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Novell Nterprise Linux Services Announced 236

Posted by CmdrTaco from the couple-years-late dept.
eer writes "At BrainShare (Novell's customer/developer conference), Novell customers reacted positively to the news that they would have the choice of running Novellâ(TM)s network services on Linux or NetWare or both. Today the company provided more details by introducing Novell Nterprise Linux Services, which will give customers file, print, messaging, directory and management services in an integrated package that runs on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SuSE Linux Enterprise Server distributions--along with providing those customers with comprehensive Novell technical support, training and consulting services for Linux. Partner companies, including IBM, HP, Dell, Red Hat and others, also voiced their support for Novell's Linux."
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Novell Nterprise Linux Services Announced More

Novell Nterprise Linux Services Announced

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  • Two fingers to SCO (Score:2, Insightful)

    by suds ( 6610 )
    Excellent move by Novell. Basically they are showing two fingers to SCO and their silly legal moves. Ours is one of the many asking novell for providing linux support for a while. And we are glad to see it arrive finally.
  • Buy a vowel.

  • Whew, (Score:5, Funny)

    by Angry White Guy ( 521337 ) <CaptainBurly[AT]goodbadmovies.com> on Tuesday June 24, 2003 @08:58AM (#6283811)
    I thought that they named it Novell NTerprise, and were setting themselves up for litigation.

  • BrainShare (Score:4, Funny)

    by onion2k ( 203094 ) on Tuesday June 24, 2003 @08:58AM (#6283814) Homepage
    At BrainShare (Novell's customer/developer conference)...

    How many brains do they have to share between them?
    • Apparantly only one or it would be called BrainsShare. But that's fine because most of the time people're not even using most of their brain, (how much processing power does it take to watch TV?) so someone else borrowing it shouldn't bother you, you probably would't even notice. The only questions I have are, how many people are sharing that one brain? Is it in some sort of jar, or someone's head? Who's brain was it before, hopefully they didn't do drugs or drink or anythign fun with their lives...

  • A couple years late? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by erat ( 2665 )
    I guess there was a window in which applications could be ported to Linux and Novell missed it?

    • Re:A couple years late? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by ghjm ( 8918 )
      Actually, this is the second time Novell has ported the Netware core services to Linux. The first time, it was when Caldera had just started and Ray Noorda (ex Novell CEO) was heavily involved. They released "NDS for Linux" for the then-current Red Hat Linux 6.0, with great fanfare. It worked well; your Linux box was basically indistinguishable from a native Novell box on your network. Which, at the time, was a valuable and worthwhile feature.

      I spent some time selling and installing these boxes to small bu

      • Re:A couple years late? (Score:2, Interesting)

        by R3 ( 15929 )
        Ummm, last time I checked, Novell eDirectory 8.7 (NDS), eGuide (web LDAP lookup tool) and DirXML worked very nicely on Red Hat 8.0. And that was TWO DAYS AGO!

  • fainlly! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Horny Smurf ( 590916 ) on Tuesday June 24, 2003 @08:58AM (#6283818) Journal
    We'll be able to print from linux!

    And, if i'm reading this right, we can have files under linux too!

    In your face SCO!

  • Novell Is Smart. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by jellomizer ( 103300 )
    Unlike SCO who just cries fowl when they realize that they are not going to make it. Novell knows that for Servers Linux is where the money is and they are now (A little late) putting some effort into it. The last time I looked at a Novell System was 4 years ago. But it ran a modified version of MS DOS. Although it was a pretty stable system. I always thought if they just port their tools to Linux they can have a good competing system now and actually get new customers and not just hang on to their curre

    • Re:Novell Is Smart. (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 24, 2003 @09:04AM (#6283887)
      It didn't run a modified version of MS DOS, it used DOS to bootstrap itself.
    • it only used MSDOS(or PCDOS or DRDOS) for bootstrapping, Netware was never a "modified version of MS DOS".

