Xubuntu and browsing SAMBA network shares

So, having had some time to check out the latest release of Xubuntu on my trusty Thinkpad 600E, there are a few things that I think Xubuntu could use to make life easier for users. One of these is being able to browse network shares on Windows machines.

Prior to thunar, the XFCE file manager was able to browse SAMBA shares. Altough Thunar is definitely a better file manager, it still lacks this functionality. To quote from the FAQs on the Thunar website:

When will it support samba/network browsing?

It already does! Just mount your shares and go to them with Thunar! Just kidding.

You are obviously asking about Thunar being able to discover remote machines on a network and mount/unmount shares from them. What you are asking for is nice, but there is no common framework for it yet that Thunar can build on.

Thunar is designed to be a file manager, not a network file system manager. Once such a beast exists, Thunar and all other applications will be able to use it, and you can browse your samba or NFS shares in firefox or emacs, whatever.

Short answer: not any time soon unless you write it yourself.

One solution is to use the command-line smbclient, which comes as part of the base Xubuntu install. Here are a few basic maneuvers, some of which have to be performed as root, to get things going:

• smbclient -L "ip addr or hostname" will list the shares available on the host. Don't include the "s. Example: smbclient -L
  
• smbclient "sharename" -U "username" will connect to the host as the user username. "sharename" should be something like \\\\homepc\\cdrive. Once connected, you will be in an ftp-like connection where you can "put" or "get" files.
• exit will leave the ftp-like session.
  

For more details, a quick websearch will turn up plenty, or check out this site.

Technorati Tags: xubuntu, samba, browsing, thunar