I'm trying to share files back and forth between an windoze 2k machine and my FedoraCore machine. I'm curious which one works better for what I'm trying to accomplish.

From what I understand NFS is for *nix to *nix and Samba is for *nix to Windows. So essentially you may need both on the same network if you want a directory to be shared to both operating systems.

If you are sharing files with Windows, then Samba is the only choice.

can you run both NFS and Samba on the same machine?

Sure can. Shouldn't be too bad.

If you want to share with windows you will need to install Samba.

You can also use Samba to share with other Linux machines without any problem (mount the shares as smbfs in fstab).

Although you can use both, I would suggest you use Samba to handle all your shares to both *nix and windows clients. You will save alot of time this way as you only need to set up and map one set of shares.

There should be plenty of info on the forum about how to set up your samba config.

All the best and happy sharing!

Depending on what you try to accomplish, samba is the choice. But if you need to move around large files, ftp might be a better choice, it's a lot faster, but only for large files. Samba will do fine with small files.

Hello !

my experience tells me that nfs is (much) faster than samba.
For example:

I have tested datatransfer (700meg) from one pc to another through a powerline connection...
here i have 2 normal realtec pci 100 mbit cards which are connected to the powerplug...

the theoretically datatransfer is 14 mbit...
but because of the length i get much lower datarates...

ok now th tests:

Linux to Linux
Samba: ca. 320kbyte (=2560kbit)
NFS : ca. 530kbyte (=4240kbit)

the only bad thing is that i get very often "timeout" problems when i want to connect my nfs-paths in the /etc/fstab... :-(
So i have to mount maually.....

But speed is great!

so long
Liu

I totaly agree:

If you can get NFS share, use it!

Samba did his best to fit MS rules (wich sucks) :-)

Dhu... BTW, anybody heard about Windows Services for UNIX (SFU) ?? can profide NFS client for Windows... Also shares in NFS !!

I tested it on 2k also with it's NIS module ...