Mac - X - Windows Network

QuackingPenguin

QuackingPenguin

Banned
Ok, well apart from woah! and err @ the new iMac.... I have a question.

Supposing i have a mac of some kind, connected to a network of mixed machines, (some macs, some wintel) without the need for third party commercial software, can i use OSX client to act as a file server for the network, using: AppleTalk over TCP/IP for the macs, and SMB for windows (using SAMBA X on server machine).

Does this work? is there a better way?

Also. what is the suggested specs for a server to run this, with 10-12 user machines connected. new is out of the question, except maybe an old-stock imac. this is from australia as well, so dont go telling me that so-and-so company has this for this much. i'm not shipping a frickin 'puter from the 'states.

Thanks to those who reply.
 
You could buy a Celeron PC box for under A$1000, including 2 x 60Gb hard drives set up in a safe mirrored raid config. Use Redhat Linux (easy and fast) ... it has Samba and Atalk built-in.

I just did this for my home server, and my Windows and Powerbook are happily using the Linux disks over Appletalk, SMB and NFS.
 
Problem with that dude:
Both myself and the person im supposed to set this network up with, are students at tafe. we are doing this for the production office of a tv show filmed locally. therefor we are getting paid, and its all legit. neither of us are big fans of linux. especially after the frickin red hat stuff we were supposed to learn at tafe. if it stuffs up, we HAVE to know how to fix it. that's why we were thinkin either win2000/nt4 or macos. both are fairly easy to configure, and require little or no command line work, meaning we dont need to remember 30 zillion frickin unix/linux/penguin-on-crack commands, to setup/fix/maintain it.

But, windows, even a client version is too frickin expensive. and osx server isn't much cheaper. we looked at the linux thing but neither of us was very......enthusiastic about trying to configure a linux box. also: celerons are, like most intel processors, unable to match AMD in regards to bang-for-buck. who gives a shit about gighertz. its actual performance (i.e: g4 ppc/ amd both faster in real life than faster clock speed intel anything.) that matters. also most new amd boards use 266mhz ram and sys. bus. but that's still a frickin pc, and until some stupid bozo ports X to AMD or possibly intel, we're screwed. so there ya have it. any OTHER suggestions?
 
Any of the *nix's are fairly easy to learn (or atleast they were for me). If you are serious about learning you could learn a lot in a lot less time then you think. Also...if you and your freind dislike *nix so much, then why is the linux penguin your little icon?

Justin
 
Cuz penguins are cool. And cus deep down, i know that unix & linux are good, but im just too lazy to learn. Hehe.
Anyways. no one has actually said yes or no about the setup I described working or not.
 
QuackingPenguin, if you are talking about OS X, no need for AppleTalk. It supports SMB. The default filesharing protocol for Windows is also SMB. And you can set up Samba for any other Unix, and I imagine OS X as well. So there you go. At work we have a bunch of Windows machines (98, NT4, 2k), a bunch of Macs (8.6, 9.x, and X (mine :) )), and a Sun Ultra 5. I installed Samba on the Sun. With SMB, I have connected to all the shared directories on the Windows machines with OS X. Slick as snot. :) Only ugliness is that it leaves the .Trashes crap in the root of where it connects.

Does this answer your question?
 
So can someone explain exactly in technical terms ( and some not so technical as well...) What is SMB? What is Samba?

Are they platform specific?

...or even better - where can I read more about Wintel/Mac/Unix filesharing. I am really starting to dig this stuff.
 
Originally posted by bossa nova
So can someone explain exactly in technical terms ( and some not so technical as well...) What is SMB? What is Samba?

Are they platform specific?

...or even better - where can I read more about Wintel/Mac/Unix filesharing. I am really starting to dig this stuff.
Click to expand...

Basically SMB (Server Memory Block I think it stands for) is a protocol for file and printer sharing. Samba is a free open source version of it. SMB is the native file and printer sharing for MS Windows. You can check this out for a better understanding of it: http://us1.samba.org/samba/about.html .

Hope this helps.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top