[SWLUG] re: disheartened

[justin at discordia.org.uk]

On 22 Feb, Rhys Sage wrote:

> I've managed to get XP Pro talking to Zeus again now.
> It still won't talk properly though. All it would do
> after I set Zeus as the Windows and Workgroup
> Contrller was to send ping responses to messages from
> the XP box sent as IP and Name. 

One of your major problems, is like many long term windows users you
have certain broken assumptions because microsoft have hidden you from
the truth.

The biggest of which is that file sharing is NOT networking. 
filesharing is only an application which USES networking.
You HAVE to have the underlaying network working first.

> However, I'm back to the same problem, namely I can
> ping and putty Zeus but can't map any networked
> drives. I can't see Zeus in My Network Places anywhere
> - not even under the workgroup entry.
So, the network works then, you just have samba issues.
Windows networking changes subtle in different versions of windows, you
need to read the documentation and use the settings it suggests for the
versions of windows your using.

A very brief look at the samba(.org) website, in the documentation
section, reveals the following chapter from a book about how to debug
your network and samba settings. 
http://www.mirror.ac.uk/sites/ftp.samba.org/docs/Samba24Hc13.pdf

now read it, and DO WHAT IT SAYS.


> I can ftp but only with Internet Explorer.
ftp either works or it doesnt, the client used makes no difference.
more likely is the user you are trying to ftp in as, a web browser would
by default login as the anonymous (download only) user, where as with a
more 'ordinary' ftp program you would try to login as a normal user.
read the docs for whatever ftp server came with your dist and check that
real/normal users are allowed.

It has become quite painfully obvious from this and other 'problems' of
yours that you do not bother to read up on a subject, or even to
properly read the replies people give you. you never seem to bother to
reply properly to requests for information, you skim through it then
ad-lib your own ideas of what was meant, and then moan that it didnt
work and its all to hard. The old adage of 'a user with half a clue is
more dangerous than someone with none' seems increasingly apt.

Do us all a favour, and actually read some docs and do what they say for
once.