Just for experimental reasons I put the following stuff together: One 116 mHz/32 mB AMD-K5 with a genuine realtek 8029 (pci) ethernet adapter, runs SuSE 6.2, win95 and monkey, named Hoppla, ip 10.0.0.1 A 66 mHz/16 mB 486DX2 with an also very genuine novell EN3360 (16 bit isa), runs monkey, dos6.22 and win311, called monkey, ip 10.0.0.2 A 20 mHz/10 mB 386/387 connects via an authentic Intel EtherExpress, runs the same as above (or not completely: The monkey kernel was compiled to include the etherexpress board, and serve as "router, not host", using the packages gccall.tgz and krnl2030.tgz, both original Monkey add-on's) and goes by the name of Zen, 10.0.0.3 All this is connected with thin wire (coax), network 10.0.0.255, netmask 255.255.255.0 , and in all linuces the machines have been introduced to each other through their /etc/host lists. LINUX Of course I installed and activated all that seems relevant in SuSE on the fastest computer and as my original target was to have a simultaneous internet connection from all three systems, I found myself jumping around a bit when I discovered how easily Monkey allows X applications on Hoppla to open her display (xhost +) through a telnet connection. No problem using Netscape on this installation, although the login could be easier, as for now I have to SU in order to use the modem on hoppla from monkey and zen. FTP also runs smoothly although zen sometimes has to reset the adapter "eth0: CU wedged, status 0240 0000, resetting..." and scores rather low on transmission speed (<140 kB/s). This is of course only a 20 mHz, but I'm not sure wether it makes full use of the copro. The SuSe 6.2 out of the box seems to contain all it takes to make a nice server, but monkey has its limitations: No modem support (or actually, it has to be there somewhere) and "no security" (no SU login, at least not functioning with the root password). No setup utils either; monkey comes preconfigured for "standard" 3/486. Routing is still completely obscure to me. It must be possible to put up some table on Hoppla, passing the modems tcp-ip connection on to the eth0 as long as the ISP delivers ip addresses, but no luck so far. Other starange behaviour of zen: since I put up the new kernel, mc and top wouldn't run any more, while during startup /proc appeared to be missing (that might also have to do with copying the entire UMSDOS tree around over an ftp link with wsftp/win95; maybe an empty dir wasn't copied). So I created /proc, and found mc and top starting to run but only after some 5 minutes. Either some timeout that has to do with the routing compiled in the kernel, or another aspect of none mounting /proc. Maybe some other empty dir is used in this procedure?
OTHER Considering the win versions in this experiment I have one specific question: How can I make win95 stop complaining about a "netware-compatible shell not available" whenever the slightest network activity is needed (not a very big problem, but of course it takes a reaction to close this dialog box). Uninstalling the entire network won't help; I must have done something wrong with a dos driver or so. Further I've had no luck whatsoever trying to connect from win311 to win95 or vice versa with winfile / winnet. Anyone? Dos is of course what really matters here. Arachnes pktdrvrs.apm contains all the drivers needed for arachne, minuet, telnet and ftp. Elsewhere downloaded drivers allow ipx connections for important stuff like doom2 (where I must regretfully state that the slowest system brings down the game to a rather annoying experience on all three terminals, while for two player games I was already succesfully using a serial link.) Are there other uses for IPX? How does one, btw, put up config.tel to use telnet.exe in server mode and can ftp.exe do the same? So far I didn't try arachne in Dosemu yet. In previous attempts on a PPP interface I got at least the packet driver recognised at 0x60, this time I wonder which one it'll be, eth or ppp. ANYWAY Maybe in those parts where these are cold & dark days, someone on this list is bored enough to reinvent ethernet with me, just awaiting the possibility to disconnect a mailbox from this strange company of familiar strangers... or not at all:-) BRB
