One of our group companies has just 'gone live' on a new laboratory management package. Although the software is M$-based (ie: expects a M$ server at the heart of it), it is running with its core database on a CentOS3 server using Samba for client access - in fact, the developers are amazed at the performance and say it beats a Win2K/2K3 server 'hands down'!!!

Anyway, the old lab management app that I inherited has its database hosted on a Netware 3.12 server and the client app is written in Turbo Pascal including database units compiled with a specific Netware switch and if we try to run the db off the Linux server using Samba we get record lock errors. Unfortuntely, we have no confidence in re-compiling the ancient source code, expecially since the company that developed the database engine is long gone. We need access to the old data for reference and although I am going to attempt to extract it all and do some PHP stuff with it, a Google search turns up two netware emulation packages for Linux - lwared and mars_nwe - so my question is this: has anyone around these here parts used any or both of these apps with CentOS 3 or 4 and if so can I have any useful insight? I suppose the ultimate test would be to try them both but a head start would be aprpeciated.

Thanks as ever,

Nigel Kendrick