Networking Linux > WinXP
 

Just downloaded and installed MandrakeLinux on an old machine with the intention of using it as a network store and download machine.

Mandrake installed without a hitch. It established itself on the network (via a router) and connected to the internet. I have worked out how to get the ip address of the Linux machine and can ping it from the WinXP machine. From here on I am completely lost. Can someone give me some help to get the machines to connect?

Cheers,

samba is key...

you'll need to make sure you:

man samba
and
man swat

you'll need to add a few lines to your '/etc/services' and your inet.. wether that be xinetd or inetd

if you have any problems/questions feel free to ask...
i'll tell you what i know.

-sg

I have been using PC since Dos 5 and I could still handle one as old as that and all incarnations between that and XP Pro but this Linux thin is VERY new. So, forgive these very basic questions:

I have run smb4k (I assume that's Samba). From what I understand about networking, all seems well there. I go to map a networked drive in WinXP and explore the entire network and the Linux machine is not listed. What am I missing? I have turned off the firewall in Windows but still not joy.

Smb4k is a nice KDE LAN browser fairly similar to Network Neighbourhood in Windows but for your Linux box.

You will want to install Samba for network file sharing and printing and for configuration I would suggest installing KSambaPlugin:

http://ksambakdeplugin.sourceforge.net/download.html

The Samba plugin gives you a nice interface in the KDE Control Center. I found this to be quite convenient and effective for my home LAN.

Re: Networking Linux > WinXP
 

I had a slow 486 doing these tasks for me - no X of course. If you just started using Linux you may choose not to use any GUI in order to learn how things work. GUI is nice, but it is hiding much of the beauty of *nix. This is my opinion indeed, not an absolute truth.

Tried to install the plug-in as you describe. Came up with an error amounting to cannot install ksambaplugin-0.5......(due to unsatisfied kdebase3-samba) do you agree?

God I miss the days of cryptic error messages :-)

Sorry, I'm not answering your question. You wanted to have a simple Linux-based server. Why all this KDE and kdesambaplugins? Plain samba is not so hard to set up!

Assuming I have Samba installed, how do I use it? Take it nice and slow!

Forget about the KDE stuff, Nomad. Open a shell and type 'man samba'

I understand you are new to Linux, but you'll need to do a bit of reading to get this working. Topics you'll be interested in are smbd, smbclient, smbstatus, and /etc/samba/smb.conf.

Try the LDP SMB HowTo to get started.


Cheers,

Managed to get a bit further. Not entirely sure how I've done it, but my M$ machine can now "see" the Linux one. At least it can see the group mdkgroup and the machine. It seems all I have access to is printers and faxes though. It seems all I have to do is set up some shares.

More importantly, I have to decide whether it is worth shelling out on a decent book (£40) or sticking to M$

Any more pointers?

It is becomming apparent that Linux is a "DOS like" operating system with a variety of GUI wrappers. Is that a reasonable statement?

I know this is becomming a bit of a saga, but I'm getting perilously close to my objective. I have now managed to share a folder and my PC can see it. Windows now throws up the error "network access is denied". Who knows, by the end of today I might just manage it.

Linux is like Unix running on PC hardware. Comparing it to DOS doesn't do it justice. However, if you think of anything non-GUI as "DOS like" then ... well, no, it's still not MS-DOS. :)

To try to help a little further with your "network access is denied" error:

What does your smb.conf file look like?
Is DNS working? (Can you ping the Linux machine by name from the Windows machine?)
Are you using user-level security or share-level?
Do you know about file permissions? (Is your share readable and writable by everyone?)
Do you know about the 'smbpasswd' command? (Try 'man smbpasswd'.)

Maybe do a quick Google search on your error (in quotes) and the word 'samba'. There are lots of folks out there who have run into similar issues.


Good luck!

You hit the nail on the head. I can now access a shared resource on the Linux machine.

Now I've got to this point I need to install a 80G hard drive into the machine and install Mandrake all over again and use it for a server.

Is there such a thing as e-donkey or overnet available for Linux?

Time to fork out on a decent book. Maybe this is the ned of Bill Gates empire. Linux does support Need for Speed 2 doesn't it :cool:

Thanks again. I'll be back.

Seems like I spoke too soon. A quick re-boot of the Linux machine and back to square one. Well almost, I can at least see the machine in windows.