Re: GMC Network

[Gleef <dzol virtual-yellow com>]

On Mon, 28 Dec 1998, Fox, Kevin M wrote:
> I am on a Winsuck network. :(

I sympathize, I have to deal with one at work too.


> If Gnome is to be a replacement to windows, GMC must provide a "Network
> Neighborhood"

Well, it's a good thing that GNOME is not supposed to be a replacement to
Windows.  GNOME is supposed to be a cross-platform desktop environment for
the X Window System.  While many of us hope it is impressive enough to be
another reason for people to abandon Windows, that is a side effect, not
the goal.

Now, as far as a "Network Neighborhood" goes, that is a windowsism that I
don't even see many windows users using.  Most of the users on the Windows
networks I deal with find it very awkward.  Instead, we have hardcoded
drive letters assigned to the sharepoints the people need, and they use
the "Map Network Drive" (cf. mount) interface to access directories that
aren't hardcoded.

Some people may find a network browsing application useful, but it
needn't be glommed into GMC.  It would work better as a separate
application.  Such a browser might support NIS+, SMB, NDS, LDAP, DAP, and
so on, making it useful to more than just the Windows crowd.  It also
could support mounting if the FS is supported by the kernel and the user
is allowed to mount.


> And it must support SMB. Samba would be a good thing to tie into GMC.

Unix and Windows have very different design philosophies.  Windows is
designed to be a single-user low-security machine, so having mount
features in the file manager is No Big Deal (TM).  Unix is designed to be
a multi-user high-security machine.  Mount features in the file
manager browser would either:
    A) Not work most of the time, when users have no mount privileges
 or B) Be a security hole due to the workaround to give the user mount
       privileges

GMC can handle SMB directories just fine.  Root mounts the directory, GMC
treats it as just another part of the file system.  GMC should not be
actually connecting remote directories to mountpoints, whether they are
SMB, NFS, Coda or foobarfs.

On the other hand, just like libvfs handles FTP servers as if it were
directories, it would make sense (if someone wanted to write it) to add
libvfs support for things like NFS and SMB shared directories.


> Personally I hate SMB compared to NCP but I cant do anything about that at
> work.

Ideally, GNOME will support all such filesystems, but you can't blame the
developers for focusing on what they find useful/interesting, rather than
what you consider a requirement.


> For the enterprises to use Gnome, they must be able to just point and click
> there way through the network. Most business people don't know the names of
> there servers... They can only remember it if they see it.

For an enterprise to use either GNOME or Windows effectivly, they
need to have a support system.  Either they need a competant systems 
administrator setting up things like sharepoints/mountpoints in a manner
that supports the work being done, or they need adequate training in their
local network topology.  Most businesspeople should not be left to wander
aimlessly throughout their network structure just to get their job done.

GNOME is no substitute for poor systems administration.  If anything, it
might make poor administration that much more obvious.

Best of Luck,
-Gleef