After pretty much giving up on trying to network, re-installing XP and putting Linux on a 10Gig partition the answer was starring me in the face:

There were times when I wouuld make changes to the smb.conf file, for it to be "overwritten" by the Samba GUI that came with GNOME (Fedora 3). I changed to using KDE (which has much more extensive options for networking), set up the users and shares in exacltly the same way as with GNOME. It worked first time and has remained working.

The problem seems to be with GNOME and the Samba settings.

One final question:

How do I change my default X enviroment from GNOME to KDE, preferably from within KDE.

Thanks for all your helps guys. I now have a 60Gig server with user only access and both firewalls running properly. Yeehar:-)

Congratulations for persevering!

However, whatever WM you are using, if what you are trying to do doesn't work always try it from a shell. Even with KDE I've had issues with Windows network browsing and when using the KDE print manager (rather than CUPS Web manager) I've trashed my printing set up. All KDE applets eventually have to call linux commands and modify conf files and if the applet isn't tested thoroughly or your system configuration files aren't where it expects them you can end up in trouble!

The answer to your question on my system is in the /etc/sysconfig/windowmanager configuration file:

## Path: Desktop/Window manager
## Description:
## Type: string(kde,fvwm,gnome,windowmaker)
## Default: kde
## Config: profiles,kde,susewm
#
# Here you can set the default window manager (kde, fvwm, ...)
# changes here require at least a re-login
DEFAULT_WM="kde"

As regards Samba, having had a few differences in browsing between Windows systems (Me, W2K and XP) I've started going through the Samba documentation on the Samba website. I can recommend the following, it goes extensively into how Windows network browsing works and therefore what you need to do to make everything work with Samba:

us2.samba.org/samba/docs/man/Samba-HOWTO-Collection/

Even if everything is working now it will probably come in useful!

Thanks again for the info. I've made only tentative steps in trying to set-up printing ine GNOME and failed miserably. Time to try with KDE, but before that, time to edit windowmanager.

Speak to you soon, I'm sure.

If you are using CUPS as the printing system I found problems with using the KDE printing manager when configuring the CUPS server - when changing the configuration it lost connection with the CUPS server and wouldn't restart it. I had to restart the CUPS server manually in a shell - su and then issue rccups force-reload - this command will be different for you - check your CUPS manual before you start!

However, the rest of the stuff works very well and much easier than editing cupsd.conf manually or using the CUPS manager localhost:631. The only niggle when adding printers is that although it lists all the drivers, unlike CUPS it doesn't tell you until you've selected it whether it is the recommended driver or not.

If you've got trouble connecting to Windows printers shout.

Set up printing using my deskjet and a USB connection using CUPS as a local printer no problem. Unfortunately, Windows couldn't see it (been here before!). Connected the printer back up to XP box and Linux couldn't browse to it. When using GNOME, I couldn't browse windows either, but I could map a shared folder manually (\\server\share). No such luck with the printer though.

Ideally, I would like to set up the Linux box as the print server, particularly as I can now "see" the Linux box better than the Windows one.

Here's what the relevant bits of my smb.conf look like - the paths may be different for you depending on where Samba stores its stuff ie /var/lib/samba is where profiles, print drivers etc are on my machine - yours may be somewhere else.

[global]

load printers = Yes
printing = cups
printcap name = cups
printcap cache time = 750
cups options = raw

[printers]
comment = All Printers
path = /var/tmp
printable = yes
create mask = 0600
browseable = no

[print$]
comment = Printer Drivers
path = /var/lib/samba/drivers
write list = @ntadmin root
force group = ntadmin
create mask = 0664
directory mask = 0775

With load printers = Yes any CUPS printer should be visible in network neighbourhood on the Windows machine. The [printers] section is where the spool files get sent to and the [print$] section is where the Windows drivers are stored if you want to get them automatically downloaded to Windows machines when they add the printer.

You should be able to add the printer in Windows using the Add printer control panel stuff and hopefully if the deskjet drivers are in your Windows driver database you can just select them as you would normally. If you want to load the Windows drivers on the Samba server that's possible too, but a bit more complicated.

