Subject: What about Mac OS X

From: Mike Johnson <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2000 13:21:05 -0700

Hi all,
Because my company routinely buys all of the newest Mac software - even the
joke-of-an-OS 9 - we'll probably find and buy Mac OS X soon after it's
deployment.

I have heard and read that this new version will be built on a BSD kernel, a
welcome but unnerving prospect. X supposedly will support NFS and a command
terminal, and will do away with the chooser all together.

My 60 employee company runs Windows 98, NT, and 2000 as well as Mac 8.6 and
9 and SGI's IRIX (two servers for two offices and several workstations). Oh,
there's a Novell server in there, too (hopefully permanently replaced by the
infinitely more stable Linux soon). I spend the majority of each day just
trying to keep all of these operating systems fat and happy, dealing with
problems users create (i.e. "There was a flash of light and my appointment
disappeared!"), and the rest I spend on research to prepare me for future
changes I'll be expected to be an overnight expert on. I'm sure many of you
can sympathize....

If X really does support the great pieces of Unix like they say it will,
people like me will make the change as soon as possible because, once I
train my users, it will be easier to maintain. Not to mention, Apple has a
horrible habit of discontinuing support for any hardware or software older
than their latest OS release.

So I'll make the change with reservations. Reservations because most Mac
users != power users, and many still don't fully understand what Unix is,
even though we have several machines. Will I no longer need a solution like
netatalk? Or will I need a netatalk file server to bridge X and 9?

My main question is: will netatalk still apply? I'd love to continue its
use. With the help of the people on this list, it's now running smoothly.
Like a dream. I'm guessing that if X supports Appleshare, then netatalk will
be the most comfortable, familiar solution for my users, rather than
mounting NFS style.

Has anybody had a chance to play with the beta?

- Mike Johnson
Systems Administrator
Lunar Design
www.lunar.com