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Preston Gralla's picture
Preston Gralla

Seeing Through Windows

More posts | Read bio

August 13, 2008 - 6:47 P.M.

Old Windows hand: Help Ubuntu play nice with a Windows network

5 comments

I'm a long-time Windows user interested in Linux and I've finally gotten Ubuntu installed on my Thinkpad T41. I'm impressed. But I've got network problems. I can't connect from my Ubuntu machine to my Windows PCs to browse their folders and share files. My Windows PCs don't see the Ubuntu PC. And I can't get Ubuntu to print to my networked Lexmark E120 printer. Can anyone help?

I can see some, but not all of my networked Windows machines from Ubuntu's file browser. Some simply don't show up. And when I browse to the ones that do show up, I can only browse to what Ubuntu seems to call Windows shares on them --- and they're all blank.

I've set up all of my PCs so that I can browse from one Windows machine to another. But Ubuntu won't do it.

On my Windows machines, I simply don't see the Ubuntu machine. Even Windows Vista's Network Map doesn't show the machine.

Finally, although I can see my networked Lexmark E120 printer from Ubuntu, I can't print to it. And for some odd reason, Ubuntu shows that the printer is connected to a PC, even though it's directly connected to my router.

Are there any Linux gurus out there who can help? If so, give me your advice, below.

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What People Are Saying

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Samba Installed?

Submitted by Anonymous on August 14, 2008 - 6:20 A.M.

You might make sure Samba is installed and set up properly for browsing windows shares. Search http://www.ubuntuforums.org for the Lexmark issue.

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This was definitely easier

Submitted by Anonymous on August 14, 2008 - 4:29 A.M.

than any Windows upgrade I've ever tried. Put a lot on a USB to move it over to Linspire. No problems with any of
my Office files with OpenOffice. Then the motherboard blew in the Windows machine. So I took the HD and put it in an enclosure. Plug it in via USB whenever I need anything off of it. Mount it as a NTFS device. Got everything I need. I did try the networking thing before my last Windows machine blew. It was OK. Same
old problems I experienced connecting a Windows machine to an older Windows machine.Actually, the Windows to Windows was more problematic that the Windows to Linux.

You have a lot of options for moving your data. If you
use Outlook or Exchange you are kind of screwed. Unless
you install Thunderbird on your Windows machine just so that you can import your mail and settings so that can create exportable files. Every time I upgraded Windows, I lost it all. Haven't lost squat in 4 years running Linux. And that's what's important to me. I never cared if I had the fanciest UI on the planet. I have been really happy with Thunderbird as a mail
app. It blows away anything MS has as far as spam filtering. Not as fancy as some MS, but totally blows it away in functionalioty I want.

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Ubuntu

Submitted by Tim on August 14, 2008 - 1:53 A.M.

Hi,
I'm an Ubuntu noob too & got my networking problem resolved within minutes using advice from www.ubuntuforums.org. I've got no problem printing to a networked HP, but I have heard that Lexmark & Ubuntu are not friendly.
Cheers

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responses

Submitted by publicunimail on August 15, 2008 - 10:09 A.M.

Hi can i advise you to try and install the various samba packages .. then try going smbtree from a shell... see what happens. Regarding that specific lexmark ....see
http://openprinting.org/show_printer.cgi?recnum=Lexmark-E120

i think there is also a PPD file located some where else just google for it. Just make sure your ubuntu machine is able to see the various networks on your lan / network you are on ... if it does then perhaps it might be due to firewalls being used from windows... check out the forums, irc (if you want to do this-- fire up pidgin and add an irc server --> ubuntu then join the ubuntu channel #ubuntu, oh and there is also launchpad https://launchpad.net/

Feel free to email me :)
Hope you are having a fun time with linux so far.

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oh and https://help.ubuntu.com/ + https://help.ubuntu.com/comm

Submitted by publicunimail on August 15, 2008 - 10:13 A.M.

https://help.ubuntu.com/
Is a good site to get started at too..
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Samba

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