Is there an easy way to share files between fedora and Winxp Professional?

[jbrownos]

I'm completely new to linux, but I'm about to set up an older computer with fedora (just waiting on a new power supply I ordered to get here.) I want to be able to view my video files and documents off of my Win XP Pro system over a simple LAN (probably just a crossover cable.) What are my options exactly for sharing files between the two systems? The linux system only has a 20 GB hard drive, so I need to be able to access the files remotely, not just copy them over. I mainly just want the linux system to be able to access the windows drives, but it would nice if I could share both ways.

 

[Cannabis]

From the little experience I've had with sharing files between the two its just as easy to browse network folders as in windows. There was no setup involved for me just clicked on the computer icon, then network, then windows network, computer name, and it should show the shared files-directories.

 

[InlineFive]

It should work since I believe they both use SAMBA for network file sharing.

 

[Nothinman]

You will need to setup Samba on the Linux side, I have no idea what the default Samba setup is like on Fedora so I can't say how much work you'll nee to do.

It should work since I believe they both use SAMBA for network file sharing.

To be pedantic, they both support SMB and Samba is a free implementation of a SMB/CIFS client and server. If you wanted you could install SFU on Windows and use NFS or any of the many other network filesystems, but none will probably be as simple and reliable as Samba and SMB, sadly.

 

[jbrownos]

Sounds like it's going to be a lot more simple than I had expected. Thanks for the advice everyone.

 

[DouglasAdams]

slightly different slant on this same question.

question 1
i have a fedora box and it can "see" any folders i've shared on the other win xp pro machines on my network.
however, even when i logon as root to the fedora machine i can't see the windows files on the same machine (ntfs partition). what am i doing wrong?

question 2
what's the "best" way to be able to use the same data across a mixed os network (Linux / Win XP Pro)?

 

[cquark]

Originally posted by: DouglasAdams
slightly different slant on this same question.

question 1
i have a fedora box and it can "see" any folders i've shared on the other win xp pro machines on my network.
however, even when i logon as root to the fedora machine i can't see the windows files on the same machine (ntfs partition). what am i doing wrong?

Well, have you tried to mount the NTFS filesystem, i.e. issued a command like mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/windows -t ntfs or have the equivalent information in /etc/fstab?

 

[Nothinman]

i have a fedora box and it can "see" any folders i've shared on the other win xp pro machines on my network.
however, even when i logon as root to the fedora machine i can't see the windows files on the same machine (ntfs partition). what am i doing wrong?

First you shouldn't be logging in as root, you should login as a regular user and use su and/or sudo to do things that require root. Secondly, as cquark said you need to make sure the partition is mounted, you probably need to install the NTFS RPM if you havn't since Fedora doesn't come with NTFS support out of the box. After that you probably want to look into the mount options (type man mount) so that you can have it automatically mounted on bootup (via /etc/fstab) and having it be user accessible.

question 2
what's the "best" way to be able to use the same data across a mixed os network (Linux / Win XP Pro)?

Probably SMB, Windows comes with a SMB client and server out of the box and most Linux distributions have Samba available on the CD. If you really want you could setup NFS mounts on the Linux box and install SFU to access them, but SFU and NFS pretty much suck.

 

[drag]

Never log in as root unless you can help it.

Use "sudo" or "su". If the various enviromental settings make things hard to do use the "su -" command.

By adding the - after the su command makes it as if you logged in as root on that terminal. Linux is setup in such away that you should rarely if ever need to log in as administrator or "root".

 

[DouglasAdams]

First you shouldn't be logging in as root
Never log in as root unless you can help it

no disrespect guys but i did say

even when i logon as root

- i know being root is *wrong* but it was my last resort (given my null experience)
that's not to say i'm glad of the help.

any thoughts on my second point?

question 2
what's the "best" way to be able to use the same data across a mixed os network (Linux / Win XP Pro)?

thnkx again