This article suggests automatic discovery of Windows/Unix servers

[rharder]

This article ( http://www.suntimes.com/output/worktech/cst-fin-ecol16.html ) by Andy Ihnatko seems to suggest that you can automatically discover Windows and Unix servers on a network when using OS X 10.1. Specifically, I'm referring to this quote:

If your iBook is running 10.1, you can just plop it on a desk in any office, plug it into the local Ethernet, click one doo-dad in finder, and then watch every available Mac, Windows, and Unix file server appear automagically.

And here I've been typing smb://whatever. Can anyone confirm or refute this automatic discovery thing? I didn't think it existed for anything but discovering AFP servers.

-Rob

 

[kenny]

I refute it. The author of the article is clearly confused about.. something; that's not the way it works right now. Maybe it's the booze talking (read the article to understand)...

Now, what he's saying might be true if:

1: He's got Sharity (or maybe Dave) installed and
2: The Unix servers are running Samba

He doesn't say one way or the other, but the article does give the impression that its all attributed to the wonders of 10.1. Frankly, I think the article is crap; obviously a fluff piece, with little hard fact, and a lot of overenthusiasm.

Networking isn't the only place where he runs afoul of the facts, though. There's several places where he gets it wrong about the Finder, the Dock, Classic compatability, etc. But the one that sticks out (to me) is this:

10.1 worked with very nearly everything I had available, straight out of the box: CD and DVD burners (with built-in support), digital cameras, printers, card readers, hard drives ... so long as it's USB or FireWare based, it'll probably work.

Do I even need to go into how wrong this is? Or, am I the only on who's blessed with a scanner, a printer, and a card reader that does not have drivers, is USB, and definitely doesn't work?

It's gotta be the booze...

 

[rharder]

-Rob

 

[simX]

But my printer, my CD-RW Burner, and EVEN MY SuperDisk Drive ALL had built-in drivers with Mac OS X. My mom is buying a digital camera that has built-in Mac OS X drivers, and I'm sure there are scanners that work too.

I'm sure Mac OS X doesn't work with some peripherals, but if they are pretty recent, they should probably work. I think you are probably one of the few people whose peripherals do not work... most people probably have at least one that works.

Of course, it's better to buy stuff AFTER OS X came out, since you know if it has built-in drivers or not, but I'm sure Apple is working to get more built-in drivers for more scanners, digital cameras, and printers installed.

Oh, and one last thing... Apple didn't PREVIOUSLY include all this support, did they? I'm just glad that it's all built in to the operating system now, so I don't have to worry about installing any drivers!

Just wait and I'm sure support will come... if not OS X drivers delivered by the manufacturer.

 

[kenny]

Don't get me wrong... I'm not griping that things don't all work right now. This is fairly typical of a whole new OS making the scene. I don't have a problem with that. I do wish that the manufacturers of these devices would get 10.1 drivers out, and it's certainly trying my patience to have to wait for months just to see no apparent progress from them on this front. And I know that I am not "one of the few" who's stuff isn't working right now. I'd turn that around and say that there's probably very few folks who have got all of their devices working. To be fair, my CDRW and Wacom tablet and floppy drive (how useful is that any more) and DV cameras are all working fine. But my scanner, my CF card readers (2 of them), and (this one kills me) my USB Dye Sublimation printer do not. So, it's a mixed success right now.

I certainly don't expect Apple to support all this stuff natively in the OS. We have an exampe of that sort of behaviour in Windows - where drivers exist for a bunch of common devices, but they often tend to be older versions of the drivers, usually with limitations ranging from annoying to severe. I certainly don't want X to become that. What I do want Apple to do is to encourage HW manufacturers to get drivers out there as much as possible. Beta if neccessary, but available nevertheless. I'd hoped that by now, we'd be seeing more of that. But, as you say, we're just going to have to wait for many of them to come.

What I was really getting at was how fatuous the linked article is. It's one thing to be enthusiastic. It's another altogether to demonstrate such blind adoration and ignorance of the facts.