I have an old HP that I switched over to Mandrake Linux when Win 98 was just too horrendous to bear any longer. I recently got a new computer though, and I am running Mandriva on it. The problem is I want to get about 9-10 gigs of info (music/papers) from my old computer to my new, but when I set the old one up on the network It won't allow me to share any files. I go through to configure the sharing and everything there seems to work fine, but when I right click again on the file it doesn't give me the option to share it like it should. I've tried rebooting and everything like that but I still can't get it to share. Any body that can help?

I can't really help you with the GUI side of transmitting the file since I am not too familiar with the Mandrake distribution. Although, from a base Linux perspective, it might be best to start the ftp daemon service on your new box and just ftp in from your old one and send the data. You can also do the same with NFS if you want to. Does the old box show an IP in 'ifconfig' and are you able to see the remote PC?

^ i need help with exactly how I would ftp into the new computer from the old.

I would setup an ssh server on the box that is holding the information that you want. Then you can scp (secure copy) the files to your machine. The advantage of this method is you can copy any file you want in any direction. I would suggest you learn to use this utility.

Also, you can setup an ftp server on the box holding the files and use ftp to copy them down.

The scp syntax is
So for example, if you are trying to copy from a remote box, to the one you are sitting on now, you would do
The user has to be a user on the remote pc that has access to the files, however, when they are coming across, the local machine will use the current user you are logged on as, and that user will have to have write permissions for the directory where the files are being copied to.

Right click on the folder and not the files.

^I meant folder, i'm not that much of a n00b.

To ftp into the remote client, you need to verify that you are getting an IP on the old box. Run 'ifconfig -a' on the old box and put it in your reply. If you get an IP, then also include the results of 'ifconfig -a' on the new box.

It won't let me run ifconfig -a on my old computer.

Are you root when you run it and what is the message you get?

nevermind

ok, here's what it says.

Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:10:B5:44:A4:77
inet addr:65.188.151.22 Bcast:255.255.255.255 Mask:255.255.248.0
inet6 addr: fe80::210:b5ff:fe44:a477/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:354069 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:2298 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:22189918 (21.1 Mb) TX bytes:337958 (330.0 Kb)
Interrupt:10 Base address:0x4000

eth1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:09:5B:68:4D:6A
inet addr:192.168.1.1 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::209:5bff:fe68:4d6a/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:415 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:543 errors:3 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:36318 (35.4 Kb) TX bytes:114834 (112.1 Kb)
Interrupt:9 Base address:0x6000 Memory:e3800000-e3800fff

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:130 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:130 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:8488 (8.2 Kb) TX bytes:8488 (8.2 Kb)

sit0 Link encap:IPv6-in-IPv4
NOARP MTU:1480 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)

when i run scp user@address:/source/directory /destination/directory
it gives me this
ssh: connect to host 65.188.151.22 port 22: Connection refused

could it be my firewall?