To build on what propofol said, once I got an smb.conf file that worked, I pretty much have recycled the same Samba configuration file with appropriate adjustments through several iterations of my network.

So Im starting over since I have changed so many things on linux mint. I reinstalled ubuntu on my new server. I downloaded samba on my system.

I want to have a shared drive on a computer named main so all the other computers can see it and write files to it.

\\\\Main\\f\\

The instructions i am following say to do the following after opening samba

mkdir/home/username/foldername

However, I do not want to create folders on my server for all the other comptuers to access. I want the other computers to be able to create their own folders and document that can be saved on the server. Can linux be set up to do this.

I simply want a drive on the server that can be accessed by any win98 computer where files can be created, deleted or modified.

Why do I need to create a folder on my server? I don't want the the material that the students create to be put in a folder. I want it to be put on the hard drive.

Yes, you can set that up but not as an entire drive instead as a folder. You can have an entire drive partitioned where the folder only resides so basically that entire drive's space is available for this activity. That would mean that you'd have to allocate an additional drive, or partition your existing drive to appear in that manner. Unnecessary IMHO.

You specify a folder which is the top level of the share. It doesn't matter that the folder is /home/users/anyuser/sharelocation/toplevel, because when they attach, they'll be placed into the toplevel directory and then only be able to browse down any hierarchy from that point.

In SAMBA you also can set it up to have the users have write privileges. I'm thinking you can allow this for guests so that no one logs in (again private LAN) and then also the files and folders would all be owned by the same, generic user.

Here's an example of a simple smb.conf which I use, "common" is the share name which users see:

linux does not have separate drives like windows. Everything even DVD/CDROM and external driver are part of the tree and are referenced to the root partition which is /.

You do need to create a separate directory for the share. It can be a different partition than the operating system which is a good idea. Typically the directory would be created under /mnt or /media. The share in the smb.conf would then point to the directory (path=/mnt/f or whatever) and the share name [f], W98 computers would still be see the server/share as \\main\f. The share will be seen by all.

Typically users home folders are /home/username. Many tutorials create a /home/samba directory but as stated it can be located anywhere.

I probably should have asked this question when I first joined.
Once, I finally get my linux server all set up, will users be able to go to any of my win98 terminals and click on network neigborhood and see a computer called main with a drive letter f and be able to open it and drop files, modify files etc. Or will they have to type in the ip address or will they be able to physically see this on network neighborhood in windows. I do not want to have to configure anything on the win98 terminals. I want to unplug my old server using win98 and plug in the linux server as a replacement. Is this doable? Right now, I could unplug my old win98 server and replace it with a new win98 computer as long as it is named main and has a drive letter of f,all the win98 terminals could click on network neighborhood and access the f drive on the server. Is this doable?

Sorry, my last post i did before I read the expert replies. I will try to set it up and see what happens.
Thanks

They'll see the computer whether it be IP address or hostname, but they won't be able to do much with it unless they try to run Linux like commands for instance if they had cygwin installed so they could then ssh to the Linux station. File folders, no, you have to share those via SAMBA first, it's not natively installed and configured in pretty much most/all cases.

Another possibility too. Are these students beyond elementary level? Because some of them may be very helpful resources. See if any of them knows about Linux and also file sharing. You may be surprised.

rtmistler, you wrote

[global]
log file = /home/users/share/logs/smb-log.%m
max log size = 1000

[common]
path = /home/users/share/common
available = yes
read only = no
browsable = yes
writable = yes
guest ok = yes
create mask = 0644


What does

"create mask=0644"

do?

Yes, the W98 computers will see a main and f icons in network neighbourhood and be able to read/write/modify files.

They are highschool students. I asked them if they knew linux. A few said they have tried rooting their android phones. Some seemed interested in linux but no experts. It seems like over the past 15 years the number of expert computer hackers in my classes has dwindled. Most students seem to know a lot about social media configurations instead of programing and hardwrare.

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Yeah, that makes sense. My daughter is a PhD with her iPod, but ask her to use MSWord or Excel and she can't do it to save her life.

Files created will have the priviledges 644, so you could change that to be 755 or 744. It's the RWX of newly created resources. Directories should have execute priviledges but in my case they don't create any directories.

Can i access the terminal in ubuntu without ctrl alt f1? When i had mint installed i could run the terminal and see the gui at the same time. is there a similar feature with ubuntu?

create mask sets the permissions i.e. read, write and execute when the file is created. linux uses different file attributes then windows and so you can set them with configuration directives.

samba is just an implementation of the windows file and printer sharing protocol (SMB/CIFS). There is lots of information about samba on the web.

Yes, you should be able to find Terminal in the start menu also if you start typing it, it should find it.

By the way, MINT, what you formerly used is Ubuntu, but to many persons' opinions, better because MINT cleaned up the Ubuntu GUI interface a lot. I do agree myself even though I use Ubuntu alot more. Hopping distributions is not going to be helpful. Done is done, but I recommend you try to get it working with Ubuntu now and at some future point if you wish to try another disto once you've learned the topic well, then that would be the right choice.

sorry, i am entering this conversation late but still catching up...
it seems like 16 years ago you set up static addresses (no dhcp) for all the windows machines. therefore any new machine you add (windows or linux or sun or mac or c64 ...) wont know the proper addresses/configuration unless you manually add it.

your network seems to be very, very peculiar so any new machine needs to be manually configured to your peculiar needs (e.g.- the new machines work on the general school's internet).

my suggestion would be to scrap your old network. if you teach a science/technology class maybe your students can be assigned part of the project to re-engineer your new lab.