Vault-OS : Finding the right network platform

I tried to put the Netduino on this network and made a very important discovery : Microsoft's TCP-IP implementation is not Berkeley standard. Desqview-X and the NCD Explora recognized the domain redirectors because they are designed to work with Windows setups as well as other platforms.

I had already installed a TCP-IP packet driver as a bridge for coding with the Desqview-X cooporative multitasker but I had real problems seeing and communicating with the Netduino.

The MS Network Client 3.1 I am using is a memory hog even after applying a patch to it and is running really slow with the packet driver so I am trying a whole different approach.

The Novell Client32 package at the link above will work for Vault-OS both inside of Desqview-X and outside it, if you have an appropriate ODI driver for your card and use and ODI shim to connect with the TCP-IP Packet Driver. Installing it last night, I found it freed up huge amounts of real mode RAM and ran faster with a TCP-IP implementation that instantly recognized the Netduino card when it did it's initial broadcast. It also ran the X Server inside of Desqview-X faster for the NCD Explora, with about a 60% increase in response speed for the mouse and keyboard with DOS applications on the thin client. It was also still able to operate with the Microsoft domain controllers on the Windows 2000 server, as long as you specified Novell Netware compatible settings on the Windows server. Has a better front end tool as well for general maintenance.

It's almost too good to be true, with a single catch - your network card should have a 32 bit ODI driver for Novell Netware. If you can surmount that hurdle, this is a far better substructure for the network for Desqview-X to run on top of, being designed for it in cooporation with Novell before Quarterdeck went out of business. All parts of it seemed better integrated than M$ clients were.

I will probably put a chapter for each client into the Vault-OS manual when I write it, covering both types of network substructures and their installation perks.