I had some doubts running clipper programs in Linux. I am having dos based clipper programs for accounting which we are thinking to migrate to Novell but i am for Linux ,considering cost and may in future Linux cost effectiveness may help us, plus security and scalability.

Actual Scenario:

Small office network10/100Mbps (6-8 clients), where we use Clipper-based program for accounting. First, we thought of an old NetWare as a server and Diskless Netware Clients, then I suggested it with linux+Samba. Now i have abouts of corruption of database in Linux and whether dos emulators might work if they work will they really slow around with 6-7 clients connected . Is it possible to speed it up somehow (with new hardware?) or may be native speed of dos emu s can be overcome by some way.

If you are not using third party libraries for clipper, then you might have some success with the harbour compiler for linux - it compiles clipper code to a native linux executable. http://www.harbour-project.org/

I have used a regular DOS clipper program with DBFs stored on a linux samba server with no corruption issues, but the program did not have many users.