I guess I too, should have been more specific. The machine being converted to Linux is serving as a gateway for two other systems with local addresses, one running W2K and the other WMX. So I will be running a Linux server serving two Windows clients. Unfortunately the OS on these systems is not at my discrescion as they are not mine. Filesharing is not so much of an issue as connection sharing is, as my ISP does not allow us to have more than one IP. Although stealing one from them is not difficult, for obvious reasons I would rather avoid it. There is no server software on my machine other than W2K; the other systems are simply connected via a second ethernet card and hub with ICS enabled.

To give an example of how little I know in this matter, I was unaware that *nix could read/write to a FAT32 partition.l Converting from NTFS is not a big problem, however.

I should have also asked -- any suggestions as to which front end to use? I am leaning towards Red Hat mainly because it appears to be well suited to the newbie with a well developed GUI. I need an interface with a good, easy-to-understand GUI to get the system up and running. I also am looking for advice on filesharing software and ICS software.

Many thanks...