Justification and Notes
- There are plenty of tutorials on the ubuntu forums that cover samba shares or printer sharing but I'll suppose that you want the fastest, easiest, least troublesome method to share files and printers with windows
- I'll attempt to provide the simplest method to do so in this guide
- For convention sake (rules for publishing a tutorial), author declares that no support is guaranteed.
Assumptions
- You want to share files & printers quickly and easily in a home environment
- You've got a firewall which blocks everything save the ip addresses of the computers you want to share files with and a couple of other required services
Sharing Files
Linux
- Open a terminal & enter "sudo apt-get install samba" without the brackets
- In the same terminal type "sudo gedit /etc/samba/smb.conf"
- For the following step set WORKGROUPNAME to the workgroup defined under the windows computer (Right click My Computer and select properties under windows to access the workgroup name under the 'Computer Name' tab)
- Paste the following into the file, but edit the stuff in CAPS
[global]
workgroup = WORKGROUPNAME
server string = COMPUTERDESCRIPTION
security = share
[Shared]
path = /home/USERNAME/FOLDER
available = yes
browsable = yes
public = yes
writable = yes
guest ok = yes
- In the same terminal enter "sudo chmod 777 -R /home/USERNAME/FOLDER" or whatever path you set above
- Finally enter "sudo /etc/init.d/samba restart" in the same terminal
Windows XP
- Open My Computer, click tools->map network drive
- Enter "\\LINUXIPADDRESS\Shared" in 'Folder' box and select an unused drive letter
- Click 'Finish'
Sharing Printers
Linux
- Click System->Adminstration->Printing (On the same menu as your 'start' bar or application launch bar)
- Setup your printer
- Select 'Share Published Printers Connected To This System' under 'Server Settings'
Windows XP
- Enter "LINUXIPADDRESS:631/printers" in Internet Explorer or compatible web browser
- Mouseover the big printer name and copy the text in the status bar, or if you're using IE right click -> properties and copy the link address. In firefox, you can right click -> copy link location
- Start the 'Add new printer wizard' under printers & faxes in the control panel
- Select 'Network Printer' and click next
- Choose 'Connect to this printer' and paste the stuff you copied just now
- Select the driver for the printer (install it from disc) or choose a generic 'color printer'
- Click 'Finish' to complete the wizard