    • Re:Novell Is Smart. (Score:5, Informative)

      by sphealey ( 2855 ) on Tuesday June 24, 2003 @09:29AM (#6284145)
      The last time I looked at a Novell System was 4 years ago. But it ran a modified version of MS DOS.
      "A lie can run around the world while the truth is tying it's shoelaces".

      Please (please?) can we stop with the "Novell runs on MS-DOS" business? Propriatary hardware (Sun, IBM, most minis and workstations) have ROM-based bootstrap loaders and monitors built in so that the machine will boot and can be managed/repaired even if the main OS is dead. This doesn't mean that these systems "run" on the bootstrap loader.

      Since about Netware 1.1 Novell software has always run on commodity Intel boxes. Commodity boxes don't have bootstrap loaders or monitors. So Novell uses xx-DOS, which is cheap, simple, fits on a floppy, and understood by most sysadmins worldwide, as their bootstrap loader and monitor. After boot, feel free to do a "REMOVE DOS" command and purge all traces of DOS from memory.

      Netware DOES NOT "run on MS-DOS". And if you think it does, I really have to question that "+5 Informative".

      sPh

      • Re:Novell Is Smart. (Score:3, Informative)

        by mj01nir ( 153067 ) *
        Since about Netware 1.1 Novell software has always run on commodity Intel boxes. Commodity boxes don't have bootstrap loaders or monitors. So Novell uses xx-DOS, which is cheap, simple, fits on a floppy, and understood by most sysadmins worldwide, as their bootstrap loader and monitor. After boot, feel free to do a "REMOVE DOS" command and purge all traces of DOS from memory.

        FWIW, NetWare 2.x (I've never seen an earlier version than 2.0a) had its own bootloader. You essentially compiled a static kernel w
    • The last time I looked at a Novell System was 4 years ago. But it ran a modified version of MS DOS.

      So what, Linux is the same way [ffm.fgan.de]. ; )

    • Re:Novell Is Smart. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Lumpy ( 12016 )
      I also agree that novell was going downhill for a long time now... I have a copy of Novell netware 5.1 with 10 user licenses in my drawer that has never been used... why? because 4.x is still doing the job fine for the decriped old crap that still uses it. (old dos based product that I hope dies real soon.)

      The novell server it is on has been up for over 7 years now. noone touches it except to change the backup tape daily. no administration, no reboots, no nothing ever needed to be done to it. something

  • Way to go Novell (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jasonsfa98 ( 648370 ) on Tuesday June 24, 2003 @09:00AM (#6283833)
    More great stuff from them.

    I have seen many people put Novell down recently with all the SCO crap going on. But the truth is, they really do make great stuff that nobody can compete with (right now). Linux/Sendmail/mySQL is great (I use it a lot) but everything from Novell is just easier to deploy (flame bait).

    I mean ... can anyone challenge GroupWise?

    • Re:Way to go Novell (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I mean ... can anyone challenge GroupWise?
      Unfortunately there are tons of consultants who think they can, advocating all Microsoft solutions because of better integration and "industry standards".

      They don't even have to challenge it. Just show pretty pictures and spend enough money on researching Outlook that managers then have little or no choice but to follow through (or be seen having wasted money). *sighs*

    • Re:Way to go Novell (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Epi-man ( 59145 ) on Tuesday June 24, 2003 @10:29AM (#6284713) Journal
      I mean ... can anyone challenge GroupWise?

      As one who has to suffer with Groupwise under Windows at work, I am concerned for your mental well being. For me, GW has been nothing but a leading source of crashes on my desktop. In all likelyhood this is related to our IS department (complete with the Windows experts that plugged my SCSI Zip drive into the parallel port after an upgrade), so I should take your message to heart and not blame Novell.

      • Re:Way to go Novell (Score:2, Interesting)

        by jasonsfa98 ( 648370 )
        We've been using a GroupWise system that I built from scratch 3 years ago. The server has NEVER crashed or lost any data (knock on wood). Notify however has caused a handfull of crashes on some Windows 98 boxes.

