Novell to support Linux with NDS

One of our readers writes "Check out the press release that says that Novell is porting NDS to Linux. This could mean that Linux will stand a good chance to penetrate the data center--just another step toward world domination. Plus NDS v8 can support a billion directory entries. " Novell is saying it will be availible by calender year 99-keep our fingers crossed.

Comments

DOS boot loader, not DOS base

[sphealey]

"Well Our Novell servers Do use a DOS base, and as far as I know, Dos is required for Novell 3.1 and 4.11. Given you almost never see the Dos base once you get a Novell server"

Novell uses DOS (typically MS-DOS, although I understand DR-DOS is possible) as a boot loader. After SERVER.EXE loads, you can run the REMOVE DOS command and remove all traces of DOS from memory. At that point you are running pure Netware, not DOS. Netware is it's own operating system, with its own API's, filesystems, and so on.

The use of DOS as a boot loader historically has had many advantages:
A) Most low end Intel boxes do not have a monitor running at the firmware level as do higher end Unix machines (e.g. Sun). This was particularly true back in the 1980-1985 time period when Novell brought the concept of networking to the DOS-tel world. Use of DOS as a boot loader provides an emergency startup capability if the box truely falls over.
B) Simple to install and set up the boot sequence using DOS tools (this applies more to the 3.11 days as most of this is automated today). Plus everyone has a set of MS-DOS 5.0 disks around somewhere.
C) File and directory manipulation tools available under MS-DOS are crude, but simple and usable for the few tasks that need (or needed, as again this is mostly gone with NW 4.x/5) to be done with them.
D) You are always able to boot a server back to DOS and run minimal utilities (de-upgrade a driver, run a virus scanner, etc.).

Again, there is no absolute reason that DOS has to be used, as once Netware is running all traces of the boot loader are gone. Anything could have been used: CP/M-86, p-System, Forth, you name it. For historical reasons DOS was chosen, but don't let that fool you into thinking that DOS runs under Netware in the same manner as it runs under Windows 95. It doesn't.

sPh