RockLee

I am considering trying out Ubunta and I am trying to make sure its going to do everything I need to before I make the switch. One of the things that I am going to need is to be able to map drives to XP and Vista machines as well as map printers. Is this possible?

Done_Fishin

not so much mapping as you can mount them and check out their contents .. when you install and not before their will be a link to the drives on the desktop.

if you want to share files though between OS's then it would be best to create FAT32 partition to store files, since both Linux and Windows can access it.
If you want to see Linux Partitions from XP you will need to use software to see it. I believe it was SysInternals ( makers of ERD Commander ) who have recently released a TSR to do exactly that.
To see Windows Installations from Linux you will have to mount the drives and take ownership .. I don't think that you need to do anything else but hopefully someone can verify that. As yet I haven't tried looking at a Windows install from a Linux Install since it's by far more preferable to keep them on separate bootable HDD's. Avoids losing both when an install on one of them goes sour.

RockLee

My concern rises from the fact that my laptop is used for personal and work and there are times where I need to swap data from one machine to another. Sometimes up to 16+GB of data so drive mapping was the easiest and cheapest way to accomplish this as well I need to be able to access a shared printer

Done_Fishin

the point is that, to my knowledge, Linux doesn't use the same method of looking at drive sdpace as Windows ..

in windows we see all drives and drive space independantly .. in Linus all drivespace on multiple drives allocated to Linux is seen ( and used) as a single entity.

additional drives on your pc, like a USB drive, will be allocated a link and listed separately from those at boot time. Likewise all NON linux drives will be "mounted" and a link given on the desktop. However you will have to gain ownership before you will be allowed to use them. A FAT32 partition will be accessible from both OS's similar to using XP and Millenium Boots (if you go back that far) although Millenium will never get to see NTFS partitioned drives without additional software to help you.

The disadvantages of installing Linux as a newb on a single drive machine is that it is so easy to have things go bad on you .. and you will lose all work that you have done. It is however possible to create a usb bootable linux install from an external HDD. If your PC has the ability to allow you to boot from USB that might be a reasonable alternative although be warned, from experience booting from USB is even slower than booting from a Linux Live CD.

Certainly after a few years of playing around with Linux on Dual boot systems I would NEVER suggest to anybody that they dual boot from the same (partitioned) Hard disk drive .. I have lost installations too many times although luckily I always try to save data I want on a separate drive too .. so I might need to re-install u rarely lose that valuable data. These days with drives getting so large, a backup drive needs to go high .. I already use a single 500GB SATA drive for back up but have as yet to get a 1Tera drive to use as a back up for the back up.

RockLee

My plan was not to try a dual but to back up data and format and load. And I don't really need an XP machine to see my Ubunta as long as my Ubunta can see an XP machine over the network it some form or fashion that will allow file sharing.I can make that work both ways for me. If making a FAT32 partion is the way I need to that than that is what I will have to do. I can always go back to windows if Ubunta doesn't fit my needs.

But how do find and mount drives? For example in windows you share the folder and find it by IP or Computer name.

RockLee

For anyone who was wondering Drive Mapping for a Network Drive in Ubuntu 8.10 works just the same as in Windows. You just Places>Connect to a Server

Change the Service Type drop down to Windows Share. For Server: (Enter IP) For Folder:(Enter Shared Folder Name) Click Connect.

A Network drive Icon will be added to the desktop and with mine I had full Read/Write Permissions.

Done_Fishin

Thanks for that Update .. I am sure that it will prove very helpful .. probably to me too when I get that far