sharing external hard drives

I want to be able to share my external hard drives connected to my mac over my local network. Any advice on how to do that?

To get you started, in System Preferences you'll see a folder icon with the tilte 'Sharing' in the Internet & Network group. Click on that. The two options of interest are 'Personal File Sharing' to share with other Macs, and 'Windows Sharing' to allow Windows boxes to connect.

You have't said enough about your other computers and expectations for a complete answer, which may be beyound my experience by the way.

I have a Linux (Ubuntu) PC that I want to use in order to access the files on the external hard drives connected to my mac. Ive already enabled windows file sharing and personal file sharing just in case. On my linux PC I can see my mac on my local network but I cant see any files or folders. Ive tried putting pictures in the "shared" and "public" folders just to see if that would work but it didnt. And Im not sure how to share the external drives. Like on windows you can right click>properties and share whatever you want. On mac Im kinda lost. Although I was able to share the printer I have connected to my mac over the network and use it with my linux PC, so Im making alittle progress. I figured it would be alittle easier to share things between to OS's that were Unix based.

are the public and shared folders only for sharing things with other users on the same computer?