Installing Mandrake () went fine for me, up to the point I had to connect (pppoa is the devil), because it took me a while to understand why the hell shorewall was blocking my ISP's attempts to let me connect after I got the IP from its DHCP server.
Anyway, once that done, sharing the connection took as long as opening the main config panel and following the internet connection wizard. I have to admit it imperfectly works though (the laptop connected to the mandrake pc sometimes can't open some websites. Some work, some don't; beats me). I have the feeling I'll solve the problem when we get the new PC with an adsl router.

As for searching, <b>updatedb</b> will (as the name says) update the list for <b>locate</b>.

And samba has a gui for me (I know, you're on a slow machine, so kde 3 is out), so I don't have to manually edit the config files for it.