This is a note for anyone trying to SSH from a Windows machine to a Linux one that just might save someone the headaches I have had.
I was trying to use PuTTY and WinSCP to connect from a machine running XP to one running Ubuntu 7.10. I was getting nowhere, only "connection refused on port 22" messages. It turns out it was because I didn't have the OpenSSH-server installed on Ubuntu, which can be put in with one of the package managers. It doesn't come as standard with Ubuntu, whereas the client does.
I messed around for ages thinking it had something to do with the firewall and lots of other things. I hope this note will help somebody else in a similar situation avoid such annoyance.

-Aidan

After reading this post, it reminded me of fighting problems with servers, and clients. There are tools to help. Look into installing Nmap on your linux system. This tool can be used to scan for open ports, or closed ports for security purposes. Now that you have the problem defined, play with Nmap and see what it can tell you about your own system, or others connected on the same lan.

There may well be other or better tools, so I would encourage anyone with thoughts to post what helped them better define their problems.

After reading this post, it reminded me of fighting problems with servers, and clients. There are tools to help. Look into installing Nmap on your linux system. This tool can be used to scan for open ports, or closed ports for security purposes. Now that you have the problem defined, play with Nmap and see what it can tell you about your own system, or others connected on the same lan.

There may well be other or better tools, so I would encourage anyone with thoughts to post what helped them better define their problems.