        Look into your IT staff ... not the software maker. This isn't MS where they are usually to blame. USER ERROR.
        • A friend of mine got a job with the local council, which uses Groupwise. He went on holiday for a few days and set up out-of-office notification as requested. Then he received a mail from a mailing list, to which it responded, which the mailing list echoed back, to which it responded, etc, etc. This problem was solved 17 years ago by 'vacation' in 4.3BSD, but Groupwise is a toy mail system that wasn't built to interoperate with the rest of the world.
      • You don't happen to work for a certain university in SE Georgia, would you?

    • You know, we had GW at my last sysadmin job. I hated the crap out of it and even planned to replace it until email became the primary transport vehicle for virii. I even used to send out weekly 'virus alerts' to my coworkers that went something like "Another virus is out but you can ignore it as long as you DON'T OPEN ATTACHMENTS because GW doesn't open them automatically. Click here for details....blah, blah." Mostly, it was just to explain why they were getting all these identical emails from their frien
      • You might want to just drop mails with virus infections on the floor, before they ever get near a user's mailbox. We're a bit stricter than that, and just drop everything with an executable attachment.

        And Groupwise is really not that bad, at least from a user's point of view, *if* it's competently administered. It's a bit limited in being able to hook things into it easily, though.

    • Re:Way to go Novell (Score:3, Informative)

      by mrsam ( 12205 )
      I mean ... can anyone challenge GroupWise?

      Certainly, I can. For the longest period of time, Groupwise has been one of the most obnoxious anonymous spam relays on the Internet. Anyone who was stupid enough to have an Internet-facing Groupwise was essentially running an anonymous spam relay.

      I really can't bring myself up to trust anyone with anything concerning E-mail if they seem to be unable to grasp even the simple concept of a Received: header (not even mentioning such an advanced concept as a "clos

      • Re:Way to go Novell (Score:2, Informative)

        by jasonsfa98 ( 648370 )
        There is a simple setting within the GroupWise config that can cause/remedy this. Again, this would be something that is overlooked by an inexperienced sysadmin.

  • Novell is coming around (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Lothar ( 9453 ) on Tuesday June 24, 2003 @09:00AM (#6283838)
    Now this is an important step for Linux! To have integrated file, print, messaging, directory and management services on Linux is something sorely needed. Way to go Novell!
    • Novell services on Caldera (1996) [com.com]

      A step that is seven years late. Find it hard no one remembers this.

      Funny, seven years ago this was blasphemy. The Linux world was up in arms. Novell is evil! SCO rocks!! Please leave our little Linux alone!!!

      Today, the present. The Linux world wishes for ALL corporations to use Linux. SCO is evil! Novell rocks! Please add to our Linux and make it your own.
    • Indeed, what I'm really looking for is a nicer way of managing a distributed user-base. Maybe there are better solutions for 'nix that I haven't seen... but currently one of the more common ones is still *ugh* NIS. Novell used to have some pretty sweet stuff for user-management, and their rights-management was decent too.

      Of course, I replaced all those expen$ive novell $ervers as soon as I could... but I do look forward to seeing Novell finally get a hook into Linuxland and expect that they will make a pr
    • Integrated file, print, messaging, directory and management services on a Unix-like operating system?

      Too bad no one COUGH-BANYAN-COUGH did this earlier COUGH-VINES!

  • No we know... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by madgeorge ( 632496 ) on Tuesday June 24, 2003 @09:00AM (#6283840)
    > from the couple-years-late dept.

    I'm not sure about that. Can you imagine if Novell had announced this 2 years ago? Linux lovers would have praised them, but no one else would have taken them seriously because so few people took Linux seriously. It would have been another questionable product/marketing move from Novell.

    Now, however, Linux has tons of mind share, and we also know why Novell got involved with the SCO train wreck.

    --madgeorge

    • Re:No we know... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Akasha ( 122427 )
      Actually, I think this would have been a smart move for Novell two years ago, maybe even four years ago.

      I remember the big push by Microsoft to use Active Directory in enterprise networks, upgrading from NT to 2K and using Active Directory to manage everything. Just like today, no one else really had a solution for massive infrastructures (using a client-server setup) with a central system for administration. Sure, NetWare was/is available, but it requires Windows to be utilized completely. This new fun
      • but it requires Windows to be utilized completely. This new functionality now makes it possible to have a massive server-clinet network with a non-Windows client OS

        Netware works with clients of any flavor, older versions even supported *nix clients, but no one ever bothered. Works flawlessly with Windows and Macs, however, so this is really not true.

        Non-Windows != Linux ;)
  • I've always been a fan on Novell. I cut my teeth on Netware 3.12, and was always impressed with it's stability (plus, it's lack of virii, ever hear of a Novell virus).

    Once you got to Novell 4 and 5, you were able to manipulate very large scale networks, with thousands of users, something MS barely does (one PDC?) and Linux not at all. It makes me laugh when Linux Zealots talk about replacing corporate networks with Linux servers, and the largest network they've administered is 3 Pentiums and a Pentium II f
    • Once you got to Novell 4 and 5, you were able to manipulate very large scale networks, with thousands of users, something MS barely does (one PDC?) and Linux not at all. It makes me laugh when Linux Zealots talk about replacing corporate networks with Linux servers, and the largest network they've administered is 3 Pentiums and a Pentium II for playing Doom.

      Ok I was agreeing with you until you started trolling...

      So you are telling me that UNIX is impossible to have thousands if not millions of users? ar

      • Re:Hooray, Linux for huge networks (Score:5, Informative)

        by patter ( 128866 ) <pat@nOsPam.sluggo.org> on Tuesday June 24, 2003 @10:50AM (#6285021) Homepage Journal
        Well, that post was trollish, but seriously, Novell's network administration is superior to the way *nix or NT works (until MS created Active Directory - a clone of the way netware worked from verison 4 on).

        In the NT world, and *nix, you have an account on a machine, you log in to one machine, then maybe connect to others, maybe having permissions there or not, all controlled by the servers you connect to or the NFS mounted shares, whatever.

        In the netware world, you authenticate to the network as a whole, with one account, you have different permissions on various network resources (not servers), and through replication this permission set is passed anywhere its needed. Any workstation on the network can authenticate you to the network, because you have an account on the network. If the local server doesn't know about you, it can query around and find your account, and your envirnment is perfectly identical to what you had at 'home' as it were. Properly integrated with the client OS, moving offices is completely painless - this is not the case in NT or *nix setups.

        I've not done a huge *nix installation, perhaps there are ways to make *nix do this, but it appears very very server centric, much like NT 4 was.

        At one time the only viable solution for a large wan with thousands of users was Netware, and I'd argue that Active directory is still much inferior to it (and slower).

        Dont' get me wrong, in that same vast installation, any critical service should be running on some flavor of *nix, because I don't see Novell competing there in the slightest.

        When they finally ditched their silly IPX protocol (well or strongly favored TCP/IP) around version 5ish, Novell/*nix networks should have dominated the planet.

        I like Linux as much as the next guy, but I use the right tool for the right job, and don't see *nix as being comparable to Netware in some respects (at least before this sort of project), but then again, neither is Netware as good as Linux in others.

  • enterprise (Score:5, Funny)

    by Graspee_Leemoor ( 302316 ) on Tuesday June 24, 2003 @09:04AM (#6283876) Homepage Journal
    "that runs on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SuSE Linux Enterprise Server distributions"

    Kids! Never trust any product with Enterprise in the title unless it comes with batteries and has a light up deflector array and real torpedo and phaser sounds.

    On a similar note, if a website ever uses the acronym "SME" even semi-seriously then you should avoid that assiduously too.

    graspee

  • another link of interest (Score:5, Interesting)

    by stonebeat.org ( 562495 ) on Tuesday June 24, 2003 @09:04AM (#6283882) Homepage
    http://forge.novell.com/modules/news/ [novell.com] a SourceForge repository of Open Source stuff for Novell. RSYNC, Apache, bash, gcc etc.....

