Is this possible on Linux with any distribution?
 

Hi, I'm considerably new to linux(I have been using it off and on for almost two years with distros ranging from Slackware to Mepis, but I still wouldn't consider myself experienced) and I was wondering about setting up my two networked computers for File Sharing.

What I want to do, is Dual Boot with my main comp(WinXP and Linux) and use linux on a second comp, and completely share the network. What I mean by that, is I want to be able to access both Win/Linux hard drives on my main comp using my second comp, and be able to access my Linux drives with WinXP on my main comp, etc.

I'm not entirely sure this is possible. I know I can access my windows hard drive on my main comp by mounting it in linux, but I don't know how to access this comp at all over the network from my second comp. I also know that, right now, Windows can't access my linux hd on the same comp. Would I have to create seperate partitions on both linux drives for /home/ and use a different file system type that Windows can read?

(as a note, I'm looking towards Slackware or Debian for both comps, but that definitely isn't set in stone)

So, is this possible at all?

Thanks in advance for any help at all.

You are talking about 2 different things here - File System and Network File Sharing.
For a file system to be readable by an OS, it has to "know" about the file system. So, for Linux to see the Windows file system and Windows to see the Linux file system, you need to use file systems that each one knows about. On your dual boot computer, use FAT32 as both Windows and Linux can read that.

On the network level, you a couple of options. If you set up Samba file sharing on Linux, then both Linux and Windows can access the files. On Windows, you would want to use Windows file sharing, which Linux can access using the Samba client.

What I do, is share one folder on a Linux box with both Samba server and NFS server, so that both Linux and Windows can access the shared files, and in addition the Linux box gets the benefit of the extra speed NFS has. Windows cannot natively access NFS shares, though for a while Microsoft had an add-on that would let it do that, which they later dropped support for.

You are going to need to read up on how to set up a Samba server to share files on Linux, and how to set up Windows Shares on Windows to make it so any system can read any other system's files, but there are many, many tutorials on the Internet that can help you with that.

I'm not certain I follow you 100% but I will explain my set-up as I believe it is what you want.

My main desk top is a multi-boot system:

Win2000 Pro
Slackware
Slackware-current (2.6 kernel)
Debian testing
OpenSUSE 10.0

My server runs slackware and shares a large ext3 partion via NFS and via SAMBA. Thus, the same share is accessable, readable, and writable by windows, and all linux distros. I access the share via SAMBA in window and via NFS in linux. It's a headless server and I admin it from windows and linux via ssh.

Works great!