemons, dumping core is especially bad. Consider a trivial DOS attack

Novell is getting wiser

[Zoltar]

There is an interesting article in this weeks "PC Week" which talks about the general failure of Novel to capitalize on the lateness of Win2K. The article claims that not only did Novel not gain any marketshare during the delay, but they actually lost marketshare because of Linux.

Buuuuut...the best part of the article states that Novel actually fired "the entire 60-employee marketing staff" Can you say "major image problem?" When I read that I wasn't sure what shocked me the most... that fact that they fired the entire staff...or the fact that they actually had 60 people for marketing... sheesh

When it comes to marketshare it's sad but true that the best technology doesn't mean a thing if you can't crank up a spiffy marketing machine.

-disclaimer- I'm not stating that Novel has the best technology in the above sentence... I'm making a general statement. My knoweledge of networking software leaves much to be desired :)

I dunno if this is negative advertising..

[esobofh]

It look spretty much like Novell is just stating simple truth, and Microsoft did spread alot of lies and BS about their product, they have the right to defend themselves and point out where Microsoft made mistakes with regards to their product

----------------------------

Reminds me of an email I sent to Novell...

[Anonymous Coward]

back when the Mindcraft fiasco was going on I emailed the Novell person responsible for the Mindcraft rebuttal site and he seemed genuinely *pissed* off at Microsoft. It's interesting because any other time I've mailed Novell on a topic having to do with something else I didn't get a reply (or at least a real reply).

Another point I'd like to make about Netware is while it is a superior product compared to NT the problem is that there aren't enough people who really know their way around Netware compared to those that do NT. That's going to really hamper Netware. They should do something like Sun and SCO do and sell cheap media kits/licenses. The more people that know Netware, the more likely it is going to be deployed in a commercial setting. I think this would be more sucessful in combatting M$ than just bitching and whining.

Re:Stupid question but what is a "directory servic

[nairb]

A directory service is very similar to NIS+ in the Unix world. It creates a central place for managing all user accounts. Though NDS is so far ahead of where NIS could ever be, specifically with regards to replacting the data, and sharing/exporting it into other formats such as LDAP. Its also important to mention that unlike Active Directory, NDS is *NOT* platform centric, it can operate perfectly fine on a network without any netware boxes. For example I operate a small e-commerce firm we have 3 Sun E250's and about 100 Linux boxes which run on Compaq proliants, we have *no* netware servers. But when I delete a user he disappears from all the systems, when I add a user I get to pick which groups (systems) he has access to. When he changes his password, the password changes on all the systems. Its a nice pretty java interface to manage the whole thing, its a bit slow under Linux but it runs well under CDE. NDS links into the PAM (Password Authentication Module) and really takes the headaches out of syncronizing passwords, etc. Right now we're just bringing up our Intranet webserver so all .htaccess logins are also authenicated against NDS. I hate having 26 different passwords on different systems. Did I mention NDS can also manage how many systems a person can be logged into? I know your wondering what happens if NDS goes down? (to be totally honest I have no clue, since it hasn't happened yet) but its supposed to read the local password file, we removed the root user and gave another "secret" user a root login, just enough access so I could reclaim the box if necessary, but NDS has been extremely reliable for us! I think we might have had more issues if we ran NDS on Netware since I think Netware is a poor excuse for an operating system. We're playing with the idea of running Netware for the marketing people so we can use ZenWorks to manage their workstations, Novell ZenWorks rocks, but it requires Netware. FYI: The linux verion of NDS isn't out yet, but i'm running the beta and it seems fine.

Lies are shouted,...

[r2ravens]

The truth is spoken in a whisper.

I was a Novell 4.x admin for 4 1/2 years before changing jobs and ending up in an NT assimilated state organization. I have also done a lot of time as a *nix power-user/sysadmin. Personally I'm a Mac/Linux guy.

NT shouts it FUD, and Novell quietly tells those that will listen about it's better product. And Novell continues to improve both the product itself and it's interoperability. 4 or 5 years ago, when the first Novell 4.0 came out, it was good, but I had a few frustrating problems with uptime and data corruption. By 4.01, they had it fixed and it was rock solid. I have more problems with NT 4.0 on a daily basis than I ever did with Novell 4.0's first release.

Coming from the Novell side to NT, I was struck by how much of a joke NT was, a baby Network OS. It didn't have the reliability, it didn't have the granularity to manage users and permissions that Novell did, didn't have the scalability, and there was a bunch of resource wasting GUI right on my server! God damn it, lock the server in a room and manage it from somewhere else. If you're gonna serve stuff (that's what a server is for, right?) put all that GUI somewhere else so the server can concentrate it's resources on what it supposed to be doing. Then maybe you dont have to run a PIII-800 with a Gig of RAM just to serve some files.

If there were employment options here where I choose to live (that being my first priority) that could get me back into a Novell or, even better, a *nix environment, I'd be on the move in a minute. Even leaving the frightening permanence of state service.

