There are several ways to share files, directories and printers in Linux. Unfortunately, Windows do not know how to tango with Linux, so Linux was "forced" to play along with Windows by creating Samba. samba allows cross-platform file, directory and printer sharing between Windows and most Unix-based/Unix-like operating systems like Linux, Solaris and Mac OS X, among others.

For the ordinary user, Samba may be a bit of a chore to configure. By default and very much unlike Windows, Linux requires a username and password to be able to access a shared resource (file, folder or printer) but here's how you can go around it, which I do not really recommend. :) Instead, I recommend that if you are not comfortable tweaking the configuration files, try a GUI-based tool like gsambad.

[image from Gadmintools Project]