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From: MacUserLabs@cup.portal.com (Stephan - Somogyi)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.comm
Subject: Re: how to link Macs into a PC-network (Novell)?
Message-ID: <40673@cup.portal.com>
Date: 29 Mar 91 17:40:33 GMT
References: <18726@cs.utexas.edu> <1991Mar28.074835.14166@chinet.chi.il.us>
Distribution: na
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
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dhartung@chinet.chi.il.us (Dan Hartung) writes about Werner's request
for Novell<->Mac connectivity:
 
>Novell has a special version of its software called Netware for
>Macintosh. It allows a Mac to plug right into an EtherNet system (uh,
>I think you DO need to have card slots for the net cards) and act
>just like a PC terminal would.  However it could not of course run,
>say, WordPerfect from the network.
 
Well, not quite.
 
If you have an existing NetWare 2.15c (or later) server, you can get a
VAP called NetWare for Macintosh 2.2 (I _think_ this is the latest
version, I may be wrong; it's definitely > 2.0 though). NetWare for
Mac will provide you with AFP access to the NetWare server and also
provided PAP-based print spooling services.
 
Macintosh clients need only the standard AppleShare client software to
connect to to such a server. NetWare for Mac supports LocalTalk and
EtherTalk (and probably TokenTalk, but I haven't tried it).
 
Novell has announced NetWare for Mac 3.0 with is an NLM for NetWare
3.11 (aka NetWare 386). The following information is heresay, since I
haven't had a 3.11 server to play with yet.
 
NLMs, unlike VAPs under NW 2.x, which are rather kludgy, are faster
protocol processors, so NW/Mac 3.0 promises to be quicker. In
addition, they say that NetWare 3.x is faster than NW 2.x anyway.
 
So, the simple answer to Werner's question is, if you have a NW 2.x
server that you're not planning to upgrade to 3.x, get the Mac VAP (if
memory serves me correctly it's bundled these days); if you _are_
going to upgrade the 2.x server, or already have a 3.x server, run NW
3.11 and get NW/Mac 3.0.
 
Disclaimer: My opinions based on my experiences; no endorsement
implied.
______________________________________________________________________
Stephan Somogyi      1/8 of the world's population, 2/3 of the lawyers
MacUser