Bottom line: in every field there are better products, better ways of doing things, and solutions with great stability that are applicable. But in most cases, it's the liars, the charlatans, the snake oil salesmen - in short, those that shout the loudest - that end up winning. Yes, this is a sad state of affairs and depressing, but we just have to keep plugging away, trying to educate people.

Those of us who are educated, think critically and make good choices as a result will continue to experience the better products and the reduction in stress that comes with the use/management of them. Those who remain uneducated and naive, and listen to 'man behind the curtain' will be forever lost in pits of NT^H^H hell burning and rebooting day by day... unless we can educate them and remove their naivtee'.

It seems that Novell is trying to do this now, they just need to take out a lot more full page ads and plant some employees to post to groups and handle reporters. :) Or is that precluded by the fact that they speak the truth?

In either case, I wish them luck.

Russ

FUD indeed...

[kaslu]

The person who wrote
DID YOU KNOW that Windows 2000 may crash non-Microsoft DNS servers? should be larted.

I hate how MS has "embraced & extended" DNS, but
the fact that BIND dumps core when updated by W2K clients is BIND's problem, not Microsoft's!

Win2k Pro performance is slow according to MS

[Shadok8]

Another fine study commisioned by Microsoft - "our friends in marketing".

I just read the Microsoft "Windows 2000 Performance Tests" document, by ZD Labs, which is found at http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/guide/platfor m/performance/zdlabs.asp It is a performance comparison between 6 identically configured PCs running Win 95, Win 98, NT 4 and Windows 2000 Pro.

According to Microsoft, NT 2000 Pro is faster than Windows NT 4 - as long as you only have 32M of RAM. If you have more than 32M of RAM, NT 4 takes the lead. With 128 MB of RAM, Windows 2000 was 3 percent slower than Windows NT 4.0. I wish they had done tests with 256M of RAM - if the tests indicate a trend, a 256M RAM NT 2000 workstation could be 5-10% slower than an identical NT 4 system.

What really disgusted me is how Microsoft improperly configured the NT 4 test systems, giving NT 2000 an unfair advantage. According to Microsoft's document describing the tests, the NT 4 platforms were configured with PIO mode IDE drivers, while the NT 2000 platforms were configured with DMA mode drivers. That gives NT 2000 a significant advantage - and it was still slower. In the system configuration documentation, MS specifically states they manually enabled DMA on the Win 95 and Win 98 systems. They do not do it for the NT 4 or NT 2000 platforms. Not surprisingly, NT 2000 auto detected and loaded DMA mode IDE driver support. The NT4 box is installed with service pack 5, so it could be manually configured for DMA support - as they did they did for the Win 9x systems. But then NT 2000 would have been slower.

Also, MS emphasized that the goal of the tests was to show performance in a real world scenario. Which brings up another question: why did they use a single 2G FAT 16 partition on all the systems? Who on earth uses FAT 16 partitions on real world NT deployments?

Microsoft has a marketing document at: http://www.microsoft.com/PressPass/press/1999/dec9 9/w2krtmpr.asp that states, among other things: "Windows 2000 Professional is the fastest Windows client yet. Independent tests conducted by Ziff-Davis Labs and IT Week show that Windows 2000 Professional is up to 39 percent faster than Windows 95, 30 percent faster than Windows 98, and up to 24 percent faster than Windows NT Workstation 4.0 in configurations with 64 MB of memory or higher." After reading Microsoft's own performance study, I can't figure out how they can honestly state those numbers.

Uh....

[NickHolland]

Um... I don't want this to sound like a flame, but what you are saying is just plain wrong, on almost every point.

>It was (until recently) loaded on top of DOS
Netware v3 through v5 (and probably future versions) uses DOS as a BOOT LOADER (a task it is well suited for, in my opinion ;) and a place to store SOME driver and config files, and NOTHING MORE. The Netware OS completely takes over and shuts down DOS so completely that the DOS clock actually stops (if you DOWN and EXIT the server, and do a DATE and TIME from DOS, it will report the time and date the server was started..often years earlier!). The only thing DOS does once Netware is running is, if requested, load a device driver from either the floppy or the DOS partition of the disk (and you will see the performance really hurt when this happens, as it has to jump in and out of the 80x86 Real Mode, and they obviously felt no reason to optimize this). In fact, you can do a REMOVE DOS command which frees up the few hundred K of RAM used by DOS, and slightly improves console security (as you can no longer load anything from the floppy drive).

OLD versions of Netware (Netware 86 and v2) were free-booting OSs. They were a pain to reconfigure. Using DOS as a boot loader really improved things at the cost of what is now a very insignificant amount of RAM overhead. I can pull a set of non-hardware RAID drives out of most any Novell server and have it BACK UP AND RUNNING on a totally different box (different disk controller, different NIC, different video card, different main board, etc.) in a matter of minutes (barring mechanical problems, like missing cables). I can't think of any other server OS which can make this claim.

>It still only has a DOS-like shell with no decent text processing utilities.
If you consider the Netware environment DOS-like, you have obviously never used many other OSs. The only thing it shares with DOS is a command prompt (i.e., it isn't a GUI). It gives you a command prompt, it has new tasks spawn off their own screens automatically (this is a really cool UI feature I wish Unix and other command prompt desktop OSs had!).