  • Kind of makes you wonder .... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by icewalker ( 462991 ) on Tuesday June 24, 2003 @09:04AM (#6283884)
    I mean, just a couple of weeks ago, Novell was trying to put SCO off of Linux by claiming ownership of key UNIX Copyrights. With this announcement just made - I would think they were trying to keep SCO at bay so that they could come out with this new product announcement and not have a certain amount of uncertainty about it from the Industry. After all, they have been developing this software for years ... yes years! There's a lot of money tied up in this.

    It all makes a little more sense now. I'm glad they finally embraced their services on Linux though. I always like the Novell File Services!

  • More distros please (Score:5, Funny)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Tuesday June 24, 2003 @09:04AM (#6283888)
    integrated package that runs on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SuSE Linux Enterprise Server distributions

    I can't wait to see a version of Novell's package for OpenLinux, or even UnixWare+LKP ...

  • Why Enterprise editions of Linux? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by einer ( 459199 ) on Tuesday June 24, 2003 @09:05AM (#6283903) Journal
    Will this run on a 'consumer level' version of RedHat? If not, why not?
    • Enterprise editions of Linux were actually demanded by, ermmm, enterprises. The first real version of these was SuSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) and the idea was quickly adopted by Red Hat.

      Most corporations are used to having an 18 month or so upgrade cycle between major releases of Solaris and AIX, and often skip a revision, so where I work we have had lots of Solaris 2.6, mainly skipped Solaris 7 (2.7) and are now finalising upgrading everything to 8. That because we have over 8000 Solaris servers. If

  • How much will we pay for convenience? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bytes256 ( 519140 ) on Tuesday June 24, 2003 @09:06AM (#6283906)
    The problem is, this ain't gonna be cheap, especially if you buy one of the enterprise Linux's mentioned. Novell's got to make it extremely convenient for their existing sysadmins and Linux/UNIX sysadmin's too. Unless Novell does something miraculous, both groups will need to be retrained for this product. Novell admins will have to learn Linux and Linux admins will have to learn Novell. The Linux admins are going to scream why should I learn Novell when i can use NFS/NIS/LPD or Samba and Novell admins are going to scream why should I learn Linux when i can just use Netware. Sounds great, but they're gonna need to overcome one of their traditional weeknesses - MARKETING!
    • Novell is making an enterprise play with this, friend, hence the bad marketing name Nterprise.

      I would think that the idea of this product is to make NetWare and Linux "play nice together" - IOW enterprise level integration. IMHO, Novell's focus as of late hasn't been Netware but eDirectory and other NDS based services.

      NDS can kick Active Directory's ass and take it's lunch money any day of the week, since it's a much more mature product. By integrating Linux and Netware, they can leverage the OSS communit
      • NDS can kick Active Directory's ass and take it's lunch money any day of the week, since it's a much more mature product.

        Not only much more mature, but much more powerful, too. In fact, a 4-billion object NDS has been implemented years ago! In the meantime it became even more scalable.

        Not to mention that NDS has been ported to several different platforms - including WindowsNT and 2K, too.

  • About time (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dark Paladin ( 116525 ) * <jhummel&johnhummel,net> on Tuesday June 24, 2003 @09:08AM (#6283931) Homepage
    I can't see this as being anything as a "good thing".

    Used to be, the reason why you bought Netware was to do thse these things:

    1. File Server.
    2. Print Server.
    3. Administration of 1 and 2.

    For a long time, Novell had the best of 1 and 2 - and with their directory services, they weren't matched. I loved using Novell's admin tools. They were usually easy enough to get in and do what you want, and powerful enough to do all sorts of other things. You could set up rights, trickle them down or stop trickling, take care of email stuff - right there in one nice interface. Sure, it wasn't perfect - but compared to the compeition....

    The problem came with Linux, and people realized "Hm - do I need to spend this much for a file/print server?" They web server offerings in my humble opinion stank, and I never really liked Groupwise that much. It could do a lot of cool things, but other simple things that I would have expected were beyond it's grasp.

