Are there some special concerns when Networking between Linux and Mac OS X?
I have YDL 2.1 installed on a PowerMac 4400, which is hooked up to an Ethernet switch to a couple of older macs using Mac OS 8.6 and an iMac using OS X 10.2.8. I turned on atalk in Linux. These are then hooked up to a Belkin wireless router to my G3 B/W which is using OS X 10.2.8, and a couple of laptops, and iBook and Powerbook, both using OS X 10.2.8 or 10.4.
Everthing seems to be working Ok except for a few strange things.
Although I can see the Linux machines on the network from both OS X and OS 8.6 computers as "localhost", I can not access them from OS X, I get a message, "This file server is running on your machine. Please access the files and folders locally. When I try I from OS 8.6, I can access them like any other computer. I can connect OS X to OS X, OS 8.6 to OS 8.6, OS X to OS 8.6, and OS 8.6 to Linux, but not OS X to Linux.
I also can not see any of the other computers from Linux. The original idea was to try to use Linux as a router/firewall for the local network. I could never seem to get it to work, so I eventually got a hardware router. I decided to get a wireless router since my wife was getting a new PowerBook with built in Airport, and her old iBook could have the older slower version installed too.
Also for some reason I can't see any of the older OS 8.6 or Linux machines from either of the laptops, but they can see the laptops. The connection seems to be one way until I connect to the Laptops from one of the older machines, then they are all now visible.
Under the app Network Utility in OS X, I am able to look at many different parts of the network, including Netstat, Ping, Lookup, Traceroute, Whois, Finger and Port Scan. Netstat identifys the OS X machine I searching from as "localhost", but does not confuse it with other OS X machines.
Do I need to change the "localhost" name on the Linux machine to something else, to avoid any confusion? If so how do I do that and what do I change it to? I thought that Linux was supposed to be this great networking machine, but my Macs seem to be able to do a better job by themselves, especially OS X which has a UNIX or LINUX core.

I run Samba on my Linux box and have absolutely no problems connecting to it from OSX or Windows.

Yes, OSX had a FreeBSD core, but that doesn't mean that Apple hasn't tweaked the daylights out of it. Apple has always made sure that Apple to Apple connections work pretty easily since that is one of the ways that they get people to buy more of their overpriced stuff. Linux works with pretty much anything out there, just maybe not out of the box.

Moved: This thread is more suitable in Networking and has been moved accordingly to help your thread/question get the exposure it deserves.

localhost will always reffer to a machine itself on the loopback address (or at least it should do). Make sure that you reference the other machines with their network addresses.

the easiest way is just change the hostname of your linux box, since you are runing ydl 2.1, im not sure on what it is based, so the best thing is you look up somewhere in the controlpanel, and change the machines name to whatever you like you can rename to for example fileserver or whatever, but im sure that ydl has some documentation on their website about changeing the hostname, that might not be so difficult. in the best case you just open up the console and type "hostname <whateveryouwant>" where the text whaeveryouwant should be without the arrows.

I thought that SAMBA was for Windows networking? I don't have any Windoz machines on my network, and I don't plan to add any. Considering all the mischief caused by PC's out there I don't want to make it eaiser for them to connect to my network.

I changed the name of the Linux Machine to LinuxMac, and it is working well now. I still have lots to learn about Linux Networking.

Thanks for your help

Samba is a linux client and server that speaks the smb protocol. There are other systems than windows that use this protocol.

How do I turn on Atalk or Netatalk In MKLinux? It seems to be the only way to access my computer running MKLinux from my other computers running Mac OS 8.6 and OS X. After I turned on atalk in YDL, I was able to connect fromany of my Macs. I tried the same scripts and commands I used in YDL to connect, but they would not work, as there were not any scripts Atalk or Netatalk in MKLinux in the same locations as YDL.
When I looked at the book I have with MKLinux, I found no reference to Atalk or Netatalk.

Any suggestions?