Perhaps I misjudged Windoze networking....

Author	Message
Grogster Admin Group Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New Zealand Posts: 9901	Posted: 08:10am 24 Jun 2025       This thread is a rant, and will PROBABLY spark all kinds of comments, but I just want to document what I personally have found out, with the last week of playing around with various Linux distros and then a Windoze install for my new NAS build. Much as I want to use Linux, it DOES fight me to share files with Windoze. This could be a SAMBA thing, or it could be a Windoze thing - to be fair to Linux. However, I have a Puppy Linux NAS running on the network(Friendly Bionic x32), and I have now tried to use Puppy x64 in various forms to simply connect to the existing Puppy server - this has failed at every step, despite my being 100% sure I am entering the correct user(root for Puppy) and password.  None of the Linux distros would talk to this NAS using SAMBA sharing.  Windoze 10 would and still does. I have now tried in the last week, Puppy Linux in MANY forms, most of which would NOT boot on several hardware variations - could simply be that the new versions are not compatible with my older hardware. I did get Bionic x32 to boot, install and run fine, but it crashed when trying to partition and format a new 22TB HDD.  Possibly just a simple incompatibility, so I can't really hold an OLD Puppy responsible for that, with a new high-capacity HDD. But the new Puppies would not boot either, and have extra steps you have to complete to finish the install, that earlier puppies did NOT have - specifically the need to edit the GRUB menu file to make it work - which is then refused, cos that file is write-protected... Sigh.... Mint would not install, MX-Linux crashed no matter what I did(perhaps not enough RAM - only 4GB), out of desperation and as yet another experiment, I installed Win8.1 Pro x64.  Set a static IP4 IP address, enable network discovery, and the old Puppy server was instantly visible. Enter root password, full access to all the shares. I feel I might have misjudged Windoze networking, for all the complaints it gets. It was EFFORTLESS to get Win8.1 Pro, to see the Puppy box, whereas ANY Linux setup outright refused to talk to it - even though the passwords were correct. This IS a rant, and I AM very frustrated, so perhaps I am not being fair to Linux, but one single install of Win8.1 Pro x64, and I can access and copy anything from the Puppy box, but NONE of the various Linux distros would even allow me to SEE the bloody box on the network - Windowz did. Perhaps I was just lucky? Who knows. Rant over. Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops!