altair4 wrote:
You are correct that is not the default and there is a reason for that. Samba was originally created for UNIX servers running in a enterprise setting. It sounds like you already know this but "bcast" does what it sounds like it does - it broadcasts it's name presence to the rest of the network and provides a way to connect that name to an ip address. In an corporate setting with hundreds of clients you don't want everyone broadcasting their presence so it's listed last and often just removed as an option.
I see now that this isn't such an easy problem to address. If you implement one approach, it leaves half the user base stranded with somewhat hidden-away configurations to setup.
I think it's worth addressing in some way though. I have a feeling this is a problem area for many novice users just starting to think about using an open source operating system --I work along side windows users who don't even know about IP addresses, all they know is what they named their computers (and it's usually someone else who setup the file share for them in the first place). I've never setup a large corporate LAN, so I'm a little foggy on how that works (if it can be automatically detected at install time or something), but instead of worrying about automatically detecting the network environemnt, maybe there's room for a "Samba" settings dialogue that we could put in the cinnamon menu with the following cool (imho) features:
#Radio buttons for changing the "name resolve order" line in smb.conf:
-Corporate Setup (Rely on centeral lmhosts DNS thing)
-Home Network (broadcast host names over lan)
-Custom
#Ability to show "hostname"
#Ability to show workgroup (not that I use workgroups ever in any environment)
#Ability to restart smbd
#Ability to see a list of shares in the smb.conf file
Btw, I'd actually get a kick out of prototyping a command line app with the above functionality in Ruby, if anyone thinks that would be benificial. In fact, I might do that anyway tomorrow because it looks to be a fun logic puzzle to beat.
I love that smb.conf file very, very much ever since I first started playing around with it on Debian. But I think something could be done to help the home users of Linux Mint get things working without too much headscratching or requiring a deferal to google --and the generic phrasing of the error message is a bit discouraging against googling... although I see now that it does yield fine results when pasted in, heh, woops, i've been doing it wrong for a LONG time and haven't got many excuses for myself, lol.
Then, in the case of an error of one Mint PC connecting to another Mint PC in a home environment by a network newb, the error message could link to the cinnamon settings dialogue at the bottom labeled "Modify Samba Settings" in blue.