Setting up Mandriva as a Home Server? I need help!

[Guest hischazzness]

Hi,

 

Heres what I've got going

 

Dell PC with Mandriva One 2009.1

Dell Laptop with Vista Home Premium

2WIRE Router (not connected to the world wide web)

 

So I have my laptop connected wirelessly to the router and my desktop connected to the router via cat5.

 

I have a fresh install of Mandriva One 2009.1 on the desktop that I installed off a live CD.

 

I want to use the desktop as a home server for my laptop so I can store all my music, files, ect. on it instead of my laptop.

 

I've been reading about all this "use samba!! use samba!!" stuff and samba isnt on my mandriva, i dont think.

 

Ive never used Linux before and I need instructions on how to set this up...

[tux99]

In Mandriva open the Mandriva Control Center (MCC, also called "Configure Your Computer") click on the "Network Sharing" section on the left hand bar, then click on the "Share drives and directories with Windows (SMB) systems" link.

This will open a page where you can set up file shares and printer shares. Just add a file share and click OK on the bottom.

[scarecrow]

Samba is by far the best solution- actually I am using it even for sharing between *nix machines.

For configuring the samba shares, I am using webmin. I find it much more feature-rich and intuitive than the MCC samba module.