[dcarmich]

I'm going to be installing a FreeBSD 6 server for a Mac-based studio, and I'm wondering whether it would be better to use netatalk or Samba for serving files to the OSX clients on the network.

(The OSX boxes are both going to be Tiger, so version issues aren't an issue.)

What have your experiences been?

What would be easier to install?

--Douglas

[IEEE1394]

In my experience, install and setup of samba is much, much easier than netatalk. In fact, last time I tried to install netatalk I gave up as it required adding heaps of packages and I couldn't see the advantage over samba. Also if for any reason you get Windows clients turning up they'll be access the samba shares as well.

[tooki]

I disagree.

It is not wise to choose a protocol that isn't native to either of the systems you'll be using. AppleShare isn't native to BSD, but it is to Mac OS. It also will facilitate sharing between Mac OS X Macs and Mac OS 9 ones, should the need arise.

tooki

[IEEE1394]

I agree with AppleShare being (in theory) the more suitable protocol here, but in my experience samba has been much easier to setup. I have found that both seem to work equally well, and thus with the easier setup, chose samba.

Just go with what you feel.

[tooki]

Not AppleTalk. AppleShare. AppleShare can run over TCP/IP, which is in fact the preferred transfer protocol under Mac OS X.

AppleTalk is the deprecated network protocol stack (not the file sharing protocol) that Apple doesn't even activate by default on OS X. I wouldn't recommend using AppleTalk for AppleShare any more.

tooki