🚀 go-pugleaf

Aargh!  I hope someone has seen this kind of thing before ...

We have a bunch of Macs (about 12 at last count) networked using
PhoneNet hardware; the Appletalk network is bridged to an Ethernet
using a Kinetics FastPath, and we use a SUN on the Ethernet as a file
server.

We're getting just lousy response from the server, and I wondered if
anyone else out there had seen this problem, or if it's just what I
should expect from this kind of setup.  Loading small programs into
the Macs across the net isn't too bad, just frustrating -- like 20
seconds to start up MicroEmacs.  As for programs like TeXtures
-- forget it.  I have two Macs in front of me, the one on which I'm
typing this, and one on which I'm trying to run TeXtures.  The program
took around 15 minutes to load.  The performance seems to vary
depending upon how many Macs are attached to the network -- by which I
mean physical attachment, you don't need to have them connected
software-wise for them to make a difference.

I've tested the network as described in the wee booklet provided by
PhoneNet, and everything seems okay.  Is there a problem I haven't
detected, or should we expect the response to be this abysmal?  We're
looking to extend our Mac network in the near future, and so I want to
make sure we go the best route, which PhoneNet/AppleTalk currently
doesn't look to be.

Any suggestions, comments, pointers will be gratefully received, and
probably prevent me from losing the rest of my hair.

R
-- 
Robert Dale	   Phone: +44 31 667 1011 x6470	| University of Edinburgh
UUCP:	...!uunet!mcvax!ukc!its63b!epistemi!rda	| Centre for Cognitive Science
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JANET:	rda@uk.ac.ed.epistemi			| Edinburgh EH8 9LW Scotland