On Thu, Apr 17, 2003 at 05:18:19PM -0500, Richard Rauch wrote:
> Thanks to Manuel, I've now put the "-alldirs" NFS problem behind me.
> (And I see that Julien also posted a message to point me in the right
> direction.)
> 
> Now I have another question:
> 
> Granted that, at the moment, all of my machines are NetBSD machines,
> is there any advantage to fooling with SAMBA vs. using NFS for files
> and lpr/lpd for printing?  (Advantages other than just playing with
> a different toy, and the prospect of easier communications with
> certain monopoly-ware...(^&)

Not much I can see. One advantage could be user authentification
if some of these machines are single-user workstations (to avoid
the 'become root and then su to anyone to access his files on the NFS
server' problem)

> 
> (I know that in _The Design & Implementation of 4.4BSD_, the authors
> briefly discuss the trade-off between high-level and low-level handling
> of networked filesystems, and that NFS is a happy medium.  This suggests
> that if one doesn't require anything more than moving the raw bits, one
> might get better performance with a higher level system.  Then again,
> perhaps the network latency tradeoffs have shifted and a lower-level
> handling would not lose as much performance?)
> 
> I assume that there's no direct advantage, especially for fileserving
> where (under 1.6) SAMBA is only in userland, while NFS is in-kernel.
> But I thought that I'd ask wiser heads for input.
> 
> Given the reports that I've seen of LINUX having trouble talking to
> BSD's (or anything but LINUX?) might it be better to use SAMBA to
> export filesystems to/from LINUX?  (LINUX is a more likely near-future
> player in my little empire...(^&)

Hum, I have NetBSD NFS servers with linux clients (both 2.4.9 and 2.4.18
kernels). There are problems, but which can be worked around using
mount options (for TCP, or restrist R/W size)

-- 
Manuel Bouyer <bouyer@antioche.eu.org>
     NetBSD: 24 ans d'experience feront toujours la difference
--