yes its a home LAN... if i mapped the drive then what kind of fileshareing would it be? like the drag in drop of windows, or ftp style?

then if i installed *nix and used it then what would it bee like?? avaiable to the win2k machines? i'd think so right?

so for a home LAN themapping would be best? or should i go through with *nix?
If you map the drives, it depends on the type of share. If you do read only... then it would only be one way. If you did full access, then you'd use a password to get full access and drag and drop. Only one PC can connect to it though.

If you did it by linux, it depends on they permissions you set for the shares.
You can make it so only you have full access and everyone only has read/execute access.
The connections on a samba share is unlimited... well, up until your resources are all used.

I still think samba is the way to go.

You can find pleny of docs about it...
I can even help you set it up if you'd like. Its not very difficult.