How do I find out where my printer drivers are installed, and the lines that refer to ntadmin, are they specific to your machine, or are they global settings?

The bits I quoted from my smb.conf are exactly as it was when I installed Samba - where the [print$] share is depends on the default for your system. The write list is the default for my system - ntadmin is a system group for Windows administrators - the user I use to do that stuff is therefore a member of that group.

Sorry, but I have no idea where the various bits of Samba are installed on your system.

I do suggest you read the documentation on the samba.org website. Apart from the official How-to this document has practical examples of configurations from simple with no security up to 1000 users:
http://us1.samba.org/samba/docs/man/Samba-Guide/

That and the previous reference I gave should take you wherever you want to go - I don't want to appear unhelpful but in the long run you need to find out for yourself how things work on your system not how they work on mine!

Point taken. I'm getting there slowly! At 50+ replies, this post has probably gone on long enough.

Thanks for your help.

Hi Andrew,
I have a question on the printer part you posted, does it work with network printers?
My client XPs can't see the my printer... it's a HP laserjet with an inbuilt JetDirect

A bit ironinc me giving advice on my own post, but this might help:

I have managed to share a printer on my Linux box. I say "have" because it seems to be transitory! I suspect most of my problems are/have been due to account permissions. Anyway, this is what I have learnt: If I try to connect to a printer set up on the Linux box through the "my network places", the printer cannot be seen. What worked for me was to search for the Linux box by name through the <search><search for computers> from the start menu. Doing it this way I have been able to "find" and then use the printer. My problem has been when trying to use that same printer from another Windows box. The printer then gets "access denied".

In the month or so I have been using (or abusing) Linux and Samba, I have now accepted that it is better to edit the smb.conf/smbusers files manually rather than relying on the GUI tools. I'm just working on trying to understand the thing.

Good luck

no worries, mate
I had the same problem, my printer can't been seen anywhere... Hm... make sense since browseable=no!
I'll give your suggestion a try then, fingers crossed that I'll return with a "yeah" instead of a "not working"

Agree with you on that! I spent a lot of time trying to write smb.conf from scratch
About smbusers, what should be inside that file? mine's kinda empty...
Things are working OK though, is this file something like a unix-NT net group map command?

Cheers, NomadABC~

~WiLL~

My smbusers file is:

# Unix_name = SMB_name1 SMB_name2 ...
root = administrator admin
david = "David Waldie"

The last line maps my Linux name (david) to my Windows name. The quotes are there as Linux does not like spaces.

From KDE I changed my folders from shared access to user access, which I have had real problem in the past. Now when I try to access the shared folders from Windows I have no ability to "browse" to them, but when I click on the already mapped drive I am prompted for my Linux username and password. Not quite what I expected, but from a security point of view it is excellent.

To get to this point I set up my folders with shared access first. After spending ages getting to this point, I would advise that you do not bother with user only access until you manage to "browse".

Good Luck

Hi,
I am running FC3, I have just upgraded from FC2. I am running on a 100MB LAN at home, before I re-installed I could transfer files easy, and fast. Now as I was returning data to the server I found that It was VERY VERY Slow. I dont know what I have done, it was never like this before

I was just working on same subject. I run a fedora core 3 linux in a windows network environment. First I could not see the machine name on the network domain. Then I started samba server and provided a domain name in Server Settings->WorkGroup box. In the box below, just write a description. In the tab Security, i chose User as Authentication Mode and a Guest Account which I created before. I checked from a Windows machine to see my linux machine. Yes
I could see it, but could not get into any folder of my linux machine. Meanwhile I chose a directory to share with the help of Samba Server Configuration tool. I signed "Allow access to everyone" box. Still could not see any folder.

Now, as the last step, I closed the firewall service, from the services menu just that appears in main menu just below the Samba Server Config. The name of the service is iptables. Just stop it. Now all the folders I shared appears in windows machines.
I hope this helps.