Which would you recommend for smallish "home server" used for light net surfing and e-mail and the like, and acts as printer server
and shares its disks for other (also windows) machines in a local network at home?

Samba or Samba NG?

Are there experiences about setting those up in a network containing also Windows machines?

How does Mint-world think about Samba NG?
Or configuration tools, like SWAT?

Judging by the comparison on this mailing list. Unless you have an inherent need for a primary domain controller in a multi-user Windows client-server configuration I would recommend just using Samba for its ease of implementation.

Erm... mailing list?

<link deleted by request>

Oops: a typo. I meant, not samba NG, but samba TNG.

But anyway, thanks for bringing my attention to protocol support.
Earlier I've just seen the "slogan":
Also Puppy-folks recommend samba TNG (had it when I had Puppy) , but I wondered if samba TNG is considered a bit exotic in Mint world...

I guess I'll go with the "conventional" samba then.

Any observations about the Mint-folks position on the tools, like SWAT?
In puppy-world it was considered bad, because the config-file becomes "unreadably long".
They preferred configs where there were only changes to defaults.

I find it ironic that your sig mentions "real men" and you're fluffing around with samba!

Grow a pair. Use NFS.

You'll need this: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/downl...s.aspx?id=2391

Is it much more elaborate than samba? I tend to have too little time to play around with the computers at home (Darn!). Otherwise I might have tried that "double" "clicking" some time ago. ;-D

Any pointers to comparison (pros/cons) of file/printer sharing with samba vs. NFS?
I guess NFS is much more stable today than it was on SUNs at the beginning of 90's?
When you got one machine up, another crashed bringing all the other machines with it. :-)

I have also begun to think whether domain is a good idea. I have 5 machines at home, and
if my boys visit us there might be 7 machines in my LAN. Is it worth the trouble to set up a domain?
My machines: Mint laptop, Mint desktop, Ubuntu/Vista desktop, Win7 laptop and Vista laptop.

[edit]
Funny: http://www.networkedmediatank.com/sh...d.php?tid=1434

I thought windows has been having NFS-capability for at least a decade or two! I remeber Windows 3.11-machines connected to the university network via NFS. Maybe I have been mistaken.

Let's see... It's quicker, more stable, easier to configure and is a native Linux protocol...
Only if you have the higher-end versions. The Home versions of Windows Vista, 7 & 8 don't have it, but you can install the "Subsystem for Unix" on those which is what I linked to above.

Crap, I updated my original post with the *actual* mailing list link. My bad.

Ay, that's a problem. My (adult) boys have laptops (windows) and they should be able to use the LAN.