Can anyone recommend a good tutorial for helping me to set up my local, home network? I looked on the net and theres loads of tutorials but they're all quite detailed, I need a real newbie guide. Theres 4 machines on a router, the network in windows is set up ok on all the machines, but i don't know where to start in linux.

cheers scottie

hi scottie, here are some how-to's for you


http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Net-HOWTO/
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/SMB-HOWTO.html

and the samba home page

http://www.samba.org/

good luck.

if the router uses DCHP, open a terminal as teh root user adn try:


dhcpcd eth0

that is if u mean u need the connection to work. if u are trying to share files/printers and such, follow the links posted by PEACEDOG

There is a gui networking tool in most of the distributions. Look for it on the menus from your desktop--if you are running the X-windows. It is all pretty straight forward.

You know when you downloaded the images to make the discs? There should have been a "DOCS" ISO as well. Even if you don't have RedHat or Mandrake (or some others) If you distro didn't come with the possibility of installable Documentation get the stuff from RedHat--it still applies.

You get an installation Guide (which covers far more than standard installations and kernal compiles)
You get the Linux Customization Guide (Lots of info there.)
You get Maximum RPM (Even if you don't plan on making and distributing RPMs it contains good information on the files and how to edit them--a sorts of good stuff.)
You get two different Admin manuals--with linux even if you are the only one using it, you are the admin. Important information.

After you have read those, do a search for Guides on google.com/linux. You will be amazed what you will find. Many cover the same information--this is good. Why? Because if you don't understand something, you don't have to flounder around; you can read someone else's Guide and maybe the way the next guy explains it will "Click" for you. If nobody wrote one that helped you, well-- after you figure it out, write another Guide. Help the next guy--and if it is a good guide, you will be an immortal presence on the web.
[[Stuff that everybody uses or makes references to are very good for one's resume.]] {{Your generation is lucky, you have gorgeous "geek" girls. A little Celebrity never hurts.}}

i'm stuck at a certain bit, when i try to explore my local network it says

could not connect to host localhost

i know for a fact i use DHCP because thats how i got my internet to work, do i need to change the IP address of localhost in my hosts.conf?

scottie

im still not clear on the problem...

is your INTERNET conneciton not working?? or do you just want to access local machine on the local NETWORK? or both?

im still not clear on that. if you have an internet connection (can use mozilla or your favorite browser to browse the web) then lookin at other computers on the network is a matter of setting up SAMBA.

scottie
You can edit and change the IP addresses in etc/host not in /etc/host.conf
In the other hand why do you use DHCP? You need it?
How do you connect with internet and the other computers?
What do you want to do?
Make an simple schema with arrows about your network and how are the connection between its and Intenet

sorry, i'm confusing everyone. My internet works fine. I connect to the internet using my network card which is hooked up to my router. 3 other computers are connected to this router too.

When my computer is in windows i can read and copy shared files that are on the other 3 computers by using my network.

I'm trying to set my pc up so that when i'm in linux i can do the same.

I've downloaded and am installing the latest samba. I've got to a certain point and am feeling out of depth.

i am editing the smb.conf file, theres loads of options, quite a few i dont understand yet so i left most of it as default. When i test it (2.2.2.1 in the samba-how to collection) it seems to work fine.

Also i can see my workgroup from windows now.

I feel i'm quite close, but havn't a clue how to view the shared files on the windows machine from my linux machine. Could someone point me in the right direction?

Scottie

If you are entering the very guts of Samba, you are heroic. I'm not that much of a maniac.

I used the gui tool (RedHat) which gives you the minimum functionality and let it go. It will give you the option of advertising fileshares, I believe that is what you want. That may give you enough to understand the Manual.

I can transfer files, I can share drives or services like printers. But that's it; to be admin on the other machines I have to login. Fine with me.

To me, Samba guts are getting as scary as SendMail.

Cre-e-e-e-py and in 3-D!!!!!