Very Computer

Hi,

at our office, we recently have installed a linux PC, being part of a large
ethernet network.
The other 4 PCs are running win98 and  are connected to the network as well.
what must be done in order to allow all 4 PCs to read and write files from a
ZIP
drive attached to the linux PC???

Please provide sufficient information, I am a Linux newbie ; - )

Thank you in advance!

system: SuSE 6.1
Pentium II
ZIP 100 MB

Quote:

>at our office, we recently have installed a linux PC, being part of a large
>ethernet network.
>The other 4 PCs are running win98 and  are connected to the network as
well.
>what must be done in order to allow all 4 PCs to read and write files from
a
>ZIP
>drive attached to the linux PC???

>Please provide sufficient information, I am a Linux newbie ; - )

You'd probably be better off attaching the ZIP drive to one of the Win98
machines and sharing the drive using the Windows networking. Using Linux
will involve setting up Samba (which is a worthwhile effort in its own
right) and the Zip drive.

Fortunately, if you still want to do this with Linux, there are HOWTOs on
both setting up Samba and using a Zip drive with Linux (mini HOWTO). Try
http://www.suse.de/e/ and go to the documentation section.

Hugh

You are going to need 3 things...
1) software to make files on the Linux system available to the Win98 systems
   Look into - Samba for "Microsoft Networks" (SMB) support, or
             - Mars NWE for "Netware Bindary" support, or
             - NFS for Sun Network File System support.
   Win98 comes with the client for "Microsoft Networks" and Netware, so no
   additional software will be required, but if you choose to use NFS, you'll
   have to acquire and install a (likely commercial) NFS client on each Win98
   system.

2) TCP/IP enabled on each of the Win98 systems, and

3) A suitable file system driver installed on Linux (i.e. VFAT, DOS, etc.)
   Since you are using a ZIP drive, you'll probably be exchanging disks with
   other systems, and these disks are likely to be formatted for MSDOS/Windows,
   rather than Linux. If so, then your Linux system will need file-system support
   for MSDOS/Windows file systems enabled.

Lew Pitcher
System Consultant, Integration Solutions Architecture
Toronto Dominion Bank

(Opinions expressed are my own, not my employer's.)

if you are already able to access your ZIP drive from your linux PC, the
next step is to make sure that you can access your linux PC from your
windows boxes.  to do this you need to run and configure SAMBA in your
linux PC.  read

 http://metalab.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/SMB-HOWTO.html

also,  smb must be configured in your kernel.  on the windows side, they
must be running client for MS networks.
-----------------------------

Large network with 5 PCs :^) .

I have a setup at work similar to yours.  RedHat 5.2 originally but
the notes below should apply to your SUSE distribution.  I am not
concerned about security within my work group, so I'm letting any user
have access to the shared Zip drive.

1. Install Samba.  This probably comes with your Linux distribution.
Or www.samba.org .  Setup sometimes

2. To use DOS-formatted Zip disks with my external SCSI Zip-100 drive,
I added the following in my /etc/fstab file:

/dev/sda4  /mnt/zip  vfat  user,exec,dev,noauto,rw,umask=000,suid 0 0

3. In my Samba configuration file, /etc/smb.conf, I have the section:

[zip]
    path = /mnt/zip
    read only = no
    writable = yes
    public = yes

4. A difference from using Zip drives directly on a Windows machine is
that you have to explicitly mount and unmount the zip disks on the
Linux machine when you insert or eject the disk.  Unmounting can be an
annoyance since all of the Windows machines have to relinquish any
connections to the shared zip drive before the unmount will succeed
(This is good, since it protects data on the disk from corruption).

5. After mounting, from the Windows machines use Explorer to "map
network drive:"

  \\linuxserver\zip

as you would any shared folder on another Win machine.

Email directly if you have any questions about the above.

-- regards, SP

Hello Lew,

     I am having a problem installing a program called "QT" www.troll.no on linux
6.0.  If you have the time and the desire to assist please let me know and I will
tell you what I have done to this point.  It has to be a small problem, but I
haven't been able to figure out what it is and I have spend hours.  Thanks in
advance :-)

p.s.  My name is Bob, I am sending this note from Alabama :-)