From: dean2@tbone.biol.scarolina.edu (Dean Pentcheff)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.networking
Subject: Re: Small LAN questions
Followup-To: comp.os.os2.networking
Date: 27 Jan 1993 17:29:54 GMT
Organization: Department of Biology, University of South Carolina, Columbia
Distribution: world
Reply-To: dean2@tbone.biol.scarolina.edu (Dean Pentcheff)
NNTP-Posting-Host: tbone.biol.scarolina.edu

wow@cup.portal.com (wallace otis waggoner) writes:
>	I've just installed the OS/2 TCP/IP base system, Network File System,
>and Xwindows System Server.  I have a Wyse 370 color terminal and a Relysis
>170cp.  Can I connect these to a serial port on my 486 server? If so, how?

I think (but I am not sure - I've never done this) that you might be
able to use a program called OS2You (available via anonymous FTP from
the OS/2 archive on ftp-os2.nmsu.edu).  But basically, OS/2 is not
set up to support serial terminals.  All you'd ever get is a command-
line interface.  This is not what you really want to see with a
graphical operating system like OS/2.

>	If this is not possible how do I connect another pc to my server?
>The manuals from IBM do not discuss any connection outside of Ethernet.
>Must I use these or can I connect my 486Server to a 386pc via serial port.
>What kind of perfomance can I expect.

The best option by far is to buy an Ethernet board for each of your
PCs.  Check the most recent issue of PC Magazine for a review of
zillions of Ethernet boards.  We're talking $100 for a cheap but
adequate board.  Make sure you get it with NDIS software, if it's
not a board that's comes with a driver in IBM's LAPS package.  In
theory you could do it via serial ports, using the SLIP (Serial Line
IP) driver included with the TCP/IP package, but (a) the performance
will be terrible; and (b) it's not worth the trouble since Ethernet
boards are pretty cheap.

>	I am trying to put together a small network without the overhead
>of Novell or IBM's equivalent.  I can't afford to dedicate a server and
>very much like the idea of distributed computing.

You can do that using IBM's TCP/IP package.  The Base package alone
will let you do transparent printer sharing, copy files back and forth
("ftp"), and get a command-line login on other machines ("telnet").
Add the NFS package and you can share files.  Portions of other
computers' disks appear as additional disk drives on your machine and
are accessed over the Ethernet.

>	Where does the Xwindow fit into all of this?  I have tried Desqview/X
>between to systems and liked it very much except tha it was still Dos.
>However, could I connect a PC w/Desqview/X to my Server utilizing the
>Xwindow System Server included with the IBM TCP/IP?

For the sort of network you're considering, X Windows doesn't fit in.
X Windows is a protocol (developed for Unix machines, originally) to
allow a program to run on one machine, but display (and get keyboard
input) from another machine.  This becomes very useful if you've got
a Unix host on your network.  Then you can run X programs on the host
and have them display on OS/2 machines - i.e. use the Unix as the
powerful back-end and the OS/2 machines as display front-ends.  The
reason this doesn't work for an OS/2 network (yet!) is that there
are no programming tools to allow one to develop X Windows programs
the actually run on OS/2 (i.e. the core program both runs and can
display on OS/2 systems).  We hope this situation will change soon, but
for the time being, if you don't have X applications on a Unix box
that you can access over the net, the X Windows package will do you
no good.

On further consideration (and actually _reading_ what you wrote):  X
Windows might not be useless IF Desqview/X can serve as an X Windows
client (confusingly, in X terminology, the "client" is the machine that
runs the core program; the "server" is the machine that runs the
display front-end).  The IBM package is an X "server" (i.e. display
front-end).  Desqview/X can certainly act as a "server" also, but
whether it also has "client" capabilities (i.e. can run a program that
displays elsewhere), I don't know.  If it does, then you could run
client programs on your Desqview/X PC and have them display on your
OS/2 machine.

>	Very much appreciate any help I can get.
>Wally Waggoner
>wow@cup.portal.com

You're very welcome.  For further gory details on TCP/IP under OS/2,
see the document "/pub/os2/2.0/network/tcpstart.txt" on the archive
server ftp-os2.nmsu.edu.

-Dean
-- 
Dean Pentcheff (Internet: dean2@tbone.biol.scarolina.edu) (803) 777-8998
Department of Biology, University of South Carolina, Columbia SC 29205