On Fri, 21 Mar 2003, Wolfe, Gordon W wrote: > > Since we all know telnet is horrible in this day and age, why isn't it > > dropped entirely? > > them find another way. Shouldn't we just end the debate and > > get rid of it? > > I'd love this if it were possible. > > However, I work daily with workstations that have virtually every operating system > in common use. Windows, Mac and Linux, a total of five different operating > system/versions. > > For -EACH- operating system, I have to have terminal emulators that will emulate > VT220 Telnet, VT220 SSH and TN3270 (3279M3G) as well as FTP and SCP clients as well. > Furthermore, to use with a Linux/390 server you'll want both line-mode and > KDE/Gnome/X-windows versions. Not all O/S's have vendors that are forthcoming with > such an array of clients. There is usually a separate client for each of these > functions. > > And if you have such a client that works on one release of an O/S, there is no > guarantee that it will work with another release or version. I have stuff that > works on Windows 2000 that doesn't work on Windows 98. Nothing that works on Mac > OS9 works on Mac OSX, and vice-versa. and of course, anything that works on Linux > doesn't work on anything else. > > And even if you have such a client on your workstation, that doesn't mean that it > will be compatible with all servers. Sometimes from Windows 2000 I use Hummingbird > and sometimes Rhumba, depending on where I'm going to. Mac OS9 has a great program > called TCPConnect (Out of business but it still works) that does TN3270, Telnet, FTP > and SSH but not x-windows. > > If someone could just write a really great universal client terminal emulator that > would do all this stuff and cross-compile it to all five of these platforms, I think > they'd make a fortune. I know I'd buy about seven copies just for my own use.
Why not put your collection of clients on a server someplace where folk can run them straight off the server? AFAIK Putty works on all Windows. Linux stuff can be built for OSX. Linux users already have it;-) I don't know what the GUI solutions are for all platforms, but once you have them, as far a stheir licences allow, put them all on the server, where you can be sure that users and their Viruses can't get at them. And, if anyone has trouble, give them a Knoppix CD and ask them to "explain what you need to do that you can't do with what's on this CD." -- Cheers John. Join the "Linux Support by Small Businesses" list at http://mail.computerdatasafe.com.au/mailman/listinfo/lssb
