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How Do Your Machines Talk to Each Other?
VonGuard asks: "I'd imagine this is a common scenario out there for Slashdot readers: I have multiple desktops, all sitting right next to each other and all running different OS's. Linux, Mac OS X and 9, Windows 98, and XP. The problem is, despite these machines being only inches arpart physically, in the digital world, they are miles apart. I have no single way to get them all to talk to each other. NFS is impossibly complex, Appletalk is unreliable thanks to netatalk, while PCMacLan, and Samba make me feel like I'm giving into the Empire. Isn't there a simpler way to get files from one of these machines to the other? Right now, I use webservers and write little HTML files that link to the files on each machine. Isn't there a better way to do this?" Is there really a network sharing standard that works across a number of operating systems aside from Samba? Truth be told, Samba "works-for-me", so that's what I us. However, when it comes to simple file copying, sometimes a simple scp is all I need. What protocols do you use in networks that consist of 3 or more operating systems?
In my home, there are three laptops that regularly wander in and out of the network, running FreeBSD / Windows 2000, Mac OS X and Mac OS X; I want them to have common access to my projects, and my mp3s. My central file server has an sshd, so I simply use rsync to keep them all in sync with one another. It is a bit wasteful, if all of my machines stayed on the network 24/7, but I and my wife do a lot of travelling.
Weapons of Mass Analysis
How Do Your Machines Talk to Each Other?
Hah, they don't. I don't need the devious little things plotting behind my back. If they can't talk... they can't revolt.
Unless, of course, my brutal oppression is what pushes them to bloody revolution...
no thanks
well, you could always use that little protocol called "file transfer protocol". Go figure. A protocol used to copy files. Works on every platform know to man kind. If you wanted to pull out a good ol' system that fell into disuse, get gopher working! As a side, there are scp protocols for pretty much everything as well.
Face it, you're trying to network 2 MS OSes with 3 non-MS OSes. You want to fileshare between them without "giving in" but you're keeping the non-MS OSes.
... yet you exclude it off-hand? Sounds like an exercise in frustration to me.
Samba is nothing to be ashamed of. I know plenty of folks who use it with no MS OSes in the mix at all.
You seem to know it is probably going to be the simplest solution
It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
netatalk is open source. If there are problems or shortcomings with it, you can fix them yourself! That's something that can't be said of proprietary solutions (even if they do work off the shelf without hours of configuring).
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
netatalk for AFP (apple filer) + samba (windows share) on a linux box will do it. alternatively just use FTP (or SCP).
Linux-to-Windows and Linux-to-Netware was quite a bit harder. The SMB and Netware clients that come with most Linux distros are pretty good, but the most obvious and well-documented way to set them up is an ugly kludge where you initialize the clients in a hand-rolled script. I insisted on figuring out how to do it "correctly" by editing the network config files. Took too much time, and I never got it working exactly right. But it was servicable.
I don't remember most of what I did, but I do have an important hint: on Win2K you almost always want to map a share to a drive, rather than accessing the share directly. Very slow otherwise. I think XP is a little better this way.
I haven't worked a lot with Macs, but from what I've seen, they're particulary good with file sharing.
Set up WebDAV. It should be supported on all of the OS's you mention. This is what I use between OSX, Linux, and Winders.
Need Free Juniper/NetScreen Support? JuniperForum
Since you ask right now, you are probably using the 'unstable' branch of Debian (where Netatalk recently broke for Mac OS X clients).
That's when I decided to dig into the world of NetInfo - the NIS-like information system for Mac OS X. Basically, I now configured my Mac OS X client as a NIS client, which also auto-mount file shares from my Linux server via NFS. It's not that hard to set up, really. A nice side effect is that the network drives perform significantly better than they did using AFP/Netatalk.
Of course, I also run Samba on my server. If you are looking for a single solution/protocol across platforms, then that's probably the route to go. Mac OS X comes with Samba.
Then, if you are looking for file synchronization tools (as opposed to network file sharing), let me recommend a little utility called "unison". Runs on Linux, Mac OS X (UNIX), and Windows.
It comes with Linux (of course) and for Windoes you can use WinSCP (do a google search for it). I know Mac Classic had a freeware SSH app, and with OS X you should have SSH.
Everytime you look at porn a devil gets their horns.
Creates a 1 pixel buffer at the edge of your screen. When you drag your mouse over it, it appears that the curser goes to other monitor, and the control of the keyboard too. Very handy. So with a combination of that, cygwin, samba, and netatalk, I can stay on top of all my files.
Also, OS-X speaks samba, so there's less and less need for the appletalk protocol.
You're seriously limiting yourself by not wanting to use those solutions. At work we have PCs, Unix boxes and Macs (running OS 8 and 9). They all have a common directory that they need to access (called 'atalk' for historical reasons). We have three daemons running such that they can all access it.
PCs: Samba
Mac: netatalk
Misc: ftp
So if all else fails, they can use FTP.
But seriously, by discounting Samba based on the fact that it "makes [you] feel like [you're] giving into the Empire" is a really stupid reason. If it works, it works and you should use it. I mean, if you really didn't want to feel like you were giving into the "Empire" you wouldn't have a Microsoft box on your desktop at all, would you? So instead of being a hypocrite, just use the solution that works. And remember that Samba is open source, if that makes you feel any better.
But I suppose you could always use FTP or http://ubiqx.org/cifs/ (but even CIFS uses SMB).
It's a bitch, but HTTP and FTP work for file transfers, even if it is with web space as an intermediary.
On the upside, it works with offsite computers as well.
CIFS/SMB for filesharing, since I have 2 Windows machines, and haven't taken the time to learn AFS/Coda. (samba, native windows implimentations)
Secure IMAP for sharing email. (courier-imap-ssl)
ssh, scp, and sftp for controlling, moving a few files, and forwarding X connections between machines. (openssh)
SMTP and NNTP proxies for mail and news. (exim in smarthost mode, leafnode/slrnpull)
midentd for forwarding identd requests in the NAT.
iptables for NATting the network, and xinetd to forward posts in.
Hmmm, I think that covers most of the information that my machines pass around to each other. :) You were probably just looking for imformation on
sharing files though.
It's not especially on topic, but in reply to a couple of posts I've read people are not distinguishing between the comments of Cliff after the question and the question itself.
"Italics highlight the original question." The quote marks are a dead giveaway too!
Boxen: Mac, Linux, Sun, XP, XP, XP, XP + BSD via vmware, & sometimes Knoppix. Apologies for the plethora of XP..lots of gaming between family members.
Everything is configured to be an SMB server. Sun, Mac, Linux and BSD also export the shares as NFS servers. SMB, while an awful standard, just plain works thanks to the dedicated members of the Samba team (and all the forks of it). Use it and don't feel "slimy" just cause M$ made it so widely used. NFS isn't *that* difficult. If you've got many different types of boxes, you can easily do a "man" of the necessary stuff under everything but Mac OS X. Do a reply to this if you need to get it going on OS X since it's not as straightforward.
Three of the XP boxen are really just clients, so they normally pull from the rest when necessary (MP3, AVI, home dirs, etc). Unix boxen (except the Mac) use pam/ldap to avoid duplication and i'm working on getting kerberos to tie (most of) them all together (someday I'll have time). The good thing about network home dirs and central file servers is that backups are a cinch and folks can move from win machine to win machine and retain profiles, etc.
When I analyze traffic, I pretty much see most of the boxen accessing the Sun and Linux systems since they are the main storage beasts and one has the MP3's *:^)
One very nice thing about SMB is that it is easily tunneled via SSH, so you can access your shares - securely - from almost anywhere you can ssh port tunnel to/from (it's cake on linux and try the ssh client from netsarang.com to do the same - as easily - under M$...or just install cygwin).
