In the true spirit of the internet I wanted to put this out not only for myself but for others who may be having challenges similar to my own. Would it by possible to put together a tutorial for those who would like to share folders and printers from a Windows XP Pro box to a Mandrakelinux 10.1 Official set up? I realize that there are tutorials out there already; however, they are often written in terms that are difficult for the newbie to understand. I certainly would love to see a tutorial where you are taken through the steps in configuring the linux side and also the steps that need to be taken in order to configure the windows xp pro side? I realize that there can be a lot of detail here but I believe that enough information could be compiled in order to make this much easier for newbs. I also realize that this could take a bit of time to put together. Then again, since there already is information on the internet then I believe it could be used as a starting point and the "blanks" filled in a fashion that could be understand for the newly linux initiated. Far too often I see questions answered by "look at the howto" when the howto's can be rather difficult to understand for the inexperienced. I would write this myself but I'm one of the people having the problems. Maybe this question/activity should be posted as a poll. Maybe someone has already done this, if so, please refer me to where it can be found. I would be willing to assist in anyway possible. I look forward to any input you may have. Thanks.

Hi Sloppy
yes I agree that the newbies often find the howto's hard to read.

Here is a quick guide: (I use Mandrake 10.0 Community so I assume I'm qualified)
Let's say that you properly installed networking, samba, smb4k and the network is up and running right.) (And XP is networking ok and you have something shared. )
1. start smb4k. For me this is under [ Applications-Internet-File transfer-smb4k ]
2. Start scaning the network. On the left hand side you should see a space with a blue circle and a name. One might be MDKgroup... this is the default workgroup that you are in. The other should be the workgroup of the rest of your network. Let's say this is called workgroup.
3. Click on workgroup. Now you can see some computers and their names. Let's say that the computer you want to share with is called XPbox
4. Click on XPbox. if it asks you for a username and password, and you can't get any further with out it, give it.
4.5 if it doesn't ask you but you are told you arn't allowed to access it, then click on the authentication button.
5. open XPbox by clicking on the plus sign beside it. (+) Now you should see a green folder for the hard drive. it will be of type disk. if you don't see anything, then this is XP's fault.
6. right click on the disk you want to share. Now click Mount.
7. Let's say your user name is sloppy.
Navegate to /home/sloppy/smb4k/XPbox to get stuff and put stuff on the XPbox computer.
8. What about letting XPbox see you? right click on the directory you want to share (lets say home/sloppy) and choose share.

Thats it! 8.5 simple steps.
if you are having problems with the stufff in the first italics, then you really want a tutorial on networking, samba, installing software (such as) smb4k, and/or windows networking, not with filesharing.

titanium_geek

teckk, you beat me to it with a great link.

titanium_geek

Thanks very much titanium_geek and Teckk for the information. I do have smb4k on my linux box and will give that a try in just a few minutes. I'm actually having the most problems with printing from the linux box to a printer. I have a deskjet 722c printer connected to my windows xp pro box. The computers are connected by a linksys broadband firewall router connected to a cablemodem. I was able to see printjobs that I sent from my mandrakelinux 10.1 official box to the printer's cue but I couldn't make them print. I got ticked off and deleted the printer share from the xp box last night. It's my inability to print from my linux box that's driving me crazy. Of course the networking stuff has me

Thanks for the link. Will check that out, too. Your help is mucho appreciated.

hmm... would it be a big deal to try printing from the XP to the linux box? Maybe you could get it to work this way.

glad I could help! I think I'm going to add my gui file sharing to the wiki.

titanium_geek

Thanks for the quick how-to. I am able to network my Windows 2000 to my Mandrake 10.1. Like the original poster I am unable to printer FROM Linux to Windows 2000. I did, however, manage to printer FROM Windows to Linux. I want my Windows 2000 to be the dedicated server so I would like to have the printer connected to the Windows 2000 box. So if anyone can post tips on how to print from Linux to Windows, that would be appreciated. It seems like the google search always brings up setting up printers in Samba.

titanium-geek- Thanks for the suggestion. I certainly have thought about that. The reason I'd like to print from linux to windows is because the xp pro computer and printer are in a computer cabinet and the linux box is on a desk. It's more logistics than anything else. I'll keep banging away at it.