Linux Internet Services
for Macintosh and Windows Users

Linux is an excellent operating system for providing services for many of the standard TCP/IP internet resources. These include IP routing, electronic mail, USENET news, and the World Wide Web.
Linux Server Tools | Macintosh Clients | Windows Clients

Linux Internet Tools

There are many, many tools available for TCP/IP services for your Macintosh and Windows clients. Most of them are includes in many of the standard Linux distributions (I got almost all of the ones I use from my original Slackware download).

Electronic Mail Services

To use email at all, you'll need a delivery program -- most people use "sendmail", although a fair number also use "smail". There are other programs available, too.

Most of the Macintosh and Windows clients will need a POP3 daemon; this daemon is part of the Slackware distribution (and probably others). You may find a few IMAP clients, too -- I'm not sure what IMAP requires from Linux. However, all of the tools for t he Linux side should be available at your favorite sunsite mirror.

Internet News Services

Macintosh and Windows clients read news via the Network News Transport Protocol, or NNTP. Linux can run an NNTP server -- look for patches to InterNet News (INN) at your favorite mirror, or try using CNEWS+NNTP. I don't actually use either one, but man y people do.

World-Wide Web

Your Macintosh and Windows users will almost certainly want to surf the net using the World-Wide Web (WWW). The most widely used HTTP (the protocol of the WWW) server is NCSA's HTTPD. It works fine under Linux. CERN also has an HTTP server available. I have heard of others, too, but I don't have any official info yet.

Other Services

Macintosh and Windows users can make use of many other services from your Linux machine. There are clients to take advantage of FTP servers, NTP (network time protocol) servers, archie services, finger services, and many, many more...


Macintosh Internet Clients

Macintosh users have a wide range of high-quality Internet tools available. I currently use a Windows machine for most of my Internet access, but get pretty jealous when my wife fires up Newswatcher. Sometime soon I'm getting a PowerMac and get all th ese tools on my desktop!

Electronic Mail

The most widely used Macintosh client for email is Eudora. Check out http://www.qualcomm.com/.

There are a number of other freeware/shareware clients, including LeeMail, MailDrop, and POPMail.There are also some commercial alternatives, including those from Intercon, Wollogong, and the Versatilities package fr om Synergy.

USENET News

Newswatcher is one of the coolest news clients around. Period. Nuntius is also a nice news reader. There are also some commercial readers, though I'm not as familiar with them.

World-Wide Web

The Netscape browser is probably the most widely used browser. There is also a version of NCSA Mosaic for the Mac. Look for a commercial browser from Intercon, too, as well as other companies.

Other Goodies

Peter Lewis has made a Macintosh client for darn near any Internet related service around. You can find all these programs and more at your favorite sumex-a im mirror.


Windows Internet Clients

There are tons and tons of net clients for Windows users. While I don't feel that the quality of many of the tools is as high as the Mac tools, there are definitely more to choose from.

Electronic Mail

Eudora is a widely used mail client. Other freeware/shareware clients include AtisMail, dMail, Pronto/IP, WinElm, and Panda.

There are MANY commercial alternatives, including NetManage, FTP Software, Sun Microsystems, and Beame & Whiteside. Several internet service providers, such as Netcom, also have tools.

USENET News

WinVN, Trumpet, and NewsXPress are good Windows news clients. I've used NewsXPress for a while now, and like it quite well. FreeAgent is a newer client which looks nice, but I haven't had a chance to use myself. Also, most commercial TCP/IP packages inclu de a news client.

World-Wide Web

Like the Mac, the Netscape and NCSA Mosaic browsers are available. There are also some other commercial clients for Windows.

Other Tools

Lots of freeware/shareware Internet tools are available at your favorite CICA mirror, in the "winsock" directory.

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