I have a windows xp laptop and a Fedora desktop connected to a linksys BEFW11S4 router. The router connects to my dsl modem.

I can look up the IP addresses of both computers in the router's dhcp table, and ipconfig and ifconfig verify they are correct.

Both computers can connect to the internet, but they cannot connect to each other. I have disabled the firewall on the linux box, but still not even ping can make a connection. What could be wrong? Let me know more details I should provide. Thanks!

On the windows box, open a command line window and type in this line: ipconfig /all then post the results here.

On the linux box, open a shell, su root, then enter the command ifconfig and post the results here.

Then someone will be able to help you.

Here you go. Thanks very much

# ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 000:09:BB:32:15
inet addr:192.168.1.103 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:346 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:272 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:36543 (35.6 Kb) TX bytes:20945 (20.4 Kb)
Interrupt:11 Base address:0xd400

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:2395 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:2395 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:1815707 (1.7 Mb) TX bytes:1815707 (1.7 Mb)


>ipconfig /all

Windows IP Configuration

Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : notebook
Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Broadcast
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Broadcom 570x Gigabit Integrated Con
troller
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-0B-DB-A7-2D-0C

Ethernet adapter Wireless Network Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Intel(R) PRO/Wireless LAN 2100 3A Mi
ni PCI Adapter
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-04-23-4C-21-14
Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.100
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 68.238.96.12
68.238.112.12
Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : Sunday, May 14, 2006 10:03:34 AM
Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : Monday, May 15, 2006 10:03:34 AM

can the linux box ping the windows box? Or does ping work in neither direction? Can either ping the other by IP address? What is the workgroup name, as seen on the Windows box? What is the workgroup name seen on the Linux box?

Ping doesn't work in either direction, by name or ip address.

The workgroup name on the windows box is MSHOME.

I browsed the net for linux workgroup help, and I only found Q&A about Samba servers. Do I need to run Samba to make this connection work? I was planning to just use ssh and scp, and open port 80 for apache.

Here's the error Fedora gives me when I select Network Servers from the start menu.

Couldn't display "smb://" because Nautilus cannot contact the SMB master browser. Check that an SMB server is running in the local network.

I'm gonna look a little further into Samba now. Let me know what you think my next step should be. Thanks.

I have installed Samba now but have no luck connecting either computer to each other. In fact, I still cannot ping either computer by ip address. I have verified that the workgroup names are the same - MSHOME.

Oddly, I can see my linux computer in the windows "select a shared network folder" window. The computer is there but it doesn't have any shared network folders available.

Over in samba, it looks like I have shares called "printers" and "jtodd", although I don't completely understand what the step-by-step instructions have done for me.

Anyway, I'm not sure this is a path I really want to continue, because I'd rather use ssh and scp anyway. But if it will help get these two computers connected, I'll go on.

Your lan cable is disconnected. If wireless, then you may try disabling the lan so windoze doesn't get confused