[clug-talk] Browsing a Linux network

[Gustin Johnson]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Ian Bruseker wrote:
> On 6/27/07, Gustin Johnson <gustin at echostar.ca> wrote:
>> Well, no offence, but this is a silly question.  Samba _has_ been
>> invented.  You could say linux brought us FUSE which has a whole lot of
>> cool things, not the least of which is sshfs.  None of this exists in a
>> vacuum so the question is at best moot.
>>
>> Samba is much more than "the Windows way".  It is a legitimate project
>> in and of itself.  The fact that it supports a legacy OS is a bonus :)
>>
> Ah, but what if you didn't have to support a legacy OS?  ;-)

Still Samba (specifically CIFS).  Good throughput, user authentication
that does not rely on unified UIDs.  In short, without Windows on my LAN
I would still use Samba to provide CIFS shares.

>> I have never been a fan of NFS, I guess I never could figure out how to
>> tune it properly.  It always seemed to have issues when used over WiFI
>> or VPN links.  Samba (used to refer both the SMB and CIFS protocols) in
>> my experience has performed better across a wider variety of network
>> topologies, never mind the edge it has in cross platform access.
>>
> I have to agree on NFS.  Too many times I've tried it, only to have it
> lock up so badly I had to reboot.  I tried it again the other day
> between two systems only to find my UIDs weren't matching and just
> sighed and did something else.

I don't usually have the lockup problem (there are a lot of options to
NFS and the default ones are not what I would consider sane... but that
is perhaps just me).  Across temperamental links (VPN and WiFi are the
two I use a lot) Samba provides better throughput and "feels" more
responsive.  Whenever something happens (packet loss, latency spikes,
out of order packets etc.) the CIFS mounts just seem to recover better.

>> Rendezvous is essentially zeroconf.  I have not used either, but then I
>> read the TCP/IP guide for fun, I cannot be trusted to make an unbiased
>> judgement of Rendezvous (a solution in search of a problem IMO).
>>
> Well, it is cool in that it broadcasts more than just file and print
> sharing.  Like I said, it advertises that my Gentoo box offers SSH as
> well as the AFP share, and you can have it advertise other things like
> web servers, plus the obvious Apple-y things like iTunes and iPhoto
> sharing.  Is iTunes sharing a critical infrastructure issue?  Um, no,
> not really.  But still cool.

A matter of perspective.  I have a very bad relationship with iTunes,
(never used iPhoto), so obviously I could care less.  Samba advertises
the shares I want it to, which is browsable via smb4k.  Of course I have
 explicit mounts for everything, even on the Windows box, so this is
less of an issue..

>> There are lots of ways of solving this, though you do limit your options
>> by using Mac OS  :)
> 
> I had wanted a Mac since grade 3 and my first time using an Apple II
> and LOGO.  I finally got my first Mac of my own when my wife bought me
> my PowerBook for my 31st birthday.  Don't diss the Mac.  ;-)
> 
My second computer was an Apple IIc, then Mac 512 that was upgraded
several times (even replacing the MB so that I could have an external
SCSI drive.  The last Mac I owned was an iBook 500 Mhz which shipped
with the first version of OS X.  I diss the Mac (Apple in general)
because I have used it extensively and it annoys me more than Windows,
which is saying something.  I want to like Apple but they make it so
difficult.  Especially when compared OSS world that I now inhabit.

Of course YMMV with the Mac, but for now, they will have no place in any
environment that I manage.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.3 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFGgs4SwRXgH3rKGfMRAn5AAKCkgspkBpiMIdfwp7oE7UhTLqf8ewCfSu0M
UUGy4boWnLr20bGQFJ9N8yQ=
=/Av0
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----