Subject: [netatalk-admins] End the Beta!

From: chuck <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Nov 1999 13:57:32 -0800

So this 1.4beta has gone on for 2 years.  I offer that it is NOT a
beta.  Let's rename the sucker to 1.4.  Or add Mr Sun's patches and
call it 1.5 and be done with it.  It was talked about a number of
months ago, and there were wish lists of things to be done.  I'd say
that it's the most stable it's going to be. mutt has gone from
non-existence to release in this time. This is not a critisism, I like
software that just works without lots of mods.  stable can be okay.

Discuss.

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From: Andrew Morgan <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Nov 1999 14:29:43 -0800 (PST)

> software that just works without lots of mods.  stable can be okay.

I agree.  A similar decision was made for the linux kernel.  It was better
to make more frequent releases than save up a huge list of changes.
Everyone runs this beta anyways.

	Andy

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 11 Nov 1999 23:55:24 +0100

> software that just works without lots of mods.  stable can be okay.
That's absolutly true! One of our clients, an advertising agency, which
has a powerfull Linux server (256MB, 140GB RAID, Fast Ethernet, 25
Mac's, etc.) with "netatalk-1.4b2+asun2.0a18.2-49.i386" will now change
over to Windows NT 4.0 with MacServerIP, because I can't give them
support on some questions coming up when we look together into the
message logfile!!!! I have tried to get answers on SuSE-Support, but
they support everything on Linux except NETATALK. Any question in
mailing lists where still unanswered. And I am not alone with my
problems. I am looking with interrest what the questions in these
mailing lists are, and whenever there is a real problem to solve, there
is no usefull answer. I don't know why the AppleTalk support for Linux
is not pushed more, because it is very fast and easy to configur. But I
can't stay the questions of my clients any longer.

Uwe

P.S.: I am not a freak how has plenty of time to figure out what's the
best way to do. What I need is a system which I can sell to my clients
to get them away from Micro$oft!

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From: Andrew McNabb <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Nov 1999 17:12:57 -0600 (CST)

Anybody dumb enough to want to switch to NT over something like this
deserves what they're going to get. 

On Thu, 11 Nov 1999 [email-masked] wrote:

> One of our clients, an advertising agency, which has a powerfull Linux
> server (256MB, 140GB RAID, Fast Ethernet, 25 Mac's, etc.) with
> "netatalk-1.4b2+asun2.0a18.2-49.i386" will now change over to Windows NT
> 4.0 with MacServerIP, because I can't give them support on some
> questions coming up when we look together into the message logfile!!!!

----------------------------------------------
                Andrew McNabb
             Argus Systems Group
          [email-masked]
----------------------------------------------

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 12 Nov 1999 00:23:34 +0100

> I didn't think you could do MacIP on NT. When did this start? Is that
> built-in to Win2000?
No, it's an additional software package. You can get more information
at:

"http://www.cyansoft.de/"

Uwe

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 12 Nov 1999 00:31:45 +0100

> deserves what they're going to get.
Maybe I send you an small extration of this log file, so you can see
what a lot of problems accured?

After loosing a lot of date, nearly 350MB, an no help form nowhere, what
would you do. This company has to work with this machine, not trying
this and that. It's not fo fun what they are doing. And I had spend a lo
of hour an money to solve these problems, but they still remain.

There are three other companies who have get servers form our company,
working very well with Linux, but they are using PC's as client with
SAMBA. There was never ever any problem or mistery information in the
message logfile or any lost of data. This only happens with netatalk!

Uwe

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From: Andrew McNabb <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Nov 1999 17:46:23 -0600 (CST)

There is a company that makes a commercial Netatalk-like product (with
support) that would solve the problem that your client is having.  I can't
remember its name but it was discussed on this list a few months ago.  In
any case, you're better off dropping bricks on your head than going to NT.

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From: "Ron Creamer" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Nov 1999 18:56:11 -0500

I believe it is Helios. Check out http://www.helios.com/

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 12 Nov 1999 01:27:12 +0100

> I believe it is Helios. Check out http://www.helios.com/
Thanks, I will have a look!

Uwe

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From: Mike <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Nov 1999 17:23:27 -0800 (PST)

On Fri, 12 Nov 1999 [email-masked] wrote:
> Subject: Re: [netatalk-admins] End the Beta!

The source code is there. If you really want to examine a problem, you are
free to examine the source code, and figure out where the problems are
occuring. I am sure the error messages are documented in the source, and
you can search for what conditions must be true in source for a specific
error to be logged. You want better verbage for error messages? Suggest
some.

If you find the problem, then you can notify the maintainer of the error,
and it is very likely the patch will be incorporated in the next release.

I use netatalk with samba for file sharing of files, and have not had any
major problems. Most of the problems have to do with training users for
proper exchange of files, and naming conventions. (For things like
extentions for proper resource mapping.) Samba has a ./configure option
"--with-netatalk" which is supposed to deal with renaming resource fork
info held in the .AppleDouble folder whenever the data fork is renamed
from a samba session, but I have not finished testing this. (Read the
samba docs for info on this.)

The point is this:

If you have time to to complain about a project, then why not use that
time to contribute instead?  If you have time to invest in examining
netatalk, and complaining about a lack of certain features, maybe you can
spend time examining code; it will make your netatalk service/daemons more
stable, and help other admins to have a more stable product. You want
something new added? You want a new feature? Add it, send a diff patch
file to the maintainer and see if they will add it.

