I just installed the new Mandrake 10 (official) and I'm very happy with it. However, this is the second time posting my question in regard to Samba. I'm unable to configure it using LinNeighborhood which was suggested to me when I posted my question earlier. In fact, LN is installed but I have no idea how to access it.

If I open up the KDE configuration under Networking for Local Network Browsing I get a GUI which allows me to enter the default user name, default password, and workgroup name. Hmmm... Mandrake set my computer up with the name localhost. As the SU, I typed in hostname and changed it to Osiris. My workgroup name is Egypt and the XP box I'm trying to connect to is called Isis. So I typed in //Osiris/drejos06 as my default user name and used my Linux password. This didn't work. Since I never setup a password I tried it without one and still nothing came of it. I realized that Mandrake defaulted the hostname back to localhost for who-the-hell knows what reason so I changed the username to //localhost/drejos06 and went through the same steps I previously described. Still, nothing worked.

In all this I realize just how much I like the Samba tools in Xandros 2.0 -just enter the workgroup name and you're done! Why is there still this need for configuration to be so difficult? I'd take something without the GUI as long as it was straightforward and worked without having to read through an O'Reilly book or spending hours in forums on the Internet.

Sorry for the rant... any help is truly appreciated!

I had a 'somewhat' similar problem. Are you using shorewall? if so try service shorewall stop and try the things you've tried again. If this works you might consider dumping shorewall and doing urpmi ipkungfu. The first time you try to run ipkungfu at boot it will tell you to edit a config file which is simply taking the #comment from the last line.
I'm not sure what level you're at so at the risk of sounding patronizing; make sure xp is set to allow sharing.
to keep your osiris hostname:
/etc/sysconfig/network the hostname should be changeable in there
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 NEEDHOSTNAME=no
of course your eth# may be different.

I've given up on all that speed that Mandrake 10 offers to go back to the simplicity of Xandros 2.0. Hopefully Xandros will offer an upgrade to the 2.6 kernel soon.

I checked with the Mandrake website and what they demo for the newest release sure didn't resemble anything I had. I'm wondering if there are some things left out of the downloaded version vs. what I'd have gotten if I'd purchased the boxed set.

Oh well, I still think Mandrake is great and the new version is the fastest Linux distro I've ever tried.

First, I don't know of any way to configure Samba with LinNeighborhood. I've used both for some time. To setup Samba just use Swat. It's included in 10.0. The network configurator in Mandrake will setup the network itself. But you have to set up samba shares and the like with another tool. You can also use the ksambaplugin if you can find an rpm for it.