Tony Williams shares the joys and frustrations from a recent Macintosh migration from AppleShare IP (ASIP) under OS 9 to OS X Server 10.3. Although Apple tried to make this process as painless as possible, there are still some problems.
Tony Williams shares the joys and frustrations from a recent Macintosh migration from AppleShare IP (ASIP) under OS 9 to OS X Server 10.3. Although Apple tried to make this process as painless as possible, there are still some problems.
Be happy you were only moving from Mac OS 9, because Apple does precious little to ensure interoperability with legacy systems. The only way some of my Macs can talk to my 10.3 system (in my sandbox), is via conventional TCP/IP protocols like FTP and HTTP. Sufficient, but hardly desirable.
What are you talking about? Be specific. I have no problem with my “legacy” systems connecting to my 10.3 server. Are you talking system 6? System 7? What?
People still out there using System 6 and 7 out there in the business world? Surely not in edu..
Any Mac OS with appletalk, which is like all but like system 1, will communicate fine with you 10.3 box.
Not to mention you can get appleshare over IP to work on system 7.1 and up in case you’re on a network that doesn’t support Appletalk.
Most of the schools in my district have clients that connect to 10.3 sever with no problem. Using either workgroup manager for OS X or macintosh manager for os 9. It works just fine.
Apple recommended to just start over.
Backed up the users and did just that.
I wanted to do this anyway since you dump any old AppleShare IP software and start with a fresh install and setup of OS X server.
Unless you have OpenTransport (ie. System 7.1 and earlier), and old machine will not do AppleShare IP. Now that may sound idioticly old to some of you, but some systems are expensive to replace — and the phenomena of more money than brains is not universal. That is to say, there is no good reason to replace a system unless it can no longer perform its functions. Having a company artificially obsolete hardware to bleed their customers dry should not be acceptable. Anyone who does argues otherwise is an apologist. If such network non-interoperability existed on another platform, it would be regarded as an issue.
System 7.1 is more than 10 years old now. Appletalk still functions on 10.3 server (although you have to turn it on). Come on, do you see people trying to get Windows 3.1 (system 7.1 era windows) talking to Active Directory and complaining? Please…
ahh!!! no, I can’t by new hardware… it just isn’t fair!!!
There are a lot of little things in your life which you buy and generally expect to work for years or even decades, not months to years. For homes, it may be a TV or a stove. For businesses, it may be photocopiers or milling equipment. The only difference with computers is that we have been conditioned to upgrade consistently.
Now that may be fine for desktop machines if you don’t mind spending a few hundred dollars and a few hours of your time. Call it an IT tax. But it isn’t fine if you spent $15,000 or more on specialized hardware and software, only to find out that it doesn’t cooperate with new systems. If you are spending 5 digits on your system, you want to use is for as long as it can do the job. You most certainly don’t want a company like Apple telling you to upgrade because it doesn’t fit their upgrade-every-three-to-fatten-our-bottom-line policy.
In otherwords, don’t invest much money in your Mac. Apple will negate its value in the long run. They have done it several times already. (Guess why I cannot upgrade the systems without replacing them? Anybody remember NuBus? Figured not.)
One of these days, I’d love to see what this upgrade mentality is costing our economy is hard dollars as well as lost productivity.
Sure, some system 6 and 7 folks will have some issues connecting to 10.3 shares, but Apple is much kinder to legacy users than some other OSes like Windows. Microsoft’s solution is “I’m sorry, you’re just not moving with the rest of the 16-month upgrade herd, so good luck.”
In my experience, legacy limitations with Apple are more restricted to “the older hardware just isn’t capable of doing that, sorry.” This is a little more acceptable, and we all know that Apple keeps working architectures around as long as they can. NuBus came at a time when (like now,) architectures were undergoing huge growing pains to get to the “next level.” IBM went through the same thing with MCA (Micro Channel Architecture) bus.
It simply depends on how long your idea of “long run” is.
Unless you have OpenTransport (ie. System 7.1 and earlier), and old machine will not do AppleShare IP. Now that may sound idioticly old to some of you, but some systems are expensive to replace — and the phenomena of more money than brains is not universal. That is to say, there is no good reason to replace a system unless it can no longer perform its functions. Having a company artificially obsolete hardware to bleed their customers dry should not be acceptable. Anyone who does argues otherwise is an apologist. If such network non-interoperability existed on another platform, it would be regarded as an issue.
You actually mean, 7.1 and newer systems. System 7.1 is right around 10 years old. If you absolutely need to get an early system on your network, enable AppleTalk on the server and you should still be able to connect.
You’re making a mountain out of an molehill. Get a grip. There’s no need to panic!