I just don't get anything about samba. I've read the HOWTO on samba.org.
It says: "When Samba has been packaged by an operating system vendor the start-up process is typically a custom feature of its integration into the platform as a whole. Please refer to your operating system platform administration manuals for specific information pertaining to correct management of Samba start-up."

I guess this goes for me because in Yast2 there's a module in Network Services that is called Samba client.

I'm relative new to linux and I know very little about networking in general.
I've got a network with 3 windows pc's and 1 Linux box. The make internetconnection via a router. The printer also is connected with the router.

When I had XP, I had to integrate my pc in the network and every disk I shared, or was shared on other pc's, was accessible from everywhere in the netwerk. I want to be able to do this also on my Linux pc. The XP users can access a certain directory on my disk and I can access directories on their disks.
And also prining should be possible of course. Is all this possible?

I know this are many questions, and answers are probably already provided here and on other sites, but I currently get drowned in all the information I find about Samba.

Anyone who can put me on the right track?

Hello There!
Samba is, as you may or may not know, an implementation of the Server Message Block protocol (smb, hence samba, get it!) Since you want your other computers to be able to access you Linux Box your going to want to enable the Samba Server, not just the client. Fortunately this is very easy for us in SuSE. Under YaST in the Network Services section should be a spot for samba. There are 2 options in the network services panel, you are going to want to click on Samba Server. Click Enable Samba Server and change the name of the workgroup to the one that your Windows PCs are currently on then click next.

In the next window that pops up make sure that both share homes (this shares your /home/(your username) directory) and Share Printers are checked. It is possible to share more of your PC if you click on the advanced button, however I suggest you have a strong sense of how samba configuration files work before doing this, documentation can be found on the Samba Website. If you have a question about haw to share a specific directory on you computer I might be able to help you with that too.

So there you go, your Linux PC should now be able to 'talk' to your Windows PC's and vice versa, all in less time than it takes to brew a pot of coffee! Speaking of coffee... uh oh, I gotta go!

Did everything you said, but when I click on 'Network browsing' on the desktop,
and choose 'Windows network', I get the message:

"Unable to find any workgroups in your local network"

Sometimes I lose my mind. You also need to set up the Samba Client, it's right next to the server setup section. There is only one configuration option, so it's pretty easy... just click on it and set it to the correct workgroup setting for your windows network.

And is samba then running? Do I need to start things up from the commandline?

Hello,

Samba works perfectly with all SuSE from 7.2 to 9.1

If you want to share files/directories from your linux box with the Win PC you'll
have to configure Samba server in YAST/Network Services/Samba server

If you want to access the PC shares you can
1) the most simpliest : open konqueror with icon Neighborhood on your desktop
or in the url give smb:/fqdn_pcname and you'll see the shares
or else smb:/workgroup_name
2) configure samba client with yast/network services/samba client
and at command prompt use smbclient command (see options in man page)
3) or with kde menu (or suse menu or alt F2) launch LinNeighborhood and
configure it (it's easy and GUI)

Hope this helps
Nadine

Should I install or configure something specially for Samba on the Windows pcs?

No !

The disks have to be shared (or directoies selectively).

If I may give you some hint give pc name or share name on the
pcs without blanks or accentuated characters.
And read man pages of smb.conf/smbclient to get to the
essentials

I may have changed something in my SuSE install that I want to get back.

I run SuSE 9.1 Pro. I've downloaded the Live 9.2 CDs and both in KDE and GNOME Desktops there was the icon for "Network". Mmmm. On my present Desktop I do not have this Icon. Can I get this back?

It seems conecting to a network might be easier here than going through YaST. Presently, I'd just like to connect to the MS networks that abound. AND via Wireless.

Any help?

I've no experience in wireless ...

Concerning the icon which disapeared you can omit using it.
Open konqueror and in the url give smb:/ in.
You should see the available networks.

I'd dispute the claim that Samba works perfectly in SuSE. I've been having considerable lack of success trying to use it to connect to my Mac. Every time I try to connect using Konquerer, i get the message:

An error occurred while loading SMB://.........../............
Internal error
Please send a full bug report at http://bugs.kde.org
Unknown error condition in stat: Network is unreachable.

This is with both the Client and Server running. When i scan the PC's ports, port 139 does not show up.

I have, however, been able to mount Samba shares from the command line, using:

mount -t smbfs //<IP Address>/<sharename> /mount/point -o uid=****,gid=***

In the case of connecting to my Mac, <sharename> is the login name of the account I'm connecting to, rather than a folder sharename. /mount/point is the folder in which the share is to be mounted. The uid and gid options are necessary to set the owner and group that the shares will belong to (otherwise they end up owned by root), the asterisks being replaced by the numeric IDs.

The problems I'm having using this method are that
a) I need to su as root to mount each time (even though I've entered this share in /etc/fstab with the users option that should allow an ordinary user to mount it).
b) Occasionally I am unable to umount the share, because it is "busy" (even with all applications that had been using shared files closed). If the connection is ended at the Mac end, I can get some strange behaviour (such as Konquerer hanging up if I try to enter the mountpoint folder).

yes, for smbmount/umount you need to instal programs suid root
That's why it's more interesting using konqueror than linneighborhood or other
There may be a bug in kde concerning network browsing (see my thread
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...8&goto=newpost)
on this subject.
I've just solved it and I'm to answer it there