Novel: pron. (Nov'el) defined:  adj.   of a new kind or nature; not known before; strange; new. derived:  from the latin novellus a diminutive of novus meaning "new". spelled:  suspiciously similar to Novell ®, a trademark of Novell, Inc.

What is Novel Client?

The Novel Client for Linux is a GUI front-end for the ncpfs utilities making it easy to transfer data to and from a Novell Netware fileserver. Connections can be made using IP or IPX, Bindery or NDS to Netware server versions from 3.x through 6.x. Novel Client runs on Linux in X Windows. It is written in Object-Pascal using Kylix from Borland.

Announcements

Feb/Mar 2004: Novel Client 0.86 released. Setup has been simplified and improved. Now works in environments with multiple DA's. The code was cleaned up a bit. It still needs more of that though.

22 October 2003: Alpha version of Novel Client, 0.85a, is released. This version can obtain network information from DHCP and DNS as well as SLP. Users now can browse the NDS tree before they are authenticated allowing them to choose their context and server to mount. Location profiles have been added which allows quick mounting of multiple servers or multiple trees. Login scripts have been partially implemented including user-specified local login scripts and variables. Currently login scripts will only display but not execute. A security problem with the exec call has been fixed. Password changing which appears greyed out on the Global tab is not yet implemented. Check the HOW-TO page for updated info on what to configure on the network side to allow auto configuration of the client.

Released 0.8.2 on 17 March, 2003. Another minor update, it fixes one problem and adds several new features.

Version is 0.8.1 was released on the 14th of December, 2002. It is a minor update mostly to fix a bug in the setup script that kept frametypes other than 802.2 from being bound and did not remember the setting after a reboot even when it was told to.

Version 0.8 was released on December 8th and fixed many bugs and feature requests.

The packages in the download area have been changed. The kylix libs are removed because too many people were confused by having them separate. Now there are just two packages. They are basically the same thing, but one is in a self-extracting archive while the other is in the traditional tarred and gzipped format.

Need Help?

In addition to the FAQ and How-To provided here, the Novel Client project page on SourceForge contains download links, discussion groups, mailing lists, etc. Read the all the documentation provided in the How-To section, the FAQ, the forums, and issues in the Tracker system. If after exhausting these resources, you don't find the answer to your question then post a message in the discussion forums so that everyone has a chance to help and everyone will be able to benefit from the resolution.  The mailing list could be another valuable resource since the members of the novelclient-users list may have been successfully using the software for some time but only rarely come back to the forums where they would see your question.

How Do I Report a Bug or Open a Support Request?

Goto the novelclient project page and click the Bugs or Support link under the Tracker section. In the Browse Bugs (or Support Requests) page change the Status to Any and click Browse. This will display all reported bugs or support requests. Check that you are not filing a duplicate.

Read this guideline to learn the best practices for reporting bugs. This will make you a better Open Source citizen. Filing bug reports for Open projects is an important function that can be performed by anyone, even non-coders, but it must be done properly to be useful.