Greetings and welcome to the world of Unix and the PLUG.

Printer Compatibility Database:
http://www.linuxprinting.org/database.html

Samba (www.samba.org) is used to share directories over a Windows File-sharing
scheme.

You might have problems with the files on the XP partitions.  I believe the
default for XP is a modified NTFS filesystem, which the Linux kernel only has
very experimental read-only support for.  Read-Write is there, but seems to
cause coruption of the NTFS filesystem.

Sharing under XP, probably just like NT/2K/9x/Me.  I haven't touched XP, will
never touch XP (though I do have both Windows and Unix systems here).  XP is the
reason I most likely will never upgrade to a newer laptop and won't use
companies like Dell to get a new desktop unless they are willing to upgrade it
to 2000, or better yet, no OS at all.

> My name's Ben and I live in Gilbert, AZ. I'm new to Linux and have installed
> Mandrake 8.2 in a dual boot setup with WinXP Pro onto a Compaq Evo n400c
> notebook. The install seems to have gone well, I've got networking, web
> access and email running well. I'm able to boot into KDE and get sounds, so
> the X Window environment and audio are working well. I'd like to get more
> things running under Linux now and also learn more about Linux. I'm looking
> to get a printer working over the network and share files between PCs over
> the network, I'd also like to share files that are on the Windows partition
> of the notebook. I'd appreciate your assistance in getting these things
> running and any other tid-bits of info that you could pass along. Thanks in
> advance.