Difference between NETBIOS, host name and computer name?

Question

In windows if you go to Computer->Properties->Advanced System Settings->Computer Name, you can change the computer name, let's say from "MYCOMPUTER" to "LEDZEPPELIN".

This changes the (1) computer name to "LEDZEPPELIN". It also changes the (2) hostname to "LEDZEPPELIN" when I pop 192.168.1.1 into the url. This also allows me to run the (3) NETBIOS lookup from a different computer connected to the same router that runs linux. I'll pass "LEDZEPPELIN" as the NETBIOS name.

nmblookup LEDZEPPELIN

and it returns the ip address. I'm confused, are all three similar?

If you could provide a helpful analogy to aid in my understanding (like this: Difference between host name and domain name) that would be totally awesome

Answer 1

A domain is something you will experience on a work network rather than a home environment generally speaking. immagine: computer name john netbios name is usually also john (but has stricter naming restrictions)

on a domain your full computer name may be john.company.local for example

the company.local bit being the name of the domain itself.

netbios is old way of resolving names and in many ways is not used, however is kept there in the OS for backwards compatibility.

your netbios name and computer name for all intents and purposes is nearly always the same.

out of curiosity, is there a specific piece of this from the article you linked that you dont understand and I can try and further clarify.