Text processing utilities? Huh? This is a file server OS, not a workstation OS! The LARGEST configuration files I have ever seen on a well-implemented Netware server were less than two pages long. The text editing facilities are limited, but you don't need WordPerfect (or Word 2000) to edit small configuration files. For reference, Netware gave you a full-screen text editor for editing these things when MS was still giving nothing better than edlin. The editor lets you type, correct, and even cut, copy and paste. Not bad for something that is used to edit tiny little files! It even qualifies as fairly intuitive. If you cut your teeth on Word 95 or even MS's EDIT, you may disagree, but EDIT.NLM was implemented long before these products..it can't be faulted for not following their "lead"... It certainly wins prizes compared to vi or emacs for "hit the ground running".

>And until Netware 5, it used an outmoded proprietary network protocol.
Proprietary, yes. Certainly. Stupidly, even (they should have thrown it open long ago instead of militantly demanding licensing fees). Outmoded? Hardly. First of all, IPX is a near zero-maintenance protocol. You provide a unique number for all servers (I use the license number to ensure uniqueness) and for each NICs/protocol set. After that, you just plug in workstations, no IP numbering problems. Hey, every NIC has an address, might as well use it, right? Move a WS? Reboot, and it is back up and running at its new location. Of course, some IS people hate it for just this reason...it doesn't ensure job security as IP does.
The number one reason I like IPX/SPX now, however, is the security. Now that so many offices are connected to the Internet, there are real security issues if you have systems live on the 'net. You have to have and maintain a good, solid firewall at all times. Or...use IPX/SPX for all your private company operations, and use TCP/IP ONLY for getting outside the building! Talk about a perfect firewall: A server which doesn't even recognize the hostile protocols running around the wire. I actually don't care for Netware 5 for just that reason. It scares the heck out of me to think of any server of any kind (probable exception: OpenBSD) holding company data sitting live on the Internet. Again, though..job security for IS people.

>I don't know much about the latest version, but it still looks like something that came out of the ark.
The same would be said of a Unix command prompt by someone who didn't know much about it.

Netware IS a server platform! It is NOT a general purpose OS, and it NEVER was intended to be! Please judge this very capable, very solid platform at the job it was intended and sold to be.

As for adherence to open standards, this is a personal preferance, and one I respect. Ultimately, however, it is results that count. For most businesses, the computer is only a tool to their business, not the goal in and of itself. Netware is the closest thing to "set and forget" networking I have seen, and the fastest repair time OS I have seen. This is very critical to real-world business. Would I run a Web server on Netware? Heck, no. Would I port Doom to Netware? No (although the XWindows interface of Netware 5 would potentially make it a cute stunt). Would I relish the thought of implementing a client-server database engine on Netware? No, although the results would be delicious, the process would be very painful, though NW4x and 5 make it less so. Would I use it as a platform for E-mail or Internet access? No, there are better choices. As a file and print server, however, which is a critical service in most PC-based business now, I haven't found a way to beat it.

Yes, there are few really good people at Netware installation, configuration, and troubleshooting but my experience is there are no more who (really) know NT. NO ONE has more than what, three years of experience with NTv4? I've got five years professional experience with Netware 4, and another six years professional experience with Netware 3, which Netware 4 builds on very directly (and another four years of experience with earlier versions, but NW3+ is so different from NW2- that it doesn't really help much).

I would argue that having an network OS that is "easy" to set up and get running is very counter-productive. You don't want newbies setting up the backbone of your business! Many people consider the loading of an OS the measure or success..these people don't even understand how far they are from success.

O.k...enough with my soap box. I don't mean to attack you or anyone personally. I'm just very tired of people who don't understand the product condemming Netware for totally bogus reasons, and treating this product which the rest of the industry has yet to surpass as a has-been.

Nick.

Microsoft's Response

[festers]

Here's a link if you are interested in reading some of MS's reponse, especially concerning Active Directory. There are two previous parts linked at the bottom. I not sure if I'll know what to believe after all FUD settles.


--------

=]

[NightHwk]

The Turtle and the Rabbit will duke it out while the penguin waddles ever closer to the proverbial finish line...

/me wonders if we will see this battle move into the T.V. arena...

"Netware hates, children, do you hate children? Vote Windows for 2000!"

"Gates had lots of pr0n in college, do you want pr0n in the hands of children? Vote NetWare in 2000!"

This may be more fun then the 2000 U.S. presidential elections.

NightHawk

You know what's *really* funny

[legLess]

I run a Netware 4.11 box at work for file/print/directory, and an NT box for mail/proxy (I know, I know - I'm building Linux boxen to replace it). I know NT much, much better than Netware for one simple reason - the Netware box never needs any attention. It sits in a dark room and hums along, oblivious to the world. I patch it every 9 months or so, but otherwise it's never down. NT, on the other hand, has made me an expert - I can rebuild an NT box in my sleep (because I've had to).