I'm having trouble with networking my pc's, I can ping my windows XP pc from my linux one, but i can't ping the linux from the windows XP, I can also VNC and control my windows machine, but i can't do that on my windows machine?

any ideas? :S

i'm using mandriva 2006

Lots.

Okay, if you can ping out from linux, but can't ping back in, that probably means that a) you're using the wrong IP from windows (run ifconfig on the linux box to find your IP) or b) you have a firewall on your linux box that's dropping the packets. I'm pretty sure those are the only two cases since you can ping out.

As for VNC control, what are you using? Do you mean you can use rdesktop to get into windows from linux, but you can't use Windows Remote Desktop to get into linux? If so, that's correct. Linux doesn't have a remote desktop server.

If you want to use vnc, google for vnc over ssh. It involves installing a vnc server on the linux box and an ssh (I use putty) and vnc client (I use tightvnc) on the windows box.

I think it is more likley to be the firewall, any idea how I can turn it off?

For VNC I'm using tightvnc on my linux pc, and realVNC on my windows machine, would you recommend I use tightvnc on my windows aswell?

The way I'm doing it is, loading up Virtual Network Connect on my linux box then saying to let someone take control of me and entering a password, then a tiny windows apears with a box in it (I've tried right clicking on it and going to add client, but it just crashes), then trying to connect from my windows machine using realVNC.

I'll have a look for putty, not sure i'm going to know how to install it though :P

Thanks for help

P.S. do i need to download putty for both my windows and linux?