    So I see this as a Very Good Thing for Novell. In a way, they can be like Apple, only for the Server world on Linux. Apple's OS X's strength is that you can do all the cool Unix stuff you want - without having to do anything Unix-y to get it to work. You can crawl under the hood if you like or just sit at the dashboard.

    I'm browsing through the Novell offering, and here's what I'm hoping for:

    1. A kick-ass admin tool like thier old NWAdmin.exe tool. Start making plugins for things like Sendmail, Postfix, Apache - whatever. Go ahead and charge for the plugins so we can just sit back and go "click, click, click" and get stuff done rather that going "Hey - what was the setting in Apache for turning on directory indexing!" (Yes, I know what it is, thank you, move on.) Sure - there's stuff like Webmin that can do this, but Novell's Admin tool was still (IMHO) cooler. And with drag and drop, the directory style layout, and being able to click on a user and get all info right there would be most excellent.

    Make it Java based so I don't have to run it off of Windows. (What the hell was up with that, anyway? I could never figure out why Novell couldn't make an Admin tool for their servers that didn't run on Windows - granted, the last Novell I really used was Netware 5, so don't sue me if things have changed.)

    2. You can have multiple Linux servers out there, and instead of trying to figure out your LDAP settings and that, just install the software, start the admin, and say "These Directory users have these rights on this box on this directory" - click, click, click - you're done, have a nice day. This was something promised with eDirectory, but I'd like to see it really hardcore delivered.

    With this, merge the strength of Linux's "no license fee" with Novell's admin/directory tools. I want to have a server I can throw 5, 500, 50000 users on and not worry about licensing - and I just pay Novell for the user interface and tools. I can even see paying Novell like their mass server license - I pay for how many concurrent users I have on the system, unlimited servers. (So, for example, I can have 500 servers out there, and if I only need a 5 user license, I just pay Novell once for 5 users to administrate the boxes.)

    I think if Novell plays their cards right and goes for the "administrate, authenticate, and authorize" bit for Linux services, they can work with Linux to make a lot of money, and make Linux so Admin Friendly as to keep pushing that other desktop/server OS [microsoft.com] out of the market.

    Of course, I could be wrong. But... isn't it nice to dream....

    • Re:About time (Score:2, Interesting)

      by PaulBeelee ( 680895 )
      I work with Novell stuff ALOT, and I find that Linux zealots (of which I am one) often have no idea what it is Novell brings to the "enterprise". Regarding your points, NetWare 5.x came with a JAVA tool called ConsoleOne which can be used to administer the "Tree". Novell has continued to push everything in that direction, and rely less on NWadmin. BTW, NetWare 5 was out in '98 or '99. Last year I loaded up ConsoleOne on a Redhat box at work and was able to admin my Tree. That was huge. I then went to

      • Re:About time (Score:5, Funny)

        by sphealey ( 2855 ) on Tuesday June 24, 2003 @09:54AM (#6284390)
        I work with Novell stuff ALOT, and I find that Linux zealots (of which I am one) often have no idea what it is Novell brings to the "enterprise".
        Agreed. There seems to be a sub-optimal level of understanding in the Linux world concerning enterprise directory and management requirements. I think it is telling that many large enterprises which have gone 98% Microsoft for desktops and servers have retained NDS as their directory management system. It is a tool which is not easily replaced, and implemented well on Linux it could prove a key element in enterprise deployment.

        sPh

    • Re:About time (Score:2, Interesting)

      by llamalicious ( 448215 )
      You're on to something DP

      NWAdmin's tool was so powerful, we migrated all of our SAM-based NT domains 4.0 to NDS for NT 2.0 on Novell 4.x in as OU's in the primary tree. (No small task, this was at the number 1 largest air conditioning company in the world no less.)

      Nothing better than having a single interface to manage all your organizations accounts and permissions, especially NWAdmin.

