On a LAN (Local Area Network), MS Windows machines can share directories or devices such as printers with each other. The protocol used by Microsoft for this is called SMB, standing for Server Block Message.
If you're on a LAN where Windows machines are also connected with SMB, you may want to access them using this system. You're lucky, because Konqueror is able to do this.
The first thing to do is to configure KDE to tell it which machine you want to access. This is done with the KDE Control Center, Network->Windows Shares option. Read the KControl documentation for more information.
Once this configuration is done, you can easily browse the Neighborhood. There are two ways to access to SMB shared resources:
Check "Show Directory Tree" in the Window menu, then browse the "Network->Windows Shares" item.
Directly type the URL of the machine: smb://WORKGROUP/MACHINE/ or simply smb://MACHINE into the Locationbar.
![]() | In the SMB sharing system, a Workgroup is a group of machines. Belonging to one Workgroup or another does not affect the rights system. |
In the screenshot above, "Urizen" is my own Linux box and "Luvah" is my mother's Windows PC. Both belong to the "Farmer" workgroup. On the Luvah system, there are two shared folders:
FRANCOISE: This folder contains my mother's work files. It is shared as read only, that means that nobody can create, modify or delete files from a distant machine.
PUBLIC: In this folder, shared as read & write, everyone on the local network is allowed to create or modify files. That folder is used to give files easily to Luvah's user.
![]() | KDE itself does not provide a SMB server. If you want to share your own files with Windows users, you must install a Samba server. This requires Super-User rights and a few "command line Linux" operations. Samba may be provided with your Linux distribution, otherwise see http://www.samba.org for download and installation instructions. |