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Novell server is supposed to have CDROM support since version 3.12. Yet, I never got this to work. Digging into the docs, I was surprised to discover that Sony CDROM (as well as Panasonic and Mitsumi) use "proprietary standards that we cannot support". Makes me wonder how everybody else manages to support these CDROMs.
Novell 4.1 came without printed manuals, in favor of "convenient online documentation", which is anything but convenient. To be half fair, I have to admit that there is now decent online help.
Back in the old OS/2 days - system was nice and responsive until Novell client was installed. But after I got client up, it got slower than a snail. And those Novell graphical administration tools for OS/2 - oh, horror!
Novell VLM drivers have annoying habbit to beep when you try to load them again. So, if station failed to connect and then calls STARTNET again, hold on to your ears! When this happens on several station at a time, effects are dangerous for your sanity. Fortunately, redirecting stdout and stderr to nul helps against beeping.
Novell's upgrading methods are strangely peculiar. Being seemingly unable to improve their product, so that users will want to upgrade, they yank older version out of distribution channels, forcing poor sysadmins to get new version. I've been hit by this twice - when I wanted to get a 3.12 server, I was told that it's prices $1000 higher than 4.1 - 'to promote upgrading'.
Now, when I want to add more licenses to 4.1, suprise again! 4.1 is out, I have to upgrade to 4.11, so I might end up paying $2000 to add 25 users to my system!
Speaking of licenses, I am amazed how unflexible licensing packages are. For example, I had 10-user and 5-user networks. Can I merge them ? Nah. Can I trade them in and pay a little extra to get 25 user ? No way.
Novell reseller setup is something else again. Novell themselves, don't like to quote product pricing (though after lot of arguing, they admitted that there is a number just for that purpose - 888-321-4272) - rather, they direct me to "Novell authorized resellers". Some of the resellers have no slightest idea that they are in fact resellers. Here are some examples of my conversations with Novell resellers.

I started this page to vent my frustrations over Novell products and their customer service.

If you have more Novell stories, send them to me.
And if you are from Novell and want to call me and say all these issues are in the past, I'd love to hear from you!