Don't give up! I'm new to all this but with the help of a few friends on these forums I was able to get it to work. This is what I did (based mainly on the excellent book "Using Samba" by Robert Eckstein, David Collier-Brown and Peter Kelly - O'Reilly press):
1- Make sure Windows 98 has a seperate user profile for the users you want to be able to access Samba. CONTROL PANEL-> PASSWORDS -> USER PROFILES. Make sure the second radio ("Users can customize..."

is checked and BOTH checkboxes on the bottom are checked.
2- Select the CHANGE PASSWORDS tab -> CHANGE WINDOWS PASSWORD tab -> change the password. Remember it has to be the same as the password on Samba. In my case it already was and wouldn't work. BUT I then went in here and changed it to itself (simply enter the old password back in again when it asks for the new password and then it worked!)
3- I had to tweak my Network protocols. What I wound up with was my NIC card listing, TCP/IP, and File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks. Check you TCP/IP settings. NOTE: I'm assuming from your post that you have a lot more admin experience than I so I am not going to list all the details. If I'm wrong let me know and I can give you all the settings I used to get it to work.
One note: you can not mix a Samba WINS server and a Windows server as the primary/backup combination in the WINS dialog. Evidently they don't really work the same and it messes up the name resolution.
4-Check for bindings under TCP/IP Properties -> Bindings. Both CLient for Microsoft Networks and File and Printer sharing for Microsoft Networks should be checked.
5- Go into you Network Configuration screen and set the computer name using the NetBIOS name not your DNS hostname and domain. Set your workgroup name.
6- REBOOT
For me that worked. The Samba share showed up and I can put files into it from my windoz box and read them from the Linux server.
Hope this helps rather than confuses!
George K
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