first let me say that im totaly new to linux, and i dont understand things like, shells, command lines, etc. All im trying to do is get connected to my local windows network to access the shares on my windows machines (a windows 98 laptop, and a windows xp home machine). I installed linux Mandriva as a dual boot on my main machine (another xp machine), and truthfully, dont remember how i answered the config questions (im pretty sure that at some stage i chose "secure" because i wanted to experiment with services such as http).

Iv'e managed to get my wireless card connected to my Linksys router, and am connected to the web (as are other machines). I have no idea, however, how to look for, never mind access the remote shares on my network. All the other machines are also wireless (except my son's Xbox 360). I would be grateful if anyone could help as ive read the documentation to no avail and i feel that if i mess any longer im seriously going to make some bad configuration moves and break everything. I am impressed already with what i see in the linux world (the apps are tons better than windows programs, but this configuration stuff is really starting to get me down).

Also, is there any way to access the files (stored on this dual boot machine), that are on a different partition/drive that has been formatted with NTFS?

Sorry for so many questions (I must be saving them up!!)
Thanx in advance.

Stuart.

Yes, you can mount and read them just fine but depending on your distribution you may or may not be able to write to them. To find out the device name of your windows partition, type 'fdisk -l' at a terminal as root. Then as root, make a directory in /mnt to mount that partition to and type 'mount /dev/<device_name> /mnt/<mount point>' of course replacing the tings in brackets. I hope that helps.

Linux has read support for NTFS, just don't write anything to it, only read.

As for network, Samba is what you want, it will let you access Windows shares. First, install Samba, next, get the IP's for the computers you want to connect to, next, open a terminal and start learning command line.

First, type in
This will list the shares of the given IP, normal home machines probably wont have a password, so just press "return" when it asks for one, unless it actually has a password, which in this case, now would be a great time to enter it.

Now, time to access a share. Hey, do you know FTP commands? smbclient has a command line simular to FTP, or, IRC file server bots (close enough). Anyways, to access the share, type:
Where IP is the IP address, and SHARE is a share, as named in the previous command. If all went well, you should now have access to that share in the form of a command line similar to FTP.

If your disto has support for smbfs, we can actually mount a share just like we would a file system. First, make a directory for our mount point. Now, type in:
Where MOUNTPOINT is the path to the directory we just made. If it complains that it needs root access, then you will have to be a admin to mount it, simply type "su" and then admin password when it asks for a password, then retype the mount command.

There are GUI's i think, but i haven't bothered to look over them, or remember their names, so i cant point you to them, or recommend any.

Im sorry for my ignorance, but i tried typing fdisk -l at a terminal and i got a responce, bash: fdisk: command not found. Im using Linux mandriva Free 2007. Also, if i type su at a terminal it asks for my password but wont let me type anything. All i get is a flashing block (is this a prompt?).
Thanx for the responce by the way.

Thanx. Im stuck at the first sentence. How do i install SAMBA?

I feel realy bad that you did so much work and i hardly understand a word. Im a total noob to linux. I dont know: how to create a directory, how to mount anything (well, except for the obvious), find out what my distribution supports. Please believe me when i say that im not being lazy asking oyu. Ive been looking for answers for days but just dont understand what i find.

O.K, this is what i finaly amaged to come up with. What next?


Disk /dev/hda: 81.9 GB, 81964302336 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9964 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 2550 20482843+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda2 2551 8052 44194815 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda3 8053 9964 15358140 5 Extended
/dev/hda5 8053 9071 8185086 83 Linux
/dev/hda6 9072 9290 1759086 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/hda7 9291 9964 5413873+ 83 Linux

Disk /dev/hdb: 81.9 GB, 81964302336 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9964 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdb1 1 9964 80035798+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
[root@MAIN ~]#

To access Windows shares check system and make sure the samba packages are installed.
Should at least have samba-client and samba-common. Hopefully they are installed.
Now there are few ways to access shares. One way is using "smb4k" which is a point/click browser method. Assuming you are using KDE, click K menu > Internet > File Transfer > Smb4k.
Once Smb4k is up, point and click your way to the share you want.

Mandriva should have discovered your NTFS partitions during install and built the /etc/fstab accordingly. Chances are the NTFS partitions are already mounted. Mandriva usually sets the mount points in /mnt directory and names them win_c, win_d, and so on. To check if the they are mounted do a "df" command from a terminal. Here's what mines looks like as an example:
Let us know if they not mounted and we'll help get that sorted with you.

Does this mean they are installed? (The word samba on every line is in RED)


[root@MAIN ~]# rpm -qa|grep samba
samba-server-3.0.23b-7mdv2007.0
samba-common-3.0.23b-7mdv2007.0
samba-client-3.0.23b-7mdv2007.0

Don't feel to bad. First off, seems like you use Mandriva, i have never used it, but all distros have at least a few things in common. The first is package management, and each disto tends to have a different package manager, your first task is find out what package manager Mandriva has, and how to install things from it. Using the package manager is the preferred way to install things on any disto, so looking for "installing software on Mandriva" or something should work (look at FAQ's on their website).

I assume you know why we need to mount file systems? Linux has support for lots of file systems, including FAT/FAT32, NTFS, as well as some used by Apple, and lots of other OS's/computers, as well as a few "native" and popular file systems used with Linux. It also has support for remote file systems, such as NFS. SMBFS is another such remote file system Linux supports (SMB short for Samba), used to make life's easier, as we can then use a file manager to move files from/to the share.

smbclient is a program that acts like a client for Samba/Windows shares (Samba is a project to reverse engineer Windows's network sharing, so Linux and other OS's can connect to Windows networks). The "-L" switch tells smbclient to list all shares, it takes a IP adress as a argument. (try the command to see if Samba is installed, it might already be, if it says it cant find smbclient, then Samba is not installed). It will list all shares for the IP adress on the command line. The next command i told you about "smbclient \\\\IP\\SHARE" was to connect to the share.

Any specific questions about what you don't understand?

Yes, they are installed. The red letters just there to highlight the search string.

This is what i get from "df" ( by the way, at the moment im in GNOME, but i have KDE as well, Should i swap?)

Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda5 7.7G 2.6G 4.8G 35% /
/dev/hda7 5.1G 47M 5.1G 1% /home
/dev/hda1 20G 13G 7.5G 62% /mnt/win_c
/dev/hdb1 77G 46G 31G 60% /mnt/win_c2
/dev/hda2 43G 25G 18G 58% /mnt/win_d

Yes, It would be great to Know what "mounting" is and how it relates to windows. I think the only time i mounted something was with an image of a game on a virtual drive using Alcohol 120% for windows(but i dont understan what that acualy MEANS)

Basically, mounting a drive means that you attach the drive's contents to a location on your filesystem (/mnt/xxx) where you can access it.* According to df, they're already mounted properly and you should find the contents of your Windows partitions if you point your file manager to /mnt/win_c, /mnt/win_c2, or /mnt/win_d.

It all comes down to personal preference, use whichever one you like best.

*For example, /dev/hda5 is mounted at /, and /dev/hda7 is mounted at /home.

Sorry,last question i promise. How do I point my "file manager" (and what is this) to /mnt/win_c, /mnt/win_c2, or /mnt/win_d.