First of all, no apology needed.
 
The hardware should be fine.
 

Quote:ok - so everything is running fine until i connect the linux box to the router, then everything slows down and it takes a good few seconds just to bring up a terminal. 
Are you connecting to broadband or DSL?
 
What do you mean by "until I connect the linux box to the router?"
 
Is the system connected to the router when you boot, or are you trying to plug in the cat5 cable after Mandrake is up?
 
You can share the internet connection through the router...not through the XP box. So, if you have broadband;
 
 
Modem--> router @ the first router connection.
 
Mandrake box via NIC card--> router connection #2 via cat5
 
XP box via NIC card--> third connection on the router
 
Did you set up an internet connection during the Mandrake installation via DHCP?
 
If not, you can set up the connection via the Mandrake Control Center.
 
By "terminal" do you mean a Mandrake terminal (console)?
 
Mandrake has a nice tool, if it was installed, to run samba nicely. But more on that later.

actually my internet connection is ADSL using a usb modem on my win xp box. the guy i borrowed the router from said it would be ok for setting up the network and also sharing the internet connection but i'm guessing that i might need to get a adsl router/modem for the internet? i would have thought it should have been fine for the network though?
 
i have tried both - system connected to the router before booting and connecting the cable after mandrake is up. both times mandrake slows down completely. and yeah, by terminal i mean the terminal console. i haven't set any internet connections up in mandrake.
 
thanks for the help danleff
 
 

ok - i think i've got most of this sorted. i have now got an adsl modem/router, can connect to the internet fine through both machines. on the linux box i've set up samba and it seems to be working ok - can browse all the shared directories on the xp box and move files between the two. i don't really understand a lot of the smb.conf but it seems to be working ok.
 
for some reason though xp has trouble seeing the linux box. i have been able to get access to my /home dir by mapping a network drive and using the IP address of the linux box. but when i look at 'view network computers' i can only see the xp machine. i set my netbios name in smb.conf as LINUX but windows doesn't seem to recognise this in any way...
 
also:
 
in the lmhost file - all i have is the following:
127.0.0.1 localhost
 
is this correct or do i need anything else?
 
thanks!
ian
 

Sorry I did not get back to you. I lost the post in the number that were sent recently. Anyway, glad to see that the internet is sorted out.
 
I have Verizon DSL and connect directly through the modem.It took me a little while to figure it out, as well.
 
To be honest, I never tried seeing my Linux box from XP. Always the other way around. Anyway, now is a good time as any. I will look into this. Perhaps someone else has an answer for this right off.
 
Samba is a little hard to understand. I use LinNeighborhood or Smb4k to look at my Windows shares from Linux. Just as with Windows, the Linux folders have to be marked as shared. I'll look at this some more and post what I find.

ok, thanks. any help is appreciated.
 
the other odd thing about this: when i look at my network places on xp i can see the shared drives from the xp box and the drives i have mapped on the linux side. the shared drives on xp are shown as belonging to the name of the xp box and with network location as 'local network'. but the mapped drives on the linux box are shown as belonging to the IP address of the linux box (rather than the computer name) and a network location 'the internet'. computer is shown as 'Samba Server' which is the server string i used in smb.conf
 
sorry - kinda new to both networks and linux so i'm trying to get my head around both at the same time.