Practical Technology

For years, if you wanted an inexpensive, but Windows-compatible file and print server, you turned to Samba running on Linux. Now, with the first alpha release of Samba 4, this open-source project is moving closer to becoming a complete Windows 2003/Longhorn replacement. Since Samba 3 arrived in 2003, Windows network administrators have been able to [...]

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I was tinkering with my Vista system the other day, when I found it wouldn’t connect with a pair of NAS (Network Attached Storage) drives. I was not a happy camper. The drives, a pair of Seagate 400GB USB2.0 External Hard Drives, were connected to my Fast Ethernet network by a Linksys NSLU2, aka Slug, [...]

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As you face the end of NT4 support,, you have another alternative to switching to Server 2003: Samba. If you’re happy with your domain network, or you want to use one Server 2003 system to run AD (Active Directory), you can switch to Samba. Samba is an open-source program that provides file and print services [...]

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Who needs an NT license? Not us! We tap into Windows’ file and print service by running The Samba Group’s Samba 2.0.x on Linux or other Unix systems. Samba enables users to use file and print services on a Unix machine exactly as if they were on an NT system, by employing Windows’ own Server [...]

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Forget Linux’s hype. Forget Microsoft Corp.’s server market share. The bottom line, according to our hands-on analysis, is that commercial Linux releases can do much more with far less than Windows NT Server can.Yes, Linux has its problems as a desktop operating system. Yes, NT and NetWare have staggering brand recognition. But Linux is a [...]

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