Here's the setup:

DSL run through Linksys Wireless router.
Main Box running MEPIS 3.3.1 (with USB printer attached to be used by laptop too)
Wireless laptop running Windows XP Pro

Both computers have access to internet. That all works great.

However, I have a couple of general network problems in terms of each computer being visible on the network:

(1) The connection of each machine to the network is inconsistent. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't. Generally, when there is trouble, it is the Linux box that is not seen on the network.
Here are things I've tried: rebooting, editing smb.conf file, disabling Guarddog, adding a new "area" to Guarddog, restarting samba server, and so on.

I just can't seem to get a consistent connection so that I can browse files across each machine. (It has worked fine in the past and when it works, it works).

==Mod Edit==

So, I would be very grateful if anyone could walk me through setting up the network and printing. I don't mind starting from scratch and I'm not afraid of the CLI and config files. I just need to get them straight somehow.

Many thanks in advance...

Mark

Since 2 is really a networking problem, I've asked the mods to move this to networking since you're not getting a lot of replies here.

As for 1, it almost sounds like interference. Do you have something like a 2.4Ghz phone in the area?

Copied relevant Networking portion to Networking Forum..