I am familiar with Windows but just now getting involved with Linux (xubuntu).

I have both a WinXP Home laptop and a Xubuntu laptop. Is there any reasonably simple way to share files thru a USB interconnect?

-----Paul-----

I've never heard of connecting servers via a USB cable. What about using an ethernet crossover cable instead? All you need for this would an ethernet port on your Windows machine and an ethernet port on your xubuntu machine (which they'll both have unless there quite old) and an ethernet crossover cable.

Interesting concept. Out of my area of expertise. But, oddly enough, I do have access to a crossover cable. When I hook them up, what should I expect to see? Am I going to be FTP'ing between them or will drives show up or ...?

-----Paul-----

In order to make use of the crossover cable both machines will have to be assigned to the same network. For example, in IP addressing you might want to have one machine addressed 192.168.0.1 and the other 192.168.0.2. That will setup the initial network. Next you will want to setup something called Samba. This will help you setup your Linux machine as a file share server. From there you will have to setup shares so that the files you want can be accessed.

You will have to do some of your own research but most of this information can be found at www.samba.org. There are also many walkthroughs like at http://www.linuxhomenetworking.com/ which is my favorite administration site. Good Luck!