Netware 3.12 on ancient Thinkpad

[b_usa]

Hey fellas. Ive got a super old IBM thinkpad, w/ only a floppy (ext. at that) for removable media. Ive decided maybe to install Netware 3.12 on it, as I have the whole Netware 3.12 boxed set, w/ all the manuals. Would this be a good way to learn the IPX/SPX protocol? Can Netware (especially this old version) run any useful applications?) Thanks.

late--> donnie

[Alex Cavnar, aka alc6379]

Netware is, was, and (hopefully) always will be a Network OS.

If you want to learn Netware, put a reasonably recent version of it on a reasonably capable system (minimum 700mhz with 256MB of RAM), and let the Thinkpad run 95/98/NT and be a client to the box.

The key thing about Netware is that you're never supposed to see it on the front end-- it's a GOD at backend stuff. It's a pure fileserver, a pure Directory services server. In fact, in days past, you did the bulk of your system administration using a GUI client on another system, and never run a GUI on the Novell server at all (which is, IMO, how it should be, really). Now, there is at least a GUI, and you can do a lot of Admin stuff on the box, at the GUI console. I think that starting with version 6.something of it, Netware ran X.

It's a great thing to want to learn IPX/SPX for the sake of knowing it. But, you'll find that it's not in much use these days. Which is sad, because it was a really elegant protocol, IMHO. It didn't need DHCP, as it was based all off of your NIC's MAC address. The routing was done by the network number.

The "wow" fact or of Netware is its stability. Stories of YEARS of uptime are not uncommon. Netware is supposed to be a server that you configure, put it in a closet, and forget about it. It will happily chug along, authenticating users, serving files, whatever else you set it up to do, and you'll hear nary a peep out of it if it's configured right.

[klackenfus]

Long Live syscon!!!