More advanced home network...

[Zylstra]

I am looking to someday network all of my computers together...
Is it possible to get a Windows PC, a Macintosh, and a Linux PC all networked together, share a printer, and have file sharing on one main computer with Internet sharing?

(meaning that the Linux PC would be the main computer allowing storage on it and hosting the Internet)

What are my risks with viruses? Hackers?

Is all of this possible with so many different OS's and all?

How simple is this?

Is there a REALLY good simple to understand online reference of this?

BTW: I'm not planning to do this for a while... so I cant do this step by step right now.

And how fast would such a shared Internet connection go? And what about access to the network storage? Would it be REALLY slow, or would it be fast?

Also, would this be more of an advanced home network?

[Arc]

This might help a bit,

I do have a Linux tower and a Windows tower running on my network. I use my Windows(XP) tower at my internet gateway, but I use a program on my XP tower that makes it so I can see the contents of the linux tower.

BTW, I did at one point have a Mac(os 8) on the network, it worked fine. and I recomend a 100 mbps connection, so you don't have to wait very long if you have to send big files through the network.

Hope this helps,

Viper


EDIT--->[highlight]Mac(os X)[/highlight]

[Arc]

This link pretty much sums up "Is it possible to get a Windows PC, a Macintosh, and a Linux(kind of) tower all networked together, share a printer" part of your question http://www.apple.com/business/mac_pc/networking.html

Hope that helps too,

Viper

[EssentiaTech]

I can tell you that what you're hoping to accomplish is theoretically possible.  I don't know how to do it though, good luck  

[Rob Pomeroy]

Yes, you can use the Linux server with Samba to share files and printers with Windows and Macintosh clients.  You can also configure it as a router, effectively turning it into a hardware router for the other two PCs, provided the server has two network connections - i.e. the incoming connection from the internet, and and outgoing connection to the LAN.

Google for "Linux router howto" - you'll get get quite a few hits.