Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!kent From: kent@swrinde.nde.swri.edu (Kent D. Polk) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.datacomm Subject: Re: Amiga networking (was:AS225 software bugs and quirks) Message-ID: <3192@swrinde.nde.swri.edu> Date: 3 Jun 91 14:35:21 GMT References: Sender: news@swrinde.nde.swri.edu Organization: Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, Texas Lines: 67 In article jwright@cfht.hawaii.edu (Jim Wright) writes: >This is not a definitive list, and I won't even remember everything >I've come across. But it should be enough to get the ball rolling. > >First off, AS225 is great. I will never use PCNFS in a PC while I have my >Amiga and AS225. With a little polish, this could get the Amiga into a lot >of previously locked doors. This is posted in the hopes of making a good >thing better, and avoiding needless duplication of effort among users. I will also agree with the statement that AS225/ethernet is an order of magnitude better than PCNFS on a PC. If you remember my NFS diskperf posting recently, you would have seen speeds far faster than PCs can attain. It has really opened some eyes around here - unfortunately, not the ones that $count$ - yet. Another eye opener is GfxBase's X11. Xamiga runs everything I have thrown at it (Mathematica, the Sun non-postscript demos, Xinvaders :^), etc). I have been using Sun's Openlook DevGuide to create X11 software for our Suns using an a2500/20 for the X display. There a couple of inconveniences with it as opposed to running on a Sun, but it works quite nicely. Scroll-bar equipped remote xterms are much smoother and faster than even Ami's own console. Also, last Friday, an X programmer dropped by to take a look. We threw a few more applications at it, including FrameMaker. I haven't used FrameMaker, but he said that display rates rivaled those on the desktop Sun's he works with (remember, this is on a 14 MHz '020). I believe he was impressed :^) BTW, FrameMaker looked pretty darned impressive... Wish Pagestream had all those math handling capabilities. >* ftp may die when connecting to a site with a long welcome message It also has a tendency to 'get' to my boot partition instead of my CWD. >* the -t option for rloginvt (use telnet protocol and VT100 terminal emulation > for the remote connection) did not work in the beta version. this seems > to have been eliminated from the release version. Unfortunately, eliminating it was not the correct answer. Many telnet connections REQUIRE at least a vt100 connection. Currently there is no way to make a telnet connection to those machines directly from the Amiga. (Please implement the -t telnet connection option in rloginvt). However, there was a mention that VLT may support tcp/ip connections in the near future. As long as telnet connections are also supported, this will fill a definite need. Matt Dillon also mentioned (if I remember correctly) that he had hooks ready for the tcp/ip stuff in his UUCP software once documentation was available. >* no print spooling yet. I'd have a go at an LPR: device if the > programmer's libraries were out. Yes... this is needed. I have a series of hacks to assist, including 'CMD' running over NFS. Unfortunately, not all software can handle 'CMD' running over NFS, and not everyone has NFS either, I have a couple of fairly nice Sksh scripts - enscript & lpr 'replacements' :^) (My enscript expands tabs like the original Sun version should have) -------------------------------- How about SMTP? This is the other stumbling block which needs to be filled to place the machine in this environment. -------------------------------- The short of this is that a very nice networking environment is slowly developing on the Amiga. It is a little rough around the edges, but most of the base capabilities are there and ready to be built upon. T