[ale] Home Networking Opinions Please

[Neal Wilkinson]

I'm about to make the attempt to share files between my machine and my
wife's and also a printer. They are both running Mandrake 9.0 and
Windows Millennium. I want to be able to share files/printer regardless
of the configuration of the other machine. In other words when I'm
booted into Mandrake and she is in Windows nothing changes and vice
versa. Also if we both are in Mandrake or Windows at the same time. I
don't need any help Windows to Windows. I'm assuming from everything
that I have read that the best way to go is NFS and Samba. I've also
read about NIS but don't find any inference to its existence on my
existing install of Mandrake. It sounds better to me but its advantages
may be limited to much larger networks. I can go get it and install it
if need be. Everything that I have read indicates to me that I will have
to run a server for NFS or NIS and Samba. Is this something that I
should just run on one of the workstations or should I devote a clunker
to it? I'm guessing that it would need to be on a machine that wouldn't
change configuration so that the service would always be available and
that would make it a third dedicated machine. I assume that I could also
rather than use a third machine run the servers on both workstations but
that seems kind of hokey. The third machine would be without monitor but
I could probably pick up a switch box. I've shared the printer before
Linux to Linux and that was as easy as sharing it in Windows. I'm
assuming that I can share it Windows to Linux using Samba. I would like
to hear your opinions on doing it this way or other ways that I've not
mentioned. I'm pretty tired of reading about it and am ready to do
something but I want to do it correctly the first time. Ease of setup
isn't my only consideration. I don't want to sacrifice the best method,
most reliable, or security for ease of setup. The two machines I have
now are connected via a BEFSR41 Linksys router if that makes a
difference. I appreciate your insights, opinions, thoughts on this.
Thanks.

Neal



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