I'm really yellow in this business. Was introduced to Linux just several days ago. Basically I'm sick and tired fighting viruses and spies. Installed SUSE 10.0 and I love it. But I don't want to give up Windows for the cause of gaming. I want to use Linux as a server and connect Windows box to it for the safe browsing (game updates etc.). I browsed the Networking section of tutorials here on Linuxquestions and couldn't find the exact answer to my dilemma. How to connect separate Windows box for general browsing to separate Linux Server which is connected to internet via ISP. I bag of you, guys, please be patient with me, because I'm really new in this. If possible to give step by step instruction of how to do it of direct me to elucidative site that is easy to comprehend. Thank you very much
PS. I have two separate machines. One is Linux SUSE 10.0, other Windows XP SP1

I would suggest using VNC which is a remote desktop utility combined with Samba for easily moving files between the two machines. To use it run vncserver in a command line as a regular user on your Linux box. It will ask for a password to use the first time. Now download the latest vnc client to your windows box (do a google search to find out where). Run the vnc client executable with the IP address and display number (usually 1). You may want to change the last line of the vnc configuration file located in your home directory in the hidden .vnc directory called xstartup. This file will have a line at the end like twm &, change this to startkde & for kde (I forgot what the gnome one was if that is what you prefer). Now you can browse using your Linux machine through the vnc client.

The next thing you should do is setup a Samba share on your Suse machine so that you can easily drag and drop files to/from the Linux box to the Windows box with Windows Explorer. I don't have a Suse machine up right now but I know they have a graphical configuration tool for Samba. It may take some messing around to get it working.

Good luck!

So you want to turn your Linux server into a router and gateway? that's what it sounds like you're saying. am I correct?

I don't know much about router and gateway stuff, but as I said I want my Linux machine to be connected to ISP (internet) and my Windows machine to be connected to Linux, so that Linux would filter all the viruses and other web crap and Windows machine would have "safe passage"

Maybe a combination of the two would be best. If you want to browse from Windows, use VNC with firefox running on the Linux box and get files you downloaded via Samba. Do the same with the email client (thunderbird, evolution, etc). Even if you are using the Linux box as a router/firewall to the Windows machine, this will not prevent you from getting spyware/viruses on your Windows box, so try and avoid using it for those tasks. If you are forced to use Windows on the network directly for playing games or whatever, then you should configure the Linux box as a router/firewall as Micro420 indicates, especially since you indicated you are using XP SP1 (not the latest updates). I would avoid using IE on Windows.

I use SuSE 10.0 as my production server/gateway/router. Very easy to set up using YaST if you have 2 NICs - one to the internet and other internal. I also use Squid as proxy server (ie all Windows machines go via that for web browsing), and Samba for file sharing (and domain server).

As others say you still need to protect your Windows PC from nasties - just putting a router/gateway in the way won't stop Windows users browsing the web and clicking in places that will get them a virus! Only safe(ish) way I've found is to ensure that none of the Windows users have Admin rights over their machine and they at least have antivirus running. You can run antivirus software on the linux server (on the directories shared by Samba) - I use AVG which has linux and Windows antivirus software.

Thanks guys! Really appreciate the assistance. So to sum up, I have to setup Linux server to run as a router with samba for sharing and have the antivirus running on linux server too. Am I right? Please, correct me if I did not understand all that properly.
Thanks