While TUX is a HowTo magazine about Linux, we are not isolationist. That is, while you may have a Linux system it is typical that you will need to access files on other systems--the most typical being one running Microsoft Windows. A package called Samba is included in virtually every Linux distribution to make it possible for you to share files.

Linux systems now come with graphical tools to both access shares as Microsoft likes to call them and to configure file sharing in general. They are easy to use once you understand all the buzzwords and all the capabilities but seem a bit complicated because you have buzzwords of both your Linux system and your Microsoft system.

In this article, Jess Hall takes you from the beginning explaining all the terms and capabilities and then shows you how to set up and use the shares. She covers both the Gnome and KDE-based tools.