Hi.

I've lately been setting up a network among the computers in my home. 
The Unix systems are no problem, but find myself pretty often stumped by
how to configure the Windows 95 systems to talk sensibly to the Unix
systems.

So I started this item to ask questions.

19 responses total.

Current puzzle:

   My laptop runs Windows 95.  My printer is a NeXT postscript printer
   attached to my NeXT system, a fairly normal unix system, using lpr
   to print and all that.  I use the NeXT as a print server, and it
   works fine from my Linux system.

   I'd like to be able to set the laptop to print to the NeXT printer.
   I can telnet and ftp from the laptop to the NeXT just fine.  Is there
   any way to convince it to print to a Unix print server?

   There seems to be all sorts of "network printer" stuff on the Windows
   95 system, but it seems to be some Microsoft thing.

Microsoft networking uses the "SMB" (Server Message Block) protocol, I think.
Figures that MS would set things up so that you couldn't just have a UNIX
server as your file and print server.

I've heard good things about the Samba package, which is an open source thing
that lives on a Unix server (such as Linux) and pretends to be a Windows
networking file and print server (ie, to the outside it looks like an NT
server).

Well, I probably can't put Samba on the NeXT, but I suppose I could put
it on the Linux box.  Likely I can have it forward any documents it gets
to print to the NeXT.  That should work.

Only, not really.  It works for the laptop, but the Linux box is dual boot.
When I boot it into Windows 95, I'd like to be able to print.  There isn't
any Unix box except the NeXT on the network then.  So unless I can get Samba
working on the NeXT (running an obsolete version of the operating system yet)
using Samba won't work.

I thought samba supported NeXT.  No?

I'm having similar problems.  I recently set up a home network with two Linux
boxes and a Win95 box.  the Linux boxes talk to one another, but they can't
talk to the 95 box and vice versa.  I've tried all sorts of settings, changes,
etc. and am pretty damn frustrated.  TCP/IP can't be this difficult under
Win95 can it? <he says somewhat rhetorically>

If the netmask and IP address on the Win95 machine are correct, and you
can't even ping it, it sounds like some kind of problem with the physical
network.  How're the machines connected?  Also, with some ISA network cards,
if the settings are wrong Windows will *appear* to find the card, but
utterly fail to send packets to it.

I can ping localhost, but if I enter the actual IP (192.168.100.2) it times
out.  The machines are connected 10-Base-T TP.  I've verified that the cables
work, the hub works, and the other two machiens work.  I'll double check
thqat the card is set to what Windows thinks it should be.

If you can't ping the Windows machine from *itself*, using the IP, something
is probably wrong with the network card's hardware setup.  That just based
on experience.  Do you get a link light on the card and on the hub?

Yep.  I haven't been home since I wrote #8, so I haven't been able to check
the setup.

Okay, you were right, there was a conflict in the IRQs that I over looked,
trusting PNP.  Plug and Play my ass.  Thanks for the help, I'm happily seeing
one telnet window to Grex and another to my Linux box!

PnP works great as long as all the cards are PnP, and all the cards are
the same bus archetecture (PCI, ISA, VESA, etc.)  Also, AGP seems to
work fine with PCI.  But mixing PCI and ISA can cause problems, even if
all the cards are PnP, and, of course, mixing PnP and non-PnP can cause
problems.

If you go to the trouble of using the BIOS PnP setup to mark "out of limits"
what resoures your ISA cards are using, PnP works a lot better.

Ahh...I didn't know such a beast exsisted.  I'll have to poke around my
BIOS a bit.

Look for the term "legacy card".

Another windows networking question.  I was given a Win98 computer with wired
and wireless network cards and software.  They both work in linux (live CD).
The wireless card software says there is no association with the wireless
router sitting next to the computer.  The linux computer with wireless card
finds the router (and the Win98 if I plug it in via cable, at which point the
wireless software for Win98 finds a 'poor' quality wireless signal).  I can
then ping between the two computers and to the router.  If I have linux
running on both computers and start httpd on one, I can access it from the
other with various browsers.  If I try to use Win98 with Netscape 4.5 or IE
it does not access the linux computer and Netscape complains about no network
socket.  This used to be set up in a network and maybe the wireless part even
worked (there was an IRQ conflict when we got it, solved by setting CMOS to
pnp os).  I have not used Win98 on a network or with a router.  I am trying
to set up something for some people in Detroit who have AT&T DSL.  What do
I need to do next?  

I found a forum discussion of 34 pages about this problem, which is software
related and requires deleting a winsock2 folder from the registry then
uninstalling and reinstalling TCP/IP and other stuff under Networking, none
of which I have ever done but I can learn.  Some people developed this problem
after uninstalling AOL 5 (I uninstalled all sorts of stuff here) or upgrading
to SE.

Run linux on the thing and forget windows 98.  Running decade old
software is equal to driving a century old car.  Don't do it.

I fixed the Win98 computer with network problem by using regedit to find (the
hard part) and rename the winsock2 folder (to bak) and then uninstalling and
reinstalling DUN.  I learned something.  The computer is set up working with
a network and a wireless network card, and Office, and people keep asking me
for something with Office that will work with broadband.  From this I figured
out how to set up another computer (found a network card driver for it) but
instead of Office I put on a free small wordprocessor (Cetus Wordpad) and
spreadsheet (Spread32).  About 1MB each.  Since then I found Atlantis Nova
(?) 500K wordprocessor (200K for help file).  I used these last two to 'fix'
someone's Office 2007 installation that would not accept her serial number
to register it a second time (she uninstalled it once thinking it would fix
a problem which turned out to be stuck keyboard).  MS phone is always busy.
She does not know what she paid for Office.  I suggested sending a small
donation to the two freeware authors.  

The Win98 set up with a network card is now attached to a DSL modem in
Detroit, in use by someone who was unable to find a free computer with any
newer software on it and needed it for work, with free wordprocessor on it.

Win98 has the major advantage that it can be cloned between computers,
sort of like Linux (though you have to reboot three times while it looks
for mouse drivers and the same files it already has).

Now we have a computer with XP that keeps randomly rebooting with XP but runs
fine with Win98 or linux after Jim replaced 14 capacitors.  It now also passes
memtest.  It has no viruses older than May 2007 and was in use through Dec
2007.  A mystery.

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