Can I network Windows and Linux?

Can I network a Linux box to a Windows 2000 box?

It's actually relatively easy to network Linux and Windows. All the necessary pieces are in the Windows box and most Linux distributions.

To start with, you'll need the usual hardware (network cards, cables, hubs, lucky horseshoe and so on), and software drivers for the cards.

• Windows has drivers for a huge range of cards
• Linux has drivers for many cards.

Then you'll need a low level protocol to send data packets over the network between the two computers.

• Typical protocols used in Windows are TCP/IP, NetBEUI, and SPX/IPX, with TCP/IP the most common (and vital for sharing connections to the Internet).
• Linux and all Unix variations have TCP/IP as part of most distributions.

You'll need to set up TCP/IP to have common IP addressing on all computers on the LAN - the same subnet mask, and IP addresses in the same range. An IP address range that works well for private networks is 192.168.0.1 to 192.168.0.254 with a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0.

You may configure the IP address manually, or set up a DHCP server to hand out IP addresses automatically. Many SOHO broadband routers have built in DHCP servers. Alternatively you can enable a built in DHCP server in Windows
NT/2000/XP or Linux.

Next you need higher level protocols to send data back and forward. These can be protocols like HTTP (web servers and clients), FTP (file transfer), Telnet (remote terminal), and many, many others.

But what you probably are asking is, how do you share files/folders/drives and printers across the network? For this you'll need file and printer server software, and clients which can talk to the server.

Windows uses file and printer server/client technology that used to be called SMB (Server Message Block), with the latest variant being renamed CIFS (Common Internet File System).

All Windows versions since Windows for Workgroups 3.0 have supported SMB (and later CIFS). UNIX and Linux originally supported other filer server/client protocols, and not SMB/CIFS.

However there is a solution. Samba! This is a suite of file and printer server/client software for Unix and Linux, developed originally by a team at Australian National University headed by Andrew Tridgell, with the work continued under his direction by many people from all over the world.

Most copies of Linux include Samba on their CD's or on their download sites.

You'll have to look at the on-line help files in Linux to determine how to install and configure Samba on you Linux system. It may vary a little from one Linux distribution to another.

At the Windows end, just set up networking in the same way as if you just have a network of Windows computers talking to each other - they will all see the Linux computer running Samba as if it is just another Windows-compatible server.