I recently installed the new Spring edition Mandriva One. It has a lot of graphical interfaces. Actually quite nice looking and user friendly. I understand that Samba will if installed correctly give I think I understand, me the use of my Canosoft 3200F Scanner. I downloaded the zip file from the site and saw their Html help file, and ended up scratching my head and wondering how to get it installed and running. Mandriva downloaded the Samba Swat file, but I don't understand how to configure it. I have gone through the Windows side of the sharing configuration and the outstretched hand appears below various icons, but I haven't set if for remote Network desktop operation, as I am wary when on the Internet, someone theoretically can abuse my computer. Mandriva and Windows connect to the Internet through Ethernet and Siemens SL2 Router. I think that I have come to the conclusion it would be far simpler to use a flash USB Key hard drive and store sensitive data on it for dual access and editing. Has anyone else come to the same conclusion?

I looked up the Canon 3200F scanner. It is a USB attached device so you would only need Samba if the scanner is attached to another machine and is shared from that machine.

If the scanner is directly attached to your Linux machine then you would use the Sane driver to drive the scanner. While I was at the Canon Europe site I checked to see if they have a driver or utility for Linux. They do not.

If the machine is attached to a Windows machine and is shared then you would use Samba client to connect to that share. You may be able to browse the network to see this share using one of the Gnome or KDE file managers. Start the file manager, click on the Go menu, select network, select Samba, and see if the Windows machine with the scanner show up. Naturally you will have had to set up the Windows machine properly for sharing before this will work.