“It’s happened. My significant other has finally moved her
laptop into my home. She’s running Windows 95, however, and wants
to connect to my Linux machine to make use of our printer and the
larger hard disks. I have both the Applix and StarOffice suites
installed, so I can import and export Word and other Microsoft
files, which she can use in Windows. Her office PC is able to share
disks and printers and files on the company’s network, but can we
do the same thing on my home network?”
“Open source software to the rescue! All we need to do is
install and configure Samba, a file- and print-sharing system
available for Linux. … Samba is a very comprehensive suite of
programs that allow a variety of operating systems to communicate
with one another. You need to have computers networked together to
use it. If you don’t have a network, then you won’t be able to
do much with Samba.”
“Administrators of large-scale networks use Samba to connect
hundreds of Unix systems with hundreds of Windows and other types
of workstations. A number of excellent books are dedicated to the
intricacies of Samba, but we can cover the basics here — enough to
get you started by connecting a Linux system, a Windows system, and
a shared printer into your own home-based mini-network.”