[ale] Novell NetWare GroupWare

[Greg]

As I am never surprised at the experience and problem solving abilities of
this group I have a question to pose for those interested in responding.  I
suppose I should put some disclaimer here that I am techno-athiestic and
rather non - apologetic about it so if use of the M **S** word offends then
I promise I won't be insulted if you kill-file me.

Does anyone have any experience with / opinions on Novell's NetWare and
GroupWare with regard to a small home network that uses Windows, BSD,
Solaris, and Linux clients ?  I am looking for a solution to support the
following :

 - network file sharing
 - a shared printer
 - NT domain administration
 - Escalade RAID controller card as well as PCI disk controller cards
 - to tie in 2 Windows 2K Pro clients using Outlook 98.
 - the occasional MS laptop that needs to connect to the network
temporarily.


My questions specifically :
	1.  Is it overkill for a small 12 box or so network ?
	2.  How does GroupWare 6.5 work with regards to Outlook 98 ?  I have read
the plugin stuff but have not actually tested it.  I am not interested in
using Kontact, Thunderbird/Sunbird, Evolution, or anything else.  Upgrading
to Outlook 2003 is a possibility if needed ... dim but I might consider it.
	3.  Can it run on old gear ?  (old gear == 700 MHz, 512 MB RAM box with a
lot of hard drives in it)
	4.  Any software raid solutions ?
	5.  Cost - I have seen the demo downloads on the Novell site, but it
doesn't say if it blows up after 30 days or not.  I can get a copy of
GroupWare 5.5 cheaply but it's moot if I need to pay big bucks for NetWare.
Novell seems to want to be Open Source or rather identified with them, enjoy
others writing code for them to use, but still wants to sell proprietary
software for big bucks (kinda like Sun and Java) that they control.  I am
not interested in spending money here.  I can live with what I've got if I
need to as opposed to spending $$.
	6.  NetWare seems to be an OS according to some literature and other stuff
seems to treat it as an application - which is it ?
	7.  Does it support printing and have a pretty good set of device drivers
if it is an OS ???
	8.  How are updates ? easy, hard, impossible ?
	10. Is easily administered ?


The current solution is a Debian system running software RAID 5, SAMBA 3,
cups, and a hey GroupWare solution (that's when one user says "Hey don't
forget about our appointment at foo's with bar next Tuesday at 8:00 am !!!
") along with PC-based Outlook 98 / PDA.  I plan on replacing the software
RAID with an Escalade card.

I guess I could find an old copy of MS Exchange Server but I would like to
explore other options if possible ...

All opinions welcome, and if some of you start twitching and arm waving at
the multiple references to Microsoft .... well .... you were warned at the
beginning ...


Greg
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