I have to agree with one of the other posts: the Mac is just amazing when it comes to file sharing compatibility and speed (SMB shares map very fast and it handles NFS as a good BSD box should).
hope this helps.
Mind the gap...
I think you should reconsider using Samba. A couple years ago I started using it at home to make shares on my Debian file server available to my Windows 2000 desktop and laptops and my GF's OS X Powerbook. I've since retired the desktop, shelved the Win2k laptop (it's for sale!) and bought an iBook.
I briefly considered changing protocols to reflect the absence of Windows on the network but then thought, why bother? Samba does the job well, so why change it? OS X has Samba support built-in so it's extremely easy to mount shares on the Macs, and because we use the same account names on our laptops as we do on the file server, authentication is automatic, making the whole thing almost seamless (I say almost because OS X is still lacking good network browsing capabilities, but we should have that in 10.3).
I like my women like my coffee... pale and bitter.
Many moons ago (1997) I was administering a system that was mixed Win95/MacOS8/FreeBSD and had absolutely no problems running netatalk and samba sharing the same FS. This was production w/ maybe 30 users. I still use samba for my home server (BSD/WinXP), and I can't imagine the quality of netatalk has decreased over the past 6 years... At least you'll be able to share.
I'm curious as to why the story author thinks that NFS is so difficult and complicated. As I see it, from the set of systems he's listed, the only OS that should give him any trouble here would be Windows, simply because it doesn't have NFS built-in.
Here I'm running four systems -- three Intel boxes running Linux, Linux, and OS/2, and a mipsel (PS2) running Linux.
When I started setting these systems up on my network, I went through a similar investigation to interconnect all the systems for file sharing. All supported NetBIOS based sharing, and all supported TCP/IP (and had the necessary NFS client/server software).
In the end I chose NFS as it didn't require me to be running a second protocol stack on all the systems, eating up more RAM (RAM may be cheap, but I still attempt not to waste it with stuff that doesn't need to be loaded).
Here, NFS has been easy, even on the OS/2 system. NFS mounts on it get a drive letter. Specifying what to share is done via a Java application. Setup on the Linux systems is also easy -- modify a file in /etc, run a command, and then mount/unmount as necessary.
I don't know about MacOS or Windows -- I imagine that Windows might be a problem, but otherwise I think it's incorrect to throw NFS away out-of-hand as "impossibly complex", because in OSs where it's implemented correctly, it's exceedingly easy to setup and use.
Yaz.
There are 3 linux boxes and an iMac on my LAN; I wanted some kind of cross-platform backup facility. Between AppleTalk, which required a kernel driver and a daemon, and FTP with PureFTPd, which I knew to be easy to install and configure, the choice was quickly made. FTP clients are also quite easy to use, even for lusers.
HTTP is probably your best bet.
...... create a really complicated solution where maybe there were simpler alternatives. Still, I will do it right now.
.htaccess magic. And once you're connected to the intraweb you can use them to look at naked ladies.
I often transfer files to a friend's OS9 Mac from my Linux laptop using HTTP. File transfers the other way are a pain, though I could install netatalk on my laptop or put a simple webserver or ftp server on his machine I suppose. Actually Python has a standard modules for serving http so if I installed Python I could knock up a simple little server, throw in a bit of CGI magic and
In the office we link Linux PCs and OSX Macs using NFS. Our OSX home dirs are served via NFS from a Linux server and all the Macs automagically mount a big shared repository of apps, files, etc from the Linux box.
And we solve the OS9 and Windows connectivity problems by just not installing those OSes in the first place.
Getting back to the original point, the one thing all OSes are pretty much guaranteed to have in common is TCP/IP and a browser. Browsers are good. You can transfer files. Authentication is not required but is easily added with the likes of Apache
Now wash your hands.
It's easy to set up on the UNIX-like machines.
