What Is SMB?

[ Thanks to mywebblog for this link. ]

"Note, as well, that this "open" solution (which, to the best of my knowledge, was never marketed as such) had nothing for Unix users. SMB was strictly PC stuff, and PC stuff was shunned by Unix users as being too dinky, too underpowered, and incapable of running a "real OS." As MS Windows quickly became a de facto standard, so did the SMB protocol. Users began using MS Windows' built-in (SMB) file and print sharing to offer new levels of data sharing. When Windows 95 came along, it got even easier. Using the standard GUI approach, anyone with a mouse and a finger to click it could set up file shares, shared printers, password-protected shares, and even drive mappings. Gone was the need for the arcane batch files required by earlier versions of Windows and by contemporary versions of Novell Netware. So today, we are left with a single great divide: the Microsoft, PC, SMB world, on the one hand, and the Unix, big iron, NFS world on the other. So what are the differences? There are quite a few, and we'll start by looking at naming."

Complete Story

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