hey. linux newbie here. just ordered a box from sam's club and have had my system for two days and i'm loving it.

here's my dilema, though. i have two other computers on the network (one win2k and one win98) and i want to be able to connect with them over the network. i don't know how to phrase that. i guess 'i want to browse through the network connections and see their shares and use their printers' works. i have about 2 gigs of photography on the win2k machine and i'd like to move it over here. my friend told me 'samba' and pointed me here.

hope you guys can help and don't think this is too asinine a question. i'm just getting my footing here.

thanks in advance.

Welcome to LQ.

Yes samba is what you need. It is the linux equivilent of "File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks" (even has a better name )

What linux distribution are you running?

it came preloaded. CPUbuilders computer through sam's club, so they have their own distro. is that the info you're looking for?

What does the output of this show:
cat /proc/version
uname -a
whereis samba
find / -name smb.conf

okok. let me type this out before i forget.

i ran the code you gave me, and the last one gave me all sorts of 'permission denied' messages. so i logged out, then logged back in under root to see if i could do it in there. i could, and it did, and i checked the network connections icon under root. i'm showing up under the workgroup and the other computers are showing up as well. also, i'm showing up to them.

self-help strikes again.

thanks for your help, david.

oh, also. this is good to know:

Linux version 2.4.20-3.11cpub (glandix@localhost.localdomain) (gcc version 3.2.2 20030222 (Red Hat Linux 3.2.2-5)) #1 Fri Aug 22 15:57:01 CDT 2003

Linux localhost.localdomain 2.4.20-3.11cpub #1 Fri Aug 22 15:57:01 CDT 2003 i686 athlon i386 GNU/Linux

so i'm running on a permutation of redhat?

It would look like it yes.