[southernlady]

Need some help doing this. I've attempted windows server 2003 and almost lost my sanity in the process. We started with linux but I know nothing of linux and my husband lost patience with it.

So now it's back to my turn. I want to see if *I* can do it. If I can attempt as much as I did with SBS 2003 Premium, I suspect I can learn Linux.

What we have is 3 desktops currently all running Windows XP Pro, SP2 and one laptop, wireless XP Pro SP2. We have tree printers, 2 connected to a desktop and one is a print server.

All this is routed thru a 2wire router and a hub, both 4 ports.

One of the desktops is the *server*. We have talked to our DSL provider and we can host our own business. We have 3 domains and are with a 5 static IP package. That's why I was wrangling with the SBS 2003 Premium.

The reason my husband gave up on the linux was that he couldn't get the printers working thru the windows XP/Linux interface. We have available Fedore 4. We also have available CentOS.

That's the background.

1) Can Linux exist as the server with windows on the other computers in the house?

2) If the answer to 1 is yes, how do I configure the printers to work?

3) Of the two distros which one is best to use?

I think that's it for now. Liz

[tdi_veedub]

Printing has always been one of my sore spots with Linux. However, CUPS (Common Unix Printing System) has come a long way and if you your printers have a CUPS driver, your printers will work. Just do a google for CUPS Printer model <-- where Printel model is the model name of your printer. CUPS configuration is done via web interface so configuration is pretty easy.

[southernlady]

Okay, two out of three are compatible.

The printer server is compatible so how do we get it seen?

And what distro is best? Liz

[linuxphile]

Everyone has their opinions on which distro is the best, but it really comes down to exactly what you want to do with your Linux install. I recommend heading over to distrowatch.com and reading some of the reviews/articles provided there.

I also recommend you read the documentation on Samba. Samba will allow your Linux machine to act as domain controller in your Windows environment, serve as a file/print server, and much more.

If you want to know which of the two distros you mentioned is best I have this to say:
CentOS is basically Redhat Enterprise with all of mentions of Redhat removed. It is supposed to be very stable.
Fedora is a bleeding edge distribution. Fedora is used as a community test bed for the software that will eventually make it into Redhat Enterprise.

HTH

[southernlady]

What's the difference between Samba and Fedora? I was over at the Fedora forums trying to find what I was looking for and saw a mention of the Samba there. Liz

[linuxphile]

Samba is software that allows non-microsoft operating systems to interact with MS based systems. Samba is provided with most any distribution, Fedora and CentOS included. Check out http://us1.samba.org/samba/what_is_samba.html for a more detailed description.

[southernlady]

That looks like EXACTLY what we needed. Thanks. Poking around tho, trying to find the download for it. We want a /i386/ copy cause it's easier for us to handle. And I keep bumping into Fedora? Are they similar? Liz

[linuxphile]

Fedora is a compilation of software brought together to form a Linux distribution. Samba software is part of that compilation. You'll need some distribution of Linux installed before you start using Samba, and all of the major distributions have precompiled packages available for installation. Fedora is a fine distribution to start with. In fact it's what I currently use for my servers as well as my desktop.

[southernlady]

So having all of Fedora 4, we already have Samba? Liz

[linuxphile]

That depends on your package selections at the time of install. You can run, from a terminal window: "rpm -qa | grep samba" which if you have samba installed will return something similar to (with different versions):
samba-3.0.10-1.fc2
samba-client-3.0.10-1.fc2
samba-common-3.0.10-1.fc2

If you do not have Samba installed that above command might not return all three packages. To install Samba, as root, from a terminal, issue the following:
yum install samba samba-common samba-client

This will download and install the packages for you.

The Samba documentation provided at Samba.org will walk you through various configurations.

[southernlady]

But we should have it on the iso's we downloaded a month ago? Liz

[lynch]

Install Fedora and Samba can be easily installed afterwards. Samba is a program that runs on Linux .
lynch

[Squashman]

Originally Posted by southernlady

But we should have it on the iso's we downloaded a month ago? Liz

Yes, it should be on your disks you downloaded. Red Hat has been including for as long as I can remember.

[southernlady]

Thank you, Squashman...now, I'm marking this thread solved cause all the questions in it have been answered. I have others but they are more along web development and have been posted there already. Liz