Hi everybody! This place is really cool for newbies...

I launch linux mandrake 10 in a VMware (4.0.5 build 6030) virtual machine under Windows WP home for 2 weeks.

Thanks to messages posted here, I managed to deal with an issue with the virtual ethernet card (AMD PCnet), but now i think that i need more help...

My virtual host connections (VMnet1 and VMnet8) seem to be ok. I only enable the host only connection (VMnet1) in my windows guest and I selected host only connection for the emulated ethernet card for the linux guest in the VMware workstation.

Now, i'm able to ping my xp system from linux and the opposite (cool!!), but what i really care is of course being able to share folders and files...

i've read that samba (which i unfortunately don't know at all) was the ideal solution for me.

I've got a few questions... any help is welcome.

1) Is samba a communication protocol or is it a software ?

2) I've read that to be able to view a windows folder, i neet to configure a samba client in my linux host and a samba server in my windows host...

I don't know how to do that, but i think that a samba guest is already configured with mandrake 10... so i launched Konqueror and typed smb:/MSHOME in the address bar. I saw a folder which i think is a gate to my guest OS (its name is the name of my network name under XP, so...).

But anyway, when i click on this folder, Konqueror goes back to smb:/, and all i can see the MSHOME network. I can click on it and again see my host, but there is a quite borrowing loop...

Because i can see my host in a konqueror session, i think that my samba client is correctly installed, but i guess that my problems are coming from the absence of a samba server configured in my XP host...

But how do you configure such a server ? Do i need to download something ? I don't have any smb.conf file in my XP host. I hope this file will come when i'll have dowloaded what's needed... (?) And what will i have to put in this file in order to allow my client to access the host ?

Do i have to add a particular protocol to my virtual host connection ? (Samba, if this protocol exists?) Currently, the protocols installed on this connection (VMnet1) are tcp/ip, clients for MS networks and files and printers sharing for MS networks...

It would be really great if some skilled guys (or girls, no problem...) could help me... the reason why i really want achieve this is that when everything will be all right between my host and my virtual machine, i will launch linux with a dual boot and i want to access shared folders on another computer...

Thank you in advance...

cncrazu