Okay i have two questions i am going down the linux route with my computer.

First of all i have a laptop which i want to keep windows as it is very useful on a ship which are windows dominated. So how would i have my desktop running linux and networked to the laptop running win98 as well as the empeg i would want to store files etc on the desktop.

The next question is i am contemplating having swapable hard drives where the hard drive is housed in a removeable frame so that you can swap harddrives for different things. Has anyone got any opinions on these.

Thanks folks i am sure there is plenty more questions to come

If your only requirement for interoperability between a Linux desktop and a Windows laptop is file sharing, then you have no real problem. There is a (free) software package called Samba that implements Windows filesharing on Unix machines, including Linux. Setting it up is not the easiest thing in the world, but it's also far from the hardest. There are also several utilities for Linux to do the reverse (that is, share files from the Windows laptop to the Linux desktop).

By the way, on a related note, I love this old news report: Windows NT Cripples US Navy Cruiser

does that mean that i can get the linux machine to appear as a windows machine or just as a network drive as i would like to use the linux machine to also have a printer connected to the network and be able to share the internet over the LAN to a couple of windoze machines

Jaz 1 or 2 Gb removeable hard drives from Iomega are quite decent, and they are SCSI so there is a decent perfromance benefit.

Why not try VMWARE? You could install both W98 and Linux on your desktop, and switch between them dynamically. This means you could (in w98 space) share your drives to M$ clients, and (in Linux space) use the OS for your own purposes on other partitions, etc. It has the benefit of being relatively cheap, but you do need a punchy processor and a bucket of fast RAM to make it work seamlessly.

To start off if my desktop was slower it would be damn near wind up As to the removable hard drive the idea is because the Girlfriend son loves to install crap on the computer so i would want to give him his harddrive to trash and fill up with slipknot wma,s and keep my hardrive seperate to just swap over when he has finished trying to totally kill the machine.

As to my adventures in linux i am getting there i have managed to get the computer to turn on and i have even managed to get it to connect to freeserve. Can't actually get it to do anything once connected but i am sure it will come.

I have an idea though can we hold the next meet in aberdeen then i am sure i could find someone to hold my hand with linux

Engines make far more sense to me

You can do all of that. Samba will allow you to share files to the Windows machine pretty much just like it was another Windows machine. It also allows you to share printers, but that's more difficult, mostly because printing is more difficult under Unix (the print systems there are ancient and have little been updated -- they work once you get it set up right, but getting it set up can be a royal pain). You can also share your internet connection. I don't know what kind of internet connection you have, but sharing a broadband-type always-on connection will be easier than getting a modem to dial up on demand, but that's doable, as well. I don't think that there's anything that allows you to do Windows ``Internet Connection Sharing'' per se, but the Linux solution is better anyway, but might require a little more networking knowledge. Make sure you have network cards in all of those computers before you start, though.

Feel free to contact me directly if you run into any pitfalls.

Risking to state the obvious, you will also need a hub or switch (unless you simply connect to existing ship LAN).

As for removable drives, I think there exist IDE drives in 'drawers'. You install a 5.25" bay into the computer and connect it as you would a standard IDE drive. Then you plug in the 'drawer' with the 3.5" drive itself. I'll have to ask a friend who sells this kind of stuff (the last time I actually saw them they were 300MB EDSI drives...).

When i take the laptop on the ship it goes no where near the LAN all i do is just swap floppies from LAN to laptop just being windoze based software is easier as everyone has it and i can work it.

The Linux box and network is a home goof around project

Well folks i am getting there but meeting a few pitfalls aong the way as there seems to be very little out there that is a gentle introduction to linux either that or it hasn't clicked yet. I have bought the idiots guide to linux which came with caldera 2.3. I have got that installed had a few probs with the moniter but considering i did pull it out of a skip not really surprising but worked okayish with windoze but it was geting wobbly. So i bought a 19inch moniter for the bargin price of £120.

I have got online with it but netscape occasionally sticks it head up its arse i have got no where near network samba type things but i have managed to find the empeg and display server but can't get streaming to work yet. I have got no where with installing any software yet but there is a lug in the area forming which i can hopefully get some help from and amase with a car that runs linux (kind off)unless anyone is heading north to the snowy wastes that knows linux.

One thing i have noticed is i was thinking of buying a new computer as my celeron 400 was damn slow but under linux it seems to fly.