hello. i have an 800 MHz PIII that has been parted out, and i'de like to get it back in working order and turn it into a file server for my home network. the network has some Macs running OS 10.2 and will likely have a WinXP machine soon. while i've installed a few different linux distros, my linux experience thus far lies mainly with using it as a desktop environment. can anyone point me to a good article/reference for setting up a linux-based file server? thanks in advance.

Use the search, Luke!

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ows+linux+file
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ows+linux+file

Cheers,
Tink

You will need to install Samba.

Documentation is available on the Samba web site.
http://www.samba.org/

thanks for the quick responce.

i don't know if it makes a difference, but i have a cable modem to which is connected an apple airport wireless router. the two Macs connect to the network wirelessly, but the linux machine and the winXP machine will be connected to a hub that is then connected to the airport router via a cat5 line.

my vague understanding is that the router uses DHCP to hand out IP addresses to the computers on the network. will this be a problem or will i have to set up a static IP for the server? um, if so, how is that done?

Yes, your file server needs a static IP.
Unless you setup a local DNS, but it is much easier to setup a static IP.

To set a static IP in linux, you can use the GUI tools provided by your Linux distribution.

I used Samba as well. If you have any trouble setting it up, try using SWAT (Samba Web Admin Tool). Just search www.google.com/linux for SWAT. It gives an easy to use web-interface to set up samba shares.