When Apple offered the NetBooting mac system with Mac OS X, I used a
sniffer and reverse engineered the bootp/dhcp,tftp,AFS/IP process and
documented it. I patch dhcp source to allow for a Linux box to offer net
booting to the newer Mac machines. Certainly, this was an examination to
see what was going on top try an solve problems I found in Mac OS X that I
could not fix, but it was work I started so that others could choose to
use it.(It is not a simple procedure, but you can see what I found in my
analysis at http://libweb.sonoma.edu/mike/macnc/ )

I found a problem, read other people complaints about it, searched the
internet asked questions about it on USENET, and even contacted Apple to
see if they had a solution. I could not find one, so I implemented my own
for testing.  In the end a modification to DHCP source was the biggest
issue. If I was interrested, I did get feedback from the maintainers of
DHCP source that I might be able to get a certain kind of patch added to
the new dhcp source tree if I implemented it. I chose to not implement the
full feature addition to dhcp source to give it back to the original
maintainers of dhcp because I had no present use for it.

You have a complaint about netatalk, and problems? Try examining the
problems and see what is wrong and then provide a patch. You have free
time? Contribute to A. Sun with time and code. You want a closed system
where you buy something and pay for support calls, and then cannot do
anything or hire anyone else to fix a problem you find in a product? Talk
to Microsoft, or another closed system product.

Beta or not? Netatalk is more stable than many commercial closed product
in "final release."

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From: "Michael Mercier" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Nov 1999 20:03:13 -0700

There is another product called TAS (TotalNet Advanced Server) from
Syntax.
http://www.syntax.com/totalnet/totalnet54.htm

It does appletalk, smb, and netware.

Mike

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From: Wesley Konrad <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Nov 1999 01:38:50 -0600

Don't do it man, send them to Novell first.  It is much more mac friendly.

> From: [email-masked]
> Date: Thu, 11 Nov 1999 23:55:24 +0100
> To: [email-masked]

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 12 Nov 1999 09:19:56 +0100

> It does appletalk, smb, and netware.
Yes, looks great, but it does not run on Linux :(

Uwe

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From: Hauke Fath <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Nov 1999 10:32:40 +0100

At 23:55 11.11.99 +0100, [email-masked] wrote:

>I don't know why the AppleTalk support for Linux
>is not pushed more, because it is very fast and easy to configur.

Bummer. Netatalk is _not_ "AppleTalk for Linux". Never has been.

And I am getting sick and tired of the implicite 'Linux .equ Unix', 
_especially_ from German people. Get a clue. Please!

         hauke

--
Hauke Fath                             Tangro Software GmbH
                                         D-69115 Heidelberg
[email-masked]                       Ruf +49-6221-13336-35, Fax -21

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From: Stefan Barth <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Nov 1999 11:18:43 +0100

> Bummer. Netatalk is _not_ "AppleTalk for Linux". Never has been.

Could you please explain
a ) in what respect it isn´t, and
b) what it is?

Thanks,
Stefan

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 12 Nov 1999 11:24:05 +0100

> _especially_ from German people. Get a clue. Please!
What else if not AppleTalk???

Uwe

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From: Georg Schwarz <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Nov 1999 12:10:00 +0100 (MET)

> What else if not AppleTalk???

the emphasis is not on "AppleTalk" but on "Linux".
Many people (e.g. on Usenet) lately tend use Linux as a synonym for
Unix, implying that there's nothing else (often you hear implicitely that
there's no other OS than Linux and MS Windows; now that Linux has achieved
some popularity level, also in media, clueless people who used to think
computer == PC == MS DOS/Windows nowadays are pround to realize that
there's an "alternative OS" called Linux; and some might even have proudly
installed it from the CD shipped with their PC magazine etc.; I think
you get the idea...) . I'm not sure if that's particularely true for
Germans, but I do agree that I've come across this notion with Germans
increasingly often :-( (then again, a good dead of people whose comments
I read happen to be Germans)

-- 
Georg Schwarz                             [email-masked]
Institut für Theoretische Physik    Tel. +49 30 314-24254, FAX -21130
Technische Universität Berlin          http://home.pages.de/~schwarz/
Sekr. PN 7-1, Hardenbergstr. 36, D-10623 Berlin            IRC: kuroi

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From: "thomas.riewe" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Nov 1999 11:35:58 +0100 (CET)

well appletalk for linux means the ddp-stuff sitting in the kernel
netatalk is a bunch of services, at first afpd 
which is able to use the old ddp stuff or the newer appleshare-over-IP-way

greetings, 
thomas 

ps: right that "linux .equ unix" is not true,
    but its ".equ"s fault :-)

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From: Sean /The RIMBoy/ <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Nov 1999 11:08:21 -0600 (CST)

> Don't do it man, send them to Novell first.  It is much more mac friendly.

Agreed.  Novell does more with the Mac GUI than NT can or ever will.  To
say that I am impressed is an understatement.  Then again, I run
everything (Linux. NT, 95, OS8, OS7, Novell), so I guess I have the best
of all worlds.

Sean...

Everything you know is wrong,
Just forget the words and sing along.    --Weird Al
===========================================================================
home: www.rimboy.com/       @home firewall howto: www.rimboy.com/firewall/
===========================================================================
Through the server, over the router, off the firewall... Nothing but 'Net!

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From: Hauke Fath <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Nov 1999 18:36:47 +0100

>the emphasis is not on "AppleTalk" but on "Linux".

Thanks a bunch. An emphatic soul... ;)

         hauke