Hi all,

I'm new to this site and have yet to actually make the move to linux. The only thing currently holding me back is that i'm not sure if its possible to share files between an M$ box and a Linux box easily. The family comp with the big hard drive runs Xp but i want to start using Linux in my room. Any tips or advice for me?

Also i'd like to know the general census on people's favorite distro's.

All help greatly appeciated.

check out samba. tis what you need.

For sharing files on other system, you can use samba. and as far as 'general concensus' thing is concerned, i you can go to distrowatch and read the reviews. There are a huge number of distro's that are available. However my advice would be if you have a friend or coworker who uses linux, initially install the same distro as him (unless he is using some really specialiazed distro). This would make getting help easier and faster.

I do it routinely.

I actually have a Win2K virtual machine running in VMWare on Linux, and some of my ordinary work on that Windows installation is located on a Linux drive partition. I share the Linux partition using Samba, do a "map network drive" in Windows, and the Win2K installation uses the linux partition as if it was native. I also have some Windows partitions shared out and accessed by Linux, transparently.

It's really pretty cool. My system has 4 hard drives in it and a real mishmash of Windows NTFS and Linux EXT3. I have Linux files on NTFS and I have Windows files on EXT3, and everyone talks to everyone without trouble. I even have a FAT partition for some now forgotten reason. I don't worry too much about what goes where; when I start a new project I put stuff wherever is most convenient.

I also routinely access the Linux workstation via an SSH tunnel from my Win XP laptop, from many places around the country (wherever I happen to be). I have my laptop set up to run X Windows (using Cywgin), and I can start a remote X session, running my windowing Linux applications on the workstation and accessing them from my laptop. I also can share/transfer files this way.

When my laptop is at home, it also shares files with the Linux system just like the Win2K virtual machine does, but via a wireless network connection.

So, yes, you can easily share between Linux and Windows. Works very well, actually.

For accessing files between Linux boxes, scp and sftp are handy ways of accessing files. Once ssh is set up it is a snap. If you had cygwin or cygwin/x installed on your windows machine, you could access the Linux files the same way. This is very handy if the files are in non-shared directory. Also, suppose you use putty to remotely work on your Linux computer from the Windows computer. If you have cygwin/x installed, you can even run graphical programs remotely. This is more responsive than using VNC because you only need to update a single window (The program you are running).

Hi Nightr0us,

I would also agree and advise you to use samba, i fairly new to Linux, but can say LOUD & CLEAR, SAMBA WORKS!! (Between WinXP to Linux & WinXP).

Jnike