      Now, apply that to linux/*nix services across the board, and you've got a winner. Albeit a most likely expensive, commer

  • In other news (Score:3, Funny)

    by carm$y$ ( 532675 ) on Tuesday June 24, 2003 @09:08AM (#6283939) Homepage
    Novell customers reacted positively to the news that they would have the choice of running Novellâ(TM)s network services on Linux or NetWare or both

    In other news, IBM announced they'll give their customers the chance to run OS/2 on AS/600.
  • This is cool news, and definitely a step in the right direction. Their ZENworks package already relies on Linux to support workstation imaging. You can create boot disks/CDs to install the support partition on the client PC for imaging operations. Parts of ZENworks are written in Java (actually runs under a virtual machine on the Netware box), so moving them to Linux would probably be fairly trivial as well. Looks like they made a couple good choices back then that will pay off in the future.

  • support (Score:2, Interesting)

    by meshko ( 413657 )
    I can't say I'm a big fan of Novell's support, but I'm somewhat impressed with parts of their products. They, I think, make more sense in enterprise than Windows-based solutions and this new direction will also help Linux a lot because Linux really doesn't have much to offer in the area of enterprise organization (I don't think pure LDAP solutions are powerful enough, but I might be wrong).
    This will also mean more products on Linux as a lot of companies which already support NetWare will have to move in Lin

    • Re:support (Score:3, Interesting)

      by flacco ( 324089 )
      (I don't think pure LDAP solutions are powerful enough, but I might be wrong).

      I think the problem with a lot of linux tools for implementing "enterprise" solutions is that they tend to require that the admin know every little detail about each component technology in that solution. in an ideal sense, this is good because it encourages learning. in the realistic sense, it means that a potential convert ends up saying "Fuck this noise" and reaches for the fuzzy-feely-pointy-clicky thing that proprietary v

  • Why Companies Support Linux (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    When you think about it for a moment, companies more than likely don't support Linux because it's technically superior to what's out there or costs less. Beleive it or not, it's true.

    Why does IBM support Linux? So they can sell more consulting, hardware and software, their bread and butter. How about Dell? More hardware, more choices of consumer OS. How about HP? Same as IBM. What about Oracle, Veritas, WebLogic and Novell? To sell more of their software.

    I'm not saying Linux is the best solution f

  • Who cares! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Ridgelift ( 228977 ) on Tuesday June 24, 2003 @09:38AM (#6284236)
    Who cares! Linux doesn't need Novell, or Microsoft for that matter.

    I earned my Novell CNE (Certified NetWare Engineer) back in 1996, and since then watched Microsoft's Windows NT steadily eat away their market share. Novell succeeded back in the 80's and early 90's because they filled a need. It didn't matter that their support was bad or their marketing non-existent, because at one time NetWare was the only game in town. But they lost their market share to Microsoft because they did not improve their support or their marketing.

    But times have changed. Microsoft may be the leader now, and although they do a good job of marketing, their support is awful, mostly because their products are bloated piles of spagetti code. I ditched working with NetWare because I can do everything and more with NT, and then I ditched NT because I can do everything and more with Linux and can support it or make changes without things blowing up. Linux will never have the marketing that Microsoft has, but it doesn't need it because word of mouth and an ever improving product is the best form of advertising.

    Sorry Novell. Sorry Microsoft. You treated guys like me who paid thousands of dollars for your certifications like crap for years, so we left and decided to write our own. Linux doesn't need Novell or Microsoft to succeed in the long run. Anyone who says different hasn't worked in the industry long enough.

  • Question (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Total_Wimp ( 564548 ) on Tuesday June 24, 2003 @09:43AM (#6284271)
    When Apple becomes Unix and Novell becomes Unix should we really be referring to them as "competing OSes" anymore?

    If all I'm doing is providing body panels and upholstery I'm not going to be calling myself an auto manufacturer.

