Sharing Files with Linux and Win2K

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I am in the planning stages of installing Redhat 9 on an older PC which will be on a small network using a Linksys BEFSR41 router.

What I would like to do is be able to share files between the Win2K box (which is where most of the docs will be) and the Linux Box.

I am going to be installing OpenOffice on Linux and I want to be able to open Word Docs and Excel Spreadsheets that are saved on the Win2K box in OO.

Any suggestions or Ideas? Is this what Samba is for? Please be gentle, I am a Linux newbie.

Thanks,

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Hi Bryan,

Samba is indeed for sharing between Linux and Windows. Redhat 8 included the package and .conf file, but there are a lot of nice front-ends for it that you can install. Tucows has a selection of them that you can peruse. If you prefer to edit the samba.conf file directly in your choice of text editors, it has plenty of notation as well.

Hope that helps,

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Thanks Mark, but I have a couple of follow up questions.

Samba only needs to be installed on the Linux box?

Win2k just uses it’s usual File Sharing properties?

Is there some place I can read up on Samba? I had a hard time trying to find anything that I could understand at http://Samba.org[/url%5D. Somehting along the lines of Samba for Dummies?

Thanks,

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Hi Bryan,

Yes, Samba only needs to be installed on the Linux box. It’s essentially a middleman protocol that allows Linux to see and play with Windows networks. When I was playing around with it initially, I bookmarked this site: http://startlinux.co.nz/articles/article_146.php%5B/url%5D and there are a lot of other places that have similar information. Try this <A target="_blank" HREF="http://www.google.com/search?as_q=

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Thanks Mark.

Looks like I’ve got some reading to do.

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Just a quick follow up… I don’t know how linux savy you are but modifing the smb.conf directly will help alot with other aspects of linux. Most of linux does have a front end for configuring just about everything, but some don’t. You’ll learn more and be better off if you learn the meat and potatoes of linux. I have a few linx boxes (servers) that don’t have a windowmanager loaded, so 99% of configuring has to be done in a text editor. And if you do choose to use the gui to configure, it would be helpful to look at the smb.conf before and after its done…..

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Thanks Mike.

I’m not that Linux savy, but I have no problems “digging in the bowels” of it.

I’m sure I’ll be back with questions soon. I’m hoping to buiild the Linux box this weekend.

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