Looking for help configuring a home network between a Windows XP Home computer and a Linux Redhat 8.0 computer. Please keep in mind that i have very little experience with networks. In addition, i have about an hour and a half of experience with Linux...

Im trying to get the WinXP and Linux comps to be able to share files etc. and the Linux machine to connect to the internet via the WinXP machine. I installed Redhat as graphical server. The WinXP machine has two ethernet cards, both installed. One connects to the internet through DSL, the other i am trying to configure the network over. The Linux machine has an ethernet card not in use, trying to use it for the network.

Very grateful for any help in this. Please take me through it slowly, as i am pretty new to configuring networks and even newer to the Linux OS.

RedHat 8 is really old. You are 5 versions behind the times and RH8 is very unsupported.. You should consider a newer (and friendlier) Linux distro.

You set up the ICS and file sharing on the Windows machine as usual. The fact that the client side is Linux is unimportant. After that you set up the network in Linux to match the local LAN settings on the Windows machine.

Hmm... I didnt know RH8.0 was so old. What distro would you recommend for someone new to Linux?

use whatever you have while you're learning -- it just doesn't matter.
Compare to learning to drive a car; does it matter how old it is?
Not very much. Now I'll be the first to say, that newer systems are different;
configuration tools change, support does matter, especially with security.
Regardless, you can still learn from it.

Btw: to share files FROM Linux to a PC desktop, you need the SAMBA service
installed and running, ports 139+445 open on both Linux and the PC.

When you have someone who has never seen a car and wants to learn to drive, would you rather give them an ancient quirky car with unsynchronised manual transmission or a brand new car with no mehanical problems and an automatic shift?

It may be more useful to learn things the hard way, but it is also much more frustrating and above the skills of many people.

my only point is you don't need the latest and greatest as a starting point.
what's the difference between a 2004 and a 2005 Honda Accord? Very little

Well, the difference between RH8 and FC4 is huge, especially when it comes to user-friendliness. The amount of bugs is roughly the same though

I will admit, I'm very conservative in moving to new systems. If I'm getting
good service from what I have, I tend to stay put to reduced effort and get
more 'usage time' than 'install and reconfig'.

My collections of RH6, Rh7, FC2 are all stable and until I need a dual processor,
I'll stay put and use these tools I'll refrain from further comments this thread :angel: