I am somewhat new to Linux although I know my way around. I am currently using Fedora Core 1 and was trying to get NTFS working. I recompiled or so I thought with an RPM by the folks over at linux-ntfs at sourceforge and it caused something in KDE to go haywire and so I had to undo the damage it did. I was using the correct RPM as I have an Athlon. So my question is twofold, what do I need to recompile the kernel with NTFS support or can I just share my drive using samba without doing all that work? Or maybe it'll be good for me to do. Thanks.

I just tried again using an RPM from the afformentioned website and it causes a error in nautilus. Does anyone know of anything if you do please help. I edited fstab per websites instructions:
/dev/hdb1 /files ntfs users,owner,ro,umask=000 0 0
/dev/hdb2 /files ntfs users,owner,ro,umask=000 0 0
and then got term window and mount -a then natilus comes up with an error.

I don't recommend using a RPM based installation of NTFS support for the kernel. You should instead recompile your kernel with NTFS support enable. First you should get the sources of the current kernel that you are using, usualy you can get that from the Fedora CDs, it should be called something like kernel-sources(I don't know the exact name because it has been a long time since I used the RPM version of kernel sources ). Once you have that installed there should be a new directory in /usr/src, that is called identically to your current kernel. Now we can get to work. Okey cd into that directory and clean the source of any files left by the development team using the following command : make mrproper. Copy you current kernel configuration file from the /boot directory, it should be called config-KERNEL_VERSION_HERE into the source directory(cp /boot/config-KERNEL_VERSION .config). Now rename your kernel name to something diffrent than the current one, so that it dosen't conflict with the current kernel(vi Makefile - change the EXTRAVERSION variable to something you like ex. NTFS-Enabled). Configure now you kernel with make menuconfig. You will need to navigate to File systems, once there scroll down to "NTFS file system support (read only)" and select it a either a module or as built-in. One thing you should now is that you will only have read support, you will be unable to write to the NTFS system, there is write support in the kernel but it is very unstable and very limited, so I don't recommend using it. Now you need to finish up by saving the config file by exiting the menuconfig program and issuing the following command : make dep && make bzImage && make modules && make modules_install. This will make all the dependencies, make the kernel(bzImage), make all the modules and the install them. This is a lengthy process, so you better go do something else. Once it finishes you will have a new kernel ready to be copied. Copy the new kernel : cp arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot/vmlinuz-KERNEL_VERSION . Then copy the config file so that if in the futer you want to recompile the kernel you will have the configuration file : cp .config /boot/config-KERNEL_VERSION. And finaly copy the System.map : cp System.map /boot/System.map-KNERNEL_VERSION . Your almost home free, the last thing to do is add a new entry to you boot loader, simply open the config file of the boot loader and duplicate the entry of the current kernel, but changing it so that it points to the file that you just copied into the /boot folder. I hope this helped you, and if you have any question please ask it.

Thanks a ton. Im workin on it now. Again thanks.

ok well done and over with but I was looking at my boot folder and my grub.conf more specifically and this is what is put in there along with my changes thusfar

default=1
timeout=10
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Fedora Core NTFS Enabled
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-NTFS-enabled.nptl ro root=LABEL=/ hdd=ide-scsi rhgb
initrd /initrd-2.4.22-1.2188.nptl.img
title Fedora Core (2.4.22-1.2188.nptl)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.22-1.2188.nptl ro root=LABEL=/ hdd=ide-scsi rhgb
initrd /initrd-2.4.22-1.2188.nptl.img
title DOS
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
chainloader +1

now the Fedora Core (2.4....... that is my current kernel which works perfect the Fedora Core NTFS Enabled is the one that I have been working on today. It is all compiled but I am worried cause the file I copied over doesn't have the .nptl actually no extension. Will it still work if I pull the .nptl off it so the first entry looks something like this

title Fedora Core NTFS Enabled
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-NTFS-enabled ro root=LABEL=/ hdd=ide-scsi rhgb
initrd /initrd-2.4.22-1.2188.nptl.img

and what is the initrd???

thanks for all the help.

You should not worry about the .nptl extension, it's just part of the kernel name. As for the initrd, I totaly forgot about it. This is a initial ram disk that holds the drivers needed for bootup. Usualy you need it, only if you have a device that needs a driver before the root file system has been loaded. Use the following command to create this file : /sbin/mkinitrd /boot/initrd-KERNEL_VERSION.img KERNEL_VERSION . Now you should be able boot into your new kernel. Good luck...