Share Drives Tutorial?

[rustyp]

Right on since Linux is not up to sharing drives I will just keep using my Windows machine to do it, I dug a old desktop out of the closet and am currently installing Windows 7, I have no doubt it will be sharing all the files on the drives in minutes without typing one command in a little black window like in 1980.

Unbelievable how their is little to no documentation for Linux Mint.

[rustyp]

Well every one of these has issues and does not work on my system.
http://techgage.com/article/using-samba ... l-machine/
http://www.howtogeek.com/176471/how-to- ... and-linux/
http://travelinlibrarian.info/2013/05/h ... s-network/
http://askubuntu.com/questions/170712/h ... hard-drive

While searching for solutions its evident its not just me that cant make this work or figure this out its a whole bunch of people that cant make file sharing work with "Linux" based systems and its like everybody has different methods to do the same thing their is no standardization. Hard telling what a update does to someone’s procedure.

Whats really funny is I have 3 different computers running Linux Mint systems and they cant see each other or share files on the network, I CAN SEE the files systems on my 4 Raspberry Pi's that are running Openelec/Kodi but naturally none of them can see the invisible Linux Mint systems. Now that I have the media drives back on the Windows system the 4 Raspberry Pi's that are running Openelec/Kodi see the files and are all 4 able to retrieve file from the drives and play them. All our Android devices play well with the windows machines but cant see the Linux Mint machines, the Linux Mint machines cant see the Android machines....

Linux Mint is great running off the live CD, works great running off a thumb drive, installs flawlessly then goes straight down hill after the installation, no documentation anywhere, documentation is coming to the forums and depending on who might be around to answer, its advised almost forcefully to install software from the repositories but their is no documentation/instructions on most the software, no means to contact the authors whole thing is a complete joke, their is not even a way to contact someone to report their is problems with software packages and or the way they are delivered.

It looks like someone made a great effort getting Linux Mint this far but the details on the basics like documentation and communication have been ignored. Someone needs to start documenting the basics on a wiki I cant believe with all the brain power involved in developing Linux Mint nobody has started a wiki and is keeping it detailed and updated.

For example I cant even figure out what the difference between all the builds are its almost like its ASSumed everybody was born with the knowledge what KDE, MATE, XFCE is not to mention the dozens of acronyms I have run across mean.

When you get a comprehensible, repeatable, standardized MODERN file sharing figured out shoot me an email I will give Linux Mint another try, without file basic sharing I am finding little use for it, for me file sharing would allow me to be rid of Windows for ever. .

Wonder how many others abandon Linux Mint after finding out the file sharing is a nightmare and never said anything or sought assistance, just gave up after seeing the documentation or lack of.

[DickBowman]

I'm in a similar position to the OP.

Initially had problems accessing a USB drive attached to a laptop which runs Mint from a Windows10 PC. Somehow that "just fixed itself".

But I have another PC running Windows10, which fails with a "you do not have access" issue. One day I will pursue this further - because I really would like to leave the Microsoft world (privacy is my concern).

Bear with me - as I'm new to Linux (had several attempts over the years, which have so far come to nothing because of one little glitch or other).

I think the meta-problem that needs to be solved is a management/finance one. If I can illustrate with an off-topic example...

I have two printers on my network - a Dell laser and an Epson inkjet. Both are easy to use from Windows hardware (install is click-and-go).

To get the Dell set up as useable from the Mint laptop I had to hunt around on the internet, discover that the Dell is a rebadged Xerox printer which isn't on the "official" list, get the driver for that, do some more "pretend" and - it finally works.

For the Epson, I find a generic driver on the Epson site, try to follow the instructions and get rewarded with a stream of console messages which basically tell me that I need to do something else, but don't bother to tell me what.

Meanwhile, Linux offers all manner of desktop environments which serve only to confuse (use KDE, Cinnamon, Ubunto,???)

So - management issue - is there anyone taking an overview and saying "if we want this (Linux) to be universal, here is a prioritised list of things that need to be fixed/changed/updated/added".

Finance issue - Microsoft can afford to just go out, buy every printer on the planet, and make sure it works with their OS. Presumably there is no Linux bank account which makes that feasible. Can this be turned into a management issue where someone can make a case to the Epsons and Dells that they need to make their printers work seamlessly on Linux - and not delegate driver-making to something done by a teaboy on their lunch break?

Apologies - I needed an excuse to go off on this rant - I really do want it to work.

[altair4]

I'm in a similar position to the OP.

Initially had problems accessing a USB drive attached to a laptop which runs Mint from a Windows10 PC. Somehow that "just fixed itself".

But I have another PC running Windows10, which fails with a "you do not have access" issue. One day I will pursue this further - because I really would like to leave the Microsoft world (privacy is my concern).

When you attach an external USB device the system automatically does two things:

(1) It creates a temporary mount point at /media/$USER/LABEL if the partition on that device has a label or /media/$USER/UUID if the partition has no LABEL.

(2) It mounts that partition to that mount point.

Here's the problem: /media/$USER ( $USER would be your user name ) is under the control of the system which assigns an access control list ( ACL ) to that folder such that the only person who can access that folder to get to what's under it is $USER.

If you were to create a samba share of that folder that allows guests the remote user is not $USER it's literally the user "nobody". That user will never get to the USB's partition and will get a "permissions" error on the client.

Since this is Linux you have options to get around this. Here's a couple:

** You could set up the samba share to allow only $USER access but then everyone on the lan would have to pass the $USER user name and password to access it.