/etc/exports, start the NFS daemons (if necessary) and add the remote disks to the other workstations.
Add a single entry to
Voila!
I have an 80 GB /home on my file server which is exported through NFS and Samba.
NFS is not that complex. Edit the exports file, restart mountd, and mount it on the client machine.
Samba is pretty simple to set up through SWAT.
NFS and automount: MacOS X knows NFS V3 protocoll (client and server-site implementation, no lockd/statd NFS locking). The automounter has only minor functionality: only direct maps are supported (makes it difficult to implement SEPP).
Win 98/XP
DiskAccess Windows NFS Client
Linux should be obvious.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
I'm a sysadmin in an organization that has one of everything (Linux/AIX/MacOS9&X/IRIX/Win*) and we'd like to have our users remember just one password to get on all the machines. We've been using a combination of NFS/Samba/Netatalk for the filesharing, and NIS/ServicesForUnix for the authentication. But this is getting really messy. Any suggestions from the /. crowd?
My furby collection talks up a storm all the time.
Use NFS for the systems that count and Samba for the systems that don't. I don't know about Mac OS 9, but, of course, there's always FTP.
Vote in November. You won't regret it.
well, you could always use that little protocol called "file transfer protocol". Go figure. A protocol used to copy files.
But then, whenever you needed to copy a file, you'd have to make sure an FTP server is running here, an FTP client is running there, the directories are right...
I want seamless integration. I want to be able to refer to remote files or directories as easily as files or directories in a local directory. Is it too much to ask?
I use the good old way.....floppies. ...I'm thinking about buying a CDR now.
:)
yeah, I know, I'm not very up-to-date.
Karma: Very Very Very Very Bad
Are there programs that let you drag and drop files across Windows, MacOS X, and Linux?
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
swordfish. Everyone will remember that!
Er LDAP.
Of course, this sort of key issue has already been recognized and solved by the open-source community. You should at least take a look at the Andrew Filesystem which would provide one file sharing system across all your machines. Another good and reliable alternative it to use a Macintosh as a central file repository, since MacOS now comes pre-configured with Samba, NFS, and AFP file sharing.
Ouch! The truth hurts!
Just set up one good server running RAID5 with a tape drive, and use it's drives to "share" with the other systems. While a samba server may not be on every single box you have, Linux, BSD, and windows can all mount an SMB share, and that's 99% of your setup for most people.
SMB is not a bad protocol really, and Linux and BSD both do quite well running it as a server. Solaris, not so much, it's (Solaris') multi-thread preference means that the multi-process samba doesn't run so fast on it for large numbers of users.
You can also use NFS if there's no windows boxes to connect. It's really not all that bad.
I wouldn't run a database on either, as I always run them on local mirrored disk sets, then dump any databases to the RAID5 box for backup.
Just saying that if you're needing to share back and forth from one box to another, you may need an in-between box that's backed up, reliable and secure.
--- It is not the things we do which we regret the most, but the things which we don't do.
Yeah, that's where the challenge lies. However, even today, kids have it easy: Provided the thing has a serial port and you can code to it, there are small serial-to-ethernet "converters" available (most of them consist of some form of microcontroller acting as a "go-between" from the ethernet interface and the serial port).
I remember one time in the early 1990's when I picked up a Compaq SLT/386 with 6 meg of RAM, running Caldera's OpenDOS (IIRC). No PCMCIA slots - only a serial port and a parallel port. Since network equipment was still fairly expensive (especially those lovely pocket parallel ethernet adaptors), I looked for a solution.
I ended up creating a funky bit-banging parallel port solution using 4 conductor phone line, dual jack adaptors, and custom wired parallel to RJ-11 plugs. I intended to write software to allow all computers on this network to transmit/receive on it - checking for the status of the lines to avoid colisions, random wait times when there was a busy, etc - I was looking to get 9600 baud on this thing. I managed to build enough dongles for three machines, but I never got around to the coding portion. Always wondered how well (if at all) it would have worked...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
I run a Mac (OSX), Win2k and Linux (RH 8.0) all on the same network. I found that setting up one single standard was next to impossible. I have Mac (OSX) and Win2k Connecting to Linux primarily.
Initially, since Windows didn't support NFS, I installed Samba and used SMB shares on everything. I found that the file transfers between my Mac and the Linux box were painfully slow (Red Hat 7.1). So I switched that connection to NFS. Its not as bad as it initially seemed to setup. The performance gain was amazing and everyone is chugging away.
FTP is okay, but if you want a mounted disk for say digital camera images or ripped audio collections NFS and SMB give you that ability with a cleaner interface.
Don't forget once you get this protocol thing all worked out. If you try to sling 600Megs of MP3's around your WiFi network, its going to take some time still. You might consider getting a nice 10/100 hub or switch if your moving large volumes of files each time you do it.
Lastly, there are lots of other great ways to move one or two small files around. scp, ftp, http (like you have done), email, and sneaker net.
AF-Design, web development.
It came down to Samba for us. We're using Linux as our web server, MacOS X as the design/development platform, and, incidentally, most of our division is Windows 2000. So, we are definitely not giving in to the dark side... When Active Directory goes down in flames, our main web site will be the only one still running ;^)
There are, however, a couple issues we haven't worked out yet on Samba permissions, but overall it's pretty usable.
WebDAV isn't the best protocol known to man, but it might be the most compatable these days.
I've used AFS for a while now on Linux and various Unixes, and it does very well (even under "heavy loads", like moving a couple various gigabytes around at the same time). I know it works on the various Windows flavors that you have (although I've never used it on Windows), Linux support is there, and a glance at their download page shows that they have a Mac OS X package. Now whether it's stable or usable or not, I can't tell you. But if you can get satisfied with the Mac implementation, the rest ought to be a slam dunk. You'll still be out in the cold with the MacOS 9 box, however. A single FTP daemon on that machine might not be too great a concession.
There might be a slight learning curve to overcome in getting it all set up and ready to use, but once you get it where you like it, you shouldn't have to worry about it anymore. And it sounds like your needs are not quite enterprise-level, so you likely wouldn't need to expose yourself to its entire feature set anyway. I'd say given the diverse hardware in your office/lab it fits the bill pretty closely.
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
How hard would it be to install a gnutella client on your Windows, Mac, and *nix boxen?
You know, for an ostensibly geeky audience, this one should have been near the top of the list of responses.
Isn't this what your Kerberos ticket does/should do? Log in once, present credentials, and then present the TICKET from then on?
Sounds like you are already using ActiveDirectory. So, finish the job.
I have a computer at campus and one at home. Besides that I have a laptop. When programming I always commit my source code to CVS - in that way I can just do an update from whatever machine I code from the next time. I don't just use CVS from Linux. When coding VHDL it's necessary to move the files to windows and do the synthesis there. Works like a charm.
Latex files are also easy to commit to CVS and even PDF files (don't forget to use the -kb parameters when adding!)
For mp3s I simply use Samba - of course it helps that my campus computer is connected to a 100mbit connection to my dorm but for streaming most bandwidths should do.
If you're using KDE, Konqueror works fine for this, assuming you've got the "other system" mounted correctly. Same with Windows/Windows Explorer.
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
My network has FreeBSD, RH Linux, OpenBSD, BeOS , NT and 2K. By running this configuration for some time I've learned the following that I think is relevant.
You don't need or want to share everything across all platforms. My kids XBoing scores are not relevant to BeOS or Windows for example. Whereas I need to view my invoices in all but BeOS. My mail is held in Netscape under Windows and Mozilla elsewhere. The files are almost the same but not exactly, making it unwise to keep copying them.
You need to decide what data needs to be available on each box and make the necessary arrangements to place it there. That may mean using Samba or NFS or resorting to scp/ftp.
Remember Windows file attributes are different and so you'll have issues with them when moving files to and from unix. BeOS has more attributes that simply get lost durinf transfer. And the ubiqutous end of line between Windows and everyone else...
The bottom line is you have to think about what you want (or even why you have the particular heterogenous mix of boxes) and make provisions for your requirement.
How do your machines talk to each other?
Hello......Anyone there?.....erm...Hello...Anyone?
tight little vagina pounded into a wet sloppy mess by The Living Incarnation of Pure Evil? You know where to find me.....
I kinda wish I had a BeOS machine just for mp3 stuff, but I get along fine with Debian since it can handle all the Norsk characters I throw at it (ø à á æ Æ and more) and has all the mp3 + ogg apps I could ever want all an apt-get away.
Everytime you look at porn a devil gets their horns.
The second problem is one of synchronization. This comes in to play mostly on laptops that will travel in and out of your network and may join other networks as well. The sorts of things you are likely wanting to synchronize are things like book marks, address books, some working files, etc. Synchronization has the addition complication that for some platforms some synchronized data may need to be imported/transformed to suit the local applications on that platform. The solution to this is much tougher i think. Some possible options are:
Personaly i'd love to see more work being done in these later areas. It would be nice to use mozilla anywhere and always have the same set of bookmarks synchronized and managed behind the scenes. It's kind of surprising that no one has really tackled this issue.
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
All of my machines speak Esperanto to each other. Just like William Shatner does!
Hire me...
The protocol supports moving files between hosts A and B using a third machine C as the controller. You can use your Win9x machine to order your WinXP and Mac OS X machines to exchange files. That is a good trick to earn some geek points.
I don't know of a utility that provides this ability, but I've coded it myself. It isn't too difficult to do.
On the server:
/etc/exports
/mnt/music
echo "/leethaxor/music *(ro)" >>
exportfs -a
On the client:
mount haxor:/leethaxor/music
Was that so hard? Should work for linux and OSx unless OSX sucks. I'm sure there's graphical interfaces for Win32 and OS9.
I have on my LAN a late-model Dell desktop, dualbooting Windows XP Home and Red Hat 8, an 800 MHz iBook dualing 10.2.6 and 9.2.2, a 500 MHz Gateway P3 desktop running Windows 98 SE (and on occasion Morphix), a 450 MHz Gateway Celeron laptop also running Win 98 SE, and a 1 GHz Gateway laptop running Windows 2000 Professional. The two Gateway laptops connect to the LAN by 802.11a. All these machines use SMB for filesharing. The Windows boxes can print on an HP Laserjet 1000 (don't laugh, it's better than my previous printer, an Epson Stylus Color 600 that is still hooked up to the Gateway desktop but not shared) when the Dell is running Windows. My only real problem is that my Mac can't connect to SMB printer shares (I once saw some funny way to do so, but I'd prefer to wait for Apple to officially come up with something. Until then, I samba my files to the Dell for printing). The Packard Bell 486 on the printer stand, alas, lacks a network card.
Works in Windows, Linux, Solaris, Mac OS X, IRIX, HP-UX, and AIX.
:)
Doesn't work in Mac OS 9. Use netatalk for a while and then consider upgrading your machines.
You can always try NCPfs. Novell clients for M$ crap and Macs abound. Set up a Linux box as a server, and have all the others mount it. Or, track someone down who has some old Novell 4.x discs... ;) Those are a dime a dozen, too.
Personally, I'd just use Samba, but NCPfs is another option that fits the criteria of your question, as far as I can tell.
FTP.
I have 9 boxes here, a mac (OS9), a 98 machine, 4 slackware boxes, and 3 windows 2K machines, I am yet to find a problem with using FTP to transfer files between them.
On mac:
Client: IE (im lazy.)
Server Daemon: nothings really stable, just use upload
Slackware:
Client: Konquerer / ftp
Server Daemon: Proftpd (again, im lazy, theres better servers around)
Win2K:
Client: IE / WSFTP
Server Daemon: GuildFTP (pretty nice as far as windows servers go)
Win98:
Client: IE / WSFTP
Server Daemon: Just upload, noserver (its a slow machine, being moved to slack9)
Just make sure your permissions are set right, and you wont have any problems, as long as the box supports TCP/IP, you have no networking issues.
-Adam F.
LDAP.
Pretty much everything (except the MS boxes) will talk to LDAP these days, and MS boxes will talk to Active Directory, which is close enough to real LDAPv3. We use Novell's eDirectory w/PwdSync modules to sync into AD, and then everything else (AIX, Linux, Lotus stuff, Nortel stuff, etc...) talks directly to it. OpenLDAP is another choice, but I don't know if anyone's sorted out the password sync issues between OpenLDAP and AD.
I've always preferred CHAOSnet over RFC1149
Life is a psychology experiment gone awry.
You run Windows XP and Windows 98, and you consider using Samba giving in to the Empire?
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
"giving into the Empire"? Its an open source product implementing a standard protocol.. So what if they also support the various MS extensions out there. If you want everyone to talk together, you have to do it in a way that most of the machines will understand.
That said, I am in a similar situation at work, but have no problems. My primary workstation is win2k, and my secondary one is OS X or OS 9 depending on where i'm booting any moment, and over there *points* is a red hat (blah) box. I have no difficulty sharing files anywhere.
Drop the silly moral objection and go with what *works*.
I have winxp, 2000, and mac os X machines. They just all use windows file sharing. I forgot what version of os X started supporting it natively. There are programs like dave or sharity to use with older versions of os x. I used sharity before and liked it a lot. I'm *gasp* not too familiar with linux network and file sharing so I couldn't tell you if you could use win file sharing on it. If that's not an option I'd agree with other posts by recommending ftp.
Unison is pretty cool, it's like two-way rsync, and works over SSH.
Just use what they have on common. An implementation of TCP/IP a piece, so use the next level up (ie. FTP, HTTP). Or samba, its not too evil.
If your computers are all next to each other, you can alwasy combine text-to-speach with voice recognition. Imagine your Mac OS9 box reading an 'enlarge your penis' e-mail in the Bad News voice to a Windows box that has Via Voice installed. Not high bandwidth, but entertaining!
No reason not to trust or use samba. I'm using samba on my two linux boxes, Thursby Software's DAVE which allows MS-style SMB networking on my Mac OS9 box, and native MS-networking over TCP/IP on my WinXP, Win200, and WinMe (don't laugh) boxes. Don't have OS X and my old iMac is a bit underpowered to upgrade, but if I had it I'd probably be using samba with it - doesn't it come with OS X now?
Everybody's happy, everybody's talking, the old POS WinMe machine in the livingroom is playing MP3s coming from my Linux fileserver on what it thinks is a mapped windows network drive. And my Win2k laptop is printing to a laserprinter hung off the linux box, or to the HP multifunction on the WinXP box.
Everything's automagically on the net, and everything's talking to everything else. My wife knows that to back up a document she writes on her XP laptop, she drags it over to the "My Backups" icon I put on her desktop - she doesn't have to know that's really on my Linux fileserver.
Of course I'm blocking a bunch of ports including 137-139 and 445 at the firewall, using passwords that are reasonably secure, using WEP (yes I know it's not perfect but it deters "doorknob rattlers") on the wireless part of the network. All hooked through a couple of daisy-chained 5 port switches and 100Mb ethernet. Both a Nexland hardware router/firewall and Linux software firewall rules and IPMasq between the internal lan and the internet.
As much as you might want to avoid a protocol from the "empire", windows-style networking is the lowest common denominator. So you can get it to work across pretty much everything. No reason not to use it as long as you pay reasonable care to security and patch levels.
AFS clients are available via OpenAFS and Arla
for many platforms.