Very Computer

Ive read things on samba and i understand (hopefully) that it is a way to
let different computers share files and printers, particularly so for M$ Win
computers. But on my school computers, everyone has a different login name
and password for WinNT, and they log in from any computer connected to the
network and have their own private U: drive, and can use network resources,
whats that sort of networking called? is it possible to do that with linux?

My second question is what ill need to build a linux gateway + firewall.
Because I might be getting broadband internet (is ADSL the same thing?), i
want to setup a Linux gateway + firewall computer so my (future) home
network can all share that internet and also hide behind the firewall. Im
doing reading on how to get linux to do that, i just want to know for sure
what i need in terms of hardware. I think I'll need:
a computer with linux running (would a P200MMX do?), a NIC for that comp, a
network hub that connects the linux comp with the rest of the comps in my
house (theyr Win9x and WinXP and are currently not networked at all) and a
broadband modem for the linux comp. Would that work?

btw If you know any sites that has tutorials on these things please let me
know the URL, thanks in advance!

You can do the same in linux, even authenticate with  a central
authentication server, and them mount /home/<usrname>/ on some remote
server via "NFS".

Quote:> My second question is what ill need to build a linux gateway + firewall.
> Because I might be getting broadband internet (is ADSL the same thing?), i
> want to setup a Linux gateway + firewall computer so my (future) home
> network can all share that internet and also hide behind the firewall. Im
> doing reading on how to get linux to do that, i just want to know for sure
> what i need in terms of hardware. I think I'll need:
> a computer with linux running (would a P200MMX do?), a NIC for that comp, a
> network hub that connects the linux comp with the rest of the comps in my
> house (theyr Win9x and WinXP and are currently not networked at all) and a
> broadband modem for the linux comp. Would that work?

Of course, there is no graphical interface on it. I don't have enough
video cards. It's all command line, hence the  low processor speed. If I
were to put something on the order of WinXP's GUI ( like KDE or GNOME), I
would then need a farely recent computer. I would suggest that you stay
away from GUI's on a  gateway/firewall machine.

connect modem to one nic on linux.
connect hub to another nic on linux.

Quote:> btw If you know any sites that has tutorials on these things please let me
> know the URL, thanks in advance!

The best place.

Hi,
    samba can easily be setup to map a drive to a windows machine as you
require, see http://samba.mirror.ac.uk/samba/docs/ for info on samba
including howto documents etc.

For internet connection sharing, take a look at
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/IP-Masquerade-HOWTO/ which gives a pretty good
description of how it all works.  A P200MMX will be fine providing you
don't want to run gnome or KDE on it (which you shouldn't on a firewall
anyway).

--

   Martin

Quote:> Ive read things on samba and i understand (hopefully) that it is a way to
> let different computers share files and printers, particularly so for M$ Win
> computers. But on my school computers, everyone has a different login name
> and password for WinNT, and they log in from any computer connected to the
> network and have their own private U: drive, and can use network resources,
> whats that sort of networking called? is it possible to do that with linux?

It's called a roaming profile