** Or you could do what I mentioned above and that's to add a "force user = your-user-name" to either the share definition or [globally] in smb.conf under the "workgroup = workgroup" line. When you do that "nobody" is converted to "your-user-name" - for samba purposes only of course - so now he can get to the shared folder.

[rustyp]

I'm in a similar position to the OP.

Initially had problems accessing a USB drive attached to a laptop which runs Mint from a Windows10 PC. Somehow that "just fixed itself".

But I have another PC running Windows10, which fails with a "you do not have access" issue. One day I will pursue this further - because I really would like to leave the Microsoft world (privacy is my concern).

When you attach an external USB device the system automatically does two things:

(1) It creates a temporary mount point at /media/$USER/LABEL if the partition on that device has a label or /media/$USER/UUID if the partition has no LABEL.

(2) It mounts that partition to that mount point.

Here's the problem: /media/$USER ( $USER would be your user name ) is under the control of the system which assigns an access control list ( ACL ) to that folder such that the only person who can access that folder to get to what's under it is $USER.

If you were to create a samba share of that folder that allows guests the remote user is not $USER it's literally the user "nobody". That user will never get to the USB's partition and will get a "permissions" error on the client.

Since this is Linux you have options to get around this. Here's a couple:

** You could set up the samba share to allow only $USER access but then everyone on the lan would have to pass the $USER user name and password to access it.

** Or you could do what I mentioned above and that's to add a "force user = your-user-name" to either the share definition or [globally] in smb.conf. When you do that "nobody" is converted to "your-user-name" - for samba purposes only of course - so now he can get to the shared folder.

I admire your tanasticy I really do its not often you meet someone with your skills work so hard to resolve problems.

Your making my point for me if I knew how to contact developers I would direct them to this topic you point out the flaws and know the solutions so the dev team could address the problem.

When I plug any USB drive into any of my windows systems and share the drives on the network they work every time they share every time with everything but my machines running Linux Mint. I will assume networking is a very low priority as is documentation.

I wish the development group good luck and hope networking issues are resolved soon Windows 8 has driven me away from Windows products I even downloaded and installed Windows 10 and installed for FREE, installed it on Virtualbox its the same crap as Windows 8 only with a Start menu ALL the annoyances built into Windows 8 are their except for the NO start menu thing. Until Linux Mint networking is resolved I am stuck installing Windows 7 on my Windows 8 machine. It looks like all Linux products has the same networking issues nothing is refined like Windows networking or designed for average computer users.

Thanks again.

[rustyp]

Apologies - I needed an excuse to go off on this rant - I really do want it to work.

No apologies required, your lucky I never even made it to printing but I seldom print anything so printing is not a big deal.

Before Linux Mint I had installed a Ubuntu version this was when it was rated higher than Linux Mint on the Distro site, anyways I never made it to networking with Ubuntu by time I discovered things requiring me to go to their forums for support I was so annoyed by the Ubuntu desktop and the hideous eye straining FORCED colors of their forums I just formatted my drive and went to the next distro never looked back. Its funny how the Linux world drives users away.

[zlamar]

I wanted to share hdd partition, which is already auto mounted on Mint machine, to be available over wlan (primarily to android phone) and here is what I did:
1. Start Nemo, navigate to File system - etc - samba folder
2. Run Terminal there
3. type: sudo gedit smb.conf
4. add this line: usershare owner only = false
to the Global Settings section... look bellow..
5. Save and exit
6. In Terminal type and run this: sudo service smbd restart
7. Close Terminal
8. Go back to Nemo (explorer) - navigate to File system - Media-
9. Pick the partition you want to share, right click on it and choose "Sharing options" from the menu.
10. Click on "Share this folder" and other options if you want/need

And that's it.
I hope that this will help someone not to loose an hour or so, searching for solution.


example:
#======================= Global Settings =======================

[global]

## Browsing/Identification ###

# Change this to the workgroup/NT-domain name your Samba server will part of
workgroup = WORKGROUP
usershare owner only = false

[kenj66]

Thanks, rustyp, for saying what thousands of would be Linux users don't say and just go away, shaking their heads. I have followed Linux for years, trying about every two years or so, to use Linux instead of M$ Windows. I have been somewhat happy with the current development of Linux and Mint in particular. I have suffered the lockup of my machine from plugging in my Sansa mp3 player, the inability to properly support Sony Vegas video editor with high definition files and the seemingly senseless inability to connect to my Seagate Goflex Pro backup NAS which my wife's Windows 7 machine connects to with nary a request for a password. Trying to solve these problems eats up a huge amount of time.

I don't know about most of the folks here but I am getting old. I simply can't remember all the commands and even the app names - Nemo, Dolphin, Avari, Gigolo, Banshee, Brassero, K3b for crying out loud - I could go on and on! I was once a sysadmin for a System V / HP-UX minicomputer and the email admin for HP Openmail so I'm not new to the *nix world, either. I thought Linux had matured enough to give uncle Bill a run for his money. But I'm afraid Linux still isn't ready for prime time. I tried. I really like the "Cinnamon" desktop environment as it's called. It's fast. It's far more configurable than anyone needs. But it can't do the basics for people who just want to run a home network and get things done, not having to fiddle with the machines.

I will try one more time to get some help setting up a typical home network here on this forum. If I can't do it in a straightforward method that any neophyte could do then I will have to move on. Damn it, I want to simplify my life - not complicate it! If I am not successful I swear I will switch to a Chromebit for my primary PC and set up a spare PC with Windows 7 for the rare Sony Vegas session. I'm not very happy about that.

Ken