I'm new to Linux, but have built a machine to add to my Windows network. How can I tell if Linux has the proper drivers loaded for the linksys card I put in the machine? I'm also trying to find the equivalent to "network neighborhood" under windows. The Windows network is running Wingate to access my cable modem, so I'd like that functionallity also. Any help is greatly appreciated.

setup a samba server

see ur neighbours with smbclient -L //server

But where in the GUI is that issued?

i guess you want Linneighborhood, but personally i'd avoid it, cos it's annoying and just leaves you thinking like windows, which is naturally a bad thing. check the networking howto on how to sget your card up and running for sure.

What is "Linneighborhood". I guess I need a plain screen, not the GUI that Linux installed with.

the GUI linux installed with? what are you takling about? i don't follow... linneighborhood is a linux gui to make samba less "scary" for windows users.

My Linux 7.1 looks very "windowish". Cute little icons on a desktop, much as windows 9x would be. It even has a taskbar and system tray. If I was in Windows, I'd issue a start-run-command to get to a "dos" prompt. Linus doesn't seem to provide for that.

Linux is based on the command line. So you can get your dos prompt thingy just like in windows. Just don't look for something called dos, look for something called terminal instead. Like a xterm. Or you could try pressing CTRL ALT F1 , F2 , F3 etc.....

Yep, ctrl-alt-f1 brought up the screen I expected when I purchased Linux. Thank you. Now, back to the original question: How can I determine if my network card has the proper drivers loaded. I want to connect this server to my network and have the Windows=based computers be able to access an Oracle instance on the Linux server.

being picky, and NOT meaning in in an offensive way...

linux 7.1.. NO! redhat 7.1 (i presume) yes. "linux" itself is only the 10mb or so of kernel and loadable modules.

you say linux looks "windowsish" and it's not... firstly it's the X window server that does the windows stuff, and secondly it's KDE running inside an X window server that makes it look like that. there are MANY better less windowsy winodw managers. you've SOOOO much control over what it looks like you wouldn't believe... well.. maybe you would...

erm.. network.. well run "route" or "ifconfig" to show the state of your network. the NIC should be called eth0. so check for that. also try runnign netconfig to set it up if it's not already. chacnes are tho it's running fine already.

I apologize if I sound like a Windoze bigot, but I'm doing my best to learn this redhat thingy. Running ifconfig shows that the network card has pulled dhcp from the router. It is called eth0, and there is also a "loopback" running. I guess this means that the Linux machine is up and on the network. How do I configure this machine to be accessible from the Windows 9X machines? They are looking for any computer on "homenet". I further assume that I need to assign a machine name to this Linux computer so it can be "seen" by other computers on the network. This may also be the reason that I can't access the cable modem that is on the router. Yea, I'm gonna buy a book today. The RedHat dox sux.

well, as it's up it IS accessible by windows machines. it'll just happen to not be running an SMB block server at the moment. so read up on samba, and get it running ok. it should alredy be installed. samba.org for more info