Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!ucsd!ucbvax!FTP.COM!jbvb
From: jbvb@FTP.COM ("James B. Van Bokkelen")
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip.ibmpc
Subject: Re: PCNFS vs PC/TCP
Message-ID: <9010311943.AA12833@ftp.com>
Date: 31 Oct 90 19:43:18 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: jbvb@ftp.com
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 36

There are number of differences between the packages, some of which may
not matter in your particular situation.  I'll summarize the facts, but
note that I should be assumed to be at least a little biased...

Sun has had print redirection for a long time.  We just added it in 2.05.
Ours has some features theirs doesn't (using LPR to send the job), but they
have some we don't (print on timeout).

Their IP/UDP/NFS TSR is smaller than our combination of TCP/IP kernel TSR
and NFS TSR, but ours can be unloaded from the keyboard.  Sun's NFS is
faster than us on large (> 1Kb) writes.  Their redirector is an INT 21
emulator, ours uses the INT 2F hooks.

We support more hardware drivers, including 802.5.  PC/TCP+ has more
applications than PC-NFS, but you may not need an ICMP-based PING,
3270/VT220 multi-session telnet, or a multi-connection FTP server.  We
don't have a news reader in 2.05, and I don't think Sun has one either.

You can get a version of CUTCP which runs with PC-NFS, but Clarkson's
present policies won't allow the creation of one which runs with PC/TCP.
Many aftermarket products (X servers, fancy terminal emulators, databases)
are available for both transport stacks - ask the vendor.  Our development
environment is for MSC 5.1 and is usable with 6.0, Sun's is for MSC 4.0.

Sun Lifeline mail uses POP2 to talk to a server Sun supplies with the
package.  I don't know if it is in binary form or not, but you'll need
source to make it run on other machines.  I assume that it can use a
freeware POP2 server as well.  PC/TCP's VMAIL command can use POP2, POP3 or
PCMAIL (RFC 1056) to fetch mail, but you have to supply the server, either
building freeware from source or using a supported one supplied by your
host system's vendor.  Presumably, most differences would lie in the
mail user agent, since both schemes use batching protocols to talk to
central mail servers.

James B. VanBokkelen		26 Princess St., Wakefield, MA  01880
FTP Software Inc.		voice: (617) 246-0900  fax: (617) 246-0901