Dear list Recently I need to start a small project to distribute about 100GB megabytes of audio files to local university campus. I'd like to post my requirement hoping I can get some insightful recommendation on what software/technology to use to distribute these files. 1. It must be accessible from Windows linearly (e.g. FTP protocol), better also random access from Windows is also supported (e.g. samba). We must not require Windows user to install for-fee software in order to get the content. 2. It must be accessible from Linux randomly, with no client side tool (e.g. nfs) or free (as in beer) client side tool. 3. Both Linux and Windows user should be able to batch-download, e.g. download a whole folder and its sub-folders; 4. It must stand relatively heavy load; 5. It better can provide user a search feature so that user can search with keyword in file name, or even better, in mp3/ogg tag. 6. It better handle character-set difference in nice manner. e.g. HTTP can handle character-set difference because charset info is in HTTP header and charset conversion is done automatically; FTP cannot handle character-set difference in very nice manner, user have to configure their FTP client to do charset conversion, and most Windows FTP client software I know of do not support charset conversion. I am thinking about possible solutions: 1. FTP -> can handle heavy load, can do bath upload, not random-accessible, auto-charset conversion not supported; 2. apache -> batch download not easy for users, handle charset conversion nicely, not random access 3. NFS -> I don't know any free-as-in-beer Windows client software for it and I don't know if that client software can do charset conversion; for Linux clients it's perfect; 4. Samba -> I don't know if charset conversion is easy with it. If a SuSE client connects to it, can suse client select which charset to use without forcing user to use commandline? And how about windows, can windows connect to the samba share and do charset conversion automatically? 5. DC++ -> looks very nice for charset conversion, I also tried it, nice. But I don't know if there are Linux server-end software. Need to check. I am thinking perhaps combine two solutions together might be the best, e.g. setting up FTP server for Windows users and set up NFS server for Linux users. Still I am not sure what's the best solution, and there might be better solutions than what I listed that I never heard of. * In all above discussion "charset conversion" means charset conversion for file names, not the content. Content is in mp3/ogg format. Thanks for any comments! -- Zhang Weiwu Real Softservice http://www.realss.com +86 592 2091112 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org