    TW

  • Novell supporting Linux.. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by xchino ( 591175 ) on Tuesday June 24, 2003 @09:46AM (#6284300)
    It seems that Novell is really and truly dedicated to the OSS community. I didn't know until I looked at their page, but Novell is offering a Linux certification, the CLE (Certified Linux Engineer) apparently somewhat equivalent to the LPI cert (at least that's what they recommend for studying), but also including Novell Nterprise services for Linux.

    This has got to be the smartest marketing Novelll has ever done. (Any of you familiar with Novell know how absolutely BAD they are at marketing). I actually have a renewed interest in Novell products, and I may just dust off my CNE cert and hang it on my wall proudly, rather than hiding it at the bottom of my underwear drawer where no man but me dares tread. A CNE and a CLE might look nice together on a resume.

  • cool (Score:2, Interesting)

    by oohp ( 657224 )
    Hey, Novell had the most fine-grained access control and nicest directory services implementation. Don't know if that's still the case with Active Directory around, but I'd really use Novell on Linux to do file and print services for Windoze boxes rather than Windows 2000 or 2003. I've also heard it scales very well. It came a bit late but it's still a great thing. With SCO spreading FUD around, the timing of this release proves that Novell trusts the Linux platform, so their release may add a plus of credi

  • debian advocacy (Score:3, Interesting)

    by oohp ( 657224 ) on Tuesday June 24, 2003 @10:12AM (#6284553) Homepage
    There is a poll on the page with "what Linux distribution do you use". Debian got a lot of votes (more than SuSE). As RedHat and SuSE Enterprise Server software doesn't come cheap, I suggest that people who like Debian should go vote. Maybe Novell will support Debian as well. Think about it -- the platform OS will come at zero cost.
  • .. Since we already have native OLDAP and SMB, do we really need to run Novell services on *nix?

    Not saying there may not be a need, i just am not aware of one..

  • I, for one, am a happy boy. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mj01nir ( 153067 ) * on Tuesday June 24, 2003 @12:35PM (#6286139)
    I'm sure that many of you regarded this news with a muffled yawn. But this is really good news for me. I've been supporting NetWare for a decade now. I actually install new NetWare networks. That's right, new. I've been using and installing Linux for a couple of years as well. With each new NetWare release, I've needed to evaluate if it's worth it to me to maintain my CNE and Gold status. But business keep coming to me for NetWare expertise.

    Now I can have the best of both worlds. I actually prefer to work with Linux. NetWare can be frustrating, but it's bulletproof when it's setup correctly. Linux seems to be more forgiving in many ways. Plus the wide variety of software for Linux (there are, what, 6 different widely-used MTAs alone?) means I can accomplish more with the platform.

    This news kept my largest NetWare client from moving to all-Windows servers. The client had been intrigued with Linux, but didn't feel comfortable using it in production. Now they won't have a problem with it. In their eyes, Linux is ligitimate now. I'm sure they aren't the only ones.
  • Think about this concept:

    "Microsoft Active Directory for Linux"

    Think of all the reasons you wouldn't buy that. Then tell me why Novell services on Linux are such a grand idea.

    • Think about this concept:

      "Microsoft Active Directory for Linux"

      Think of all the reasons you wouldn't buy that. Then tell me why Novell services on Linux are such a grand idea.

      It is a grand idea because no current Linux distribution provides all the features and functions of Novell services, certainly not as well as Novell does. Options are good. You can take 'em or leave 'em.

    • Re:pointless (Score:2, Informative)

      by thehunger ( 549253 )
      Why use Novell's alternative?

      Well if we take the directory alone, then:

      • Scales to millions and millions of objects
      • Supports just about every method of accces, including LDAP, JDBC, ODBC, C, C++, Delphi, Visual Basic, Java, JNDI, SOAP, DSML, RADIUS, HTTP, SSL, XML, PHP, Perl, etc
      • Is 100% standards, ie. TRUE LDAP v3 not like AD
      • Has builtin, fault-tolerant automatic replication and synchronization
      • Runs on Linux, Solaris, AiX, Windows, and possibly HP-UX in the near future
      • Can be managed through a Java GUI A

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