I know very little about Linux, but I do know that it is usually more stable than Windows, which I know a lot about. What I want to do is put Linux on my desktop computer, and have all the harddrives be shared so I can access them through the network by computers that are running Windows.

I installed Kanotix (at least, I'm running it off of the CD) on my desktop computer, but it won't let me copy any files back and forth on the harddrives. It said something that it can't do access the harddrives (but it does let me see what's on them) as long as the harddrives are NTFS, and I know that I cannot change it back to FAT and keep all my data. Is there any way to fix this?

Also, I have managed to access other computers on the network through "smb://", but I have no idea how to access the Kanotix computer through the network on the Windows computers; ie, it is not showing up in Network Neighborhood.

Finally, if it is possible to access the harddrives with Kanotix, how can I permanantly install Kanotix so I do not have to keep using the CD